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Opening hours and the kill switch

Two controls decide whether a customer can place an order right now: your weekly opening hours and the accepting-orders kill switch. The customer portal combines them to show an open or closed state, and the server enforces both at checkout so an order cannot slip through when you are closed.

Setting weekly opening hours

Opening hours are a per-day schedule for the week. From the console settings, set hours for each day of the week:

  • An open time and a close time for days you serve.
  • A closed flag for days you do not open at all.

Times are interpreted in your restaurant’s configured time zone, so the schedule behaves correctly no matter where your customers are. When you save, the whole weekly schedule is replaced in one operation, so what you see is exactly what is stored.

When the current time falls outside the open window for the day, the customer portal shows the restaurant as closed and blocks checkout.

The accepting-orders kill switch

Opening hours are your normal schedule. The kill switch is for the moment the kitchen is slammed and you need to stop taking new orders right now, regardless of the schedule.

The accepting-orders kill switch is a single master toggle in the console:

  • On: customers can place orders, subject to your opening hours.
  • Off: new orders are paused immediately. The customer portal reflects the pause and blocks new checkouts within seconds.

The kill switch only affects new orders. Orders already placed continue through the kitchen and the customer tracker as normal. Flip it back on when you are caught up.

How open and closed is decided

A customer can check out only when both conditions hold:

  1. The current time is inside the open window for today’s opening hours, and
  2. The accepting-orders kill switch is on.

If either condition fails, the portal shows closed and checkout is blocked. This double check lives on the server, not just in the browser, so the rule holds even if someone keeps an old page open.

The same settings area holds a few other defaults worth setting during onboarding:

  • A tax rate, applied to the cart subtotal at checkout.
  • A default pickup estimate shown to customers.
  • The KDS age threshold that decides when a kitchen ticket turns red. See age timers.