Complexity in the Kitchen (and Beyond)

A system that’s hard to learn costs you more than time. It costs you momentum.

In a fast-paced restaurant, complexity doesn’t belong in your tools. But for many businesses using cloud-based platforms, that’s exactly where the frustration starts. It begins with setup. Building out a custom menu in some cloud-based tools can be surprisingly tedious. The interface is often dense, the process time-consuming, and for operators without a dedicated tech lead, it often means calling in outside help or spending hours figuring it out yourself.

Training is another sticking point. When you bring on new staff, you need them up and running fast. But if your point of sale has a steep learning curve, every new hire becomes a bottleneck. That’s time you don’t have and energy you could be spending elsewhere. This is especially difficult if you have a high turnover or seasonal staffing needs. And if you’re expanding to multiple locations, that training overhead only multiplies.

Square works differently. From the first moment you log in, it’s clear the system is designed for ease of use. The menu builder is intuitive, with drag-and-drop functionality and bulk editing tools. You can upload your existing menu and complete your setup in minutes, making the switch even easier.

Franchise operators consistently point to Square’s ease of use as a major advantage. “With our staff members, the biggest comment is that Square is so simple,” explained Michael Jeung, Franchise Development Operations Coordinator at 10000 Coffee. “Let’s say we make a new drink. I say, ‘Hey, I need you guys to put this new item tag onto your point of sale.’ They just know how to do it. You can organize it how you want to make your life easier.”

That simplicity extends to staff training. Saxon Masella, Manager at Fishbowl, a fast-casual brand with almost 30 locations, shared how new hires ramp up quickly using Square’s tile-based interface. “It’s so easy to show a staff member the tiles and how it’s laid out. They can see the picture and then click on The O.G. or whichever bowl they want to choose. It’s obviously become a big part of our business.”

At Lambo’s Deli, where weekend traffic hits up to 700 people a day, co-owner Justin Leon shared a similar experience. “We’ve had instances where we’ve had to pull somebody from the kitchen to work the front of the house with no training, and they just figure it out because it’s so easy to use.”

For growing teams and busy locations, that kind of usability becomes a competitive advantage. It shortens onboarding time, reduces mistakes, and empowers staff to serve customers with confidence. And as your operation scales, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel at every location. Square’s tools allow you to replicate menus, permissions, and workflows across devices and locations with just a few clicks.

“There’s a lot of things that are complicated and confusing and Square was, and always has been, very straightforward. Square makes a lot of things so simple that a business owner can just set them up and forget about it.”