Square for Restaurants

Square for Restaurants is a cloud point of sale and payments system for food businesses, from food trucks and coffee shops to full-service restaurants, bars and multi-location groups. It takes orders and payments and runs kitchen screens, kiosks, online ordering, loyalty, staff scheduling and payroll. Square (part of Block, Inc.) sells it with software plans and its own card readers and terminals.

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Best for
Small and single-location restaurants, cafes and bars, Quick-service and coffee shops
Pricing
From USD 49 per location per month
Runs on
Web, iOS, Android

Who it is for

  • Small and single-location restaurants, cafes and bars

    A free plan and no locked-in contracts let a small operator start without a monthly software fee, paying only card processing fees.

  • Quick-service and coffee shops

    Kiosks, kitchen display screens, order-ready texts and delivery-app orders in one place.

  • Full-service restaurants and bars

    Table and seat management, floor plans, coursing, split checks and bar tabs are listed on the restaurant POS page.

  • Franchises and multi-location groups

    Central dashboard to manage each POS remotely and compare locations; a per-location fee applies on paid plans.

What it does

  • Payments in person, online and tableside

    Accepts tap, dip and swipe cards, QR code payments and offline payments, and can be used tableside or as a bar tab.

  • Order management from one screen

    Brings in-house, online, delivery-partner and QR code orders into one workflow.

  • Kitchen display system (KDS)

    Routes tickets to kitchen stations, syncs menus and inventory, and can auto-86 sold-out items.

  • Table and seat management

    Custom floor plans, table and seat tracking, coursing and check splitting by item, seat or equal shares.

  • Bar tabs and auto-gratuity

    Preauthorised bar tabs and automatic gratuity for larger parties.

  • Self-order kiosk

    An iPad-based kiosk that customers use to place their own orders in store.

  • Online ordering

    A branded online ordering page with pickup and delivery options, described as having no monthly fees or commissions from Square Online Ordering.

  • Delivery-partner connections

    Connects DoorDash and Uber Eats orders and menus to the POS.

  • Invoicing for catering

    Estimates and invoices with automatic reminders for catering and other revenue streams.

  • Customer directory and loyalty

    Guest profiles with purchase history, plus a points-based rewards programme and email and text marketing.

  • Gift cards

    Physical and eGift cards sold from the POS or online; a load fee applies on lower plans.

  • Team management and payroll

    Schedules shifts, tracks hours, overtime and breaks, and runs payroll with tax filings; staff use a Square Team app for schedules and shift swaps.

  • Reporting and multi-location dashboard

    Live and close-of-day sales reports, sales-versus-labour insights and comparison across locations.

  • Vendor order guide

    Upload vendor price sheets to compare cost per unit across vendors and turn a menu into an ingredient list.

  • Restaurant inventory by MarketMan

    Syncs the menu to track ingredient-level stock; priced separately per location for new MarketMan customers.

  • Banking and loans

    Square Checking and savings accounts, instant payouts and Square Loans for eligible sellers.

Pricing

Starting price
From USD 49 per location per month
Pricing model
Subscription per location plus percentage of sales
Minimum contract
None stated (the vendor says no locked-in contracts; cancel or switch anytime)
Free plan
Yes
Free trial
Yes

The pricing page lists three plans: Square Free at $0 per month per location, Square Plus at $49 and Square Premium at $149 per month per location, plus custom pricing for businesses processing over $250,000 a year. In-person card processing is 2.6% + 15 cents on Free, 2.5% + 15 cents on Plus and 2.4% + 15 cents on Premium. Paid plans offer a free trial; the length is not shown in the page text. Kitchen display and kiosk apps are priced per device. Prices are for the United States.

How it compares

Compared with the 235 products in Restaurant POS that have a profile on this site. These figures describe the category. They are not a recommendation.

  • Names 3 integrations. The median in this category is 8.
  • Has a free plan. 28 of the 50 products in this category that say whether they have a free plan do.
  • Has a free trial. 69 of the 70 products in this category that say whether they have a free trial do.
  • One of 110 products in this category with an iOS app. One of 116 products in this category with an Android app. 218 products in this category state their platforms.
  • The category's 10 most-named integration partners are Uber Eats, DoorDash, QuickBooks, Xero, Deliverect, Deliveroo, Grubhub, Glovo, Stripe, OpenTable. Of these, this product's listing names Uber Eats, DoorDash.

Works with

Delivery
DoorDashUber Eats
Inventory
MarketMan

Square also has an app marketplace and developer APIs listed in its navigation; no third-party accounting or payroll integrations are confirmed on the vendor's site.

Where and how it runs

Available in
United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Spain
Platforms
Web, iOS, Android
Apps
Square Point of Sale: POS and payments app for taking orders and payments
Hardware
Square sells its own hardware: Register, Handheld, Terminal, Stand, Kiosk (iPad-run) and a KDS kitchen display, plus card readers.

Square's About page says it serves 8 countries and its timeline lists expansion into Canada, Japan, Australia, the U.K., France, Ireland and Spain.

The company

Company
Block, Inc.
Founded
2009
Customers named by the vendor
Gioia's Deli, Kinrose Creamery, Nixta Taqueria, The Kebab Shop, Charles Pan-Fried Chicken, L'Industrie Pizzeria, Scaffidi Restaurant Group, Ghost Town Brewing

Security and support

Security and compliance
PCI compliance maintained by Square as merchant of record
Support
Customer support by phone at 1 (855) 700-6000; the pricing page lists 24/7 priority phone support as a paid-plan feature and support hours by plan. Custom-pricing customers can ask about onboarding help and account management.

Listing details

Vendor
Block, Inc. (Square)
Headquarters
United States
Built for
Bakeries, Bars, Cafés, Food trucks, Restaurants
Focus
General-purpose, used in food businesses
Status
Active
Website
squareup.com
Also listed in
Café & Bakery POSFood Truck & Mobile POSPayment Processing for Food BusinessesQuick Service & Drive-Thru POS

Alternatives to Square for Restaurants

See all 276 in Restaurant POS

  • Otter

    Otter started as a tablet that gathers orders from delivery apps and is now sold as a restaurant point of sale system.

    Starts at USD 79 per location per month, against USD 49 per location per month for Square for Restaurants.

  • SkyTab

    SkyTab is now presented as Shift4 Dine, a restaurant point of sale from Shift4 with its own hardware, built-in payment processing, online and QR ordering, reservations, loyalty, labour scheduling and cloud reporting.

    Names 25 integrations, against 3 for Square for Restaurants.

  • Harbortouch POS

    Harbortouch was rebranded as SkyTab, and SkyTab is now sold as Shift4 Dine, a restaurant point-of-sale platform from Shift4.

    Names 18 integrations, against 3 for Square for Restaurants.

  • Clover

    Clover is a point-of-sale and payments system sold as hardware plus a software plan, with restaurant versions for quick-service, full-service and multi-location operators.

    Runs on Web, against Web, iOS and Android for Square for Restaurants.

Compare Square for Restaurants

Side-by-side tables built from the same profile data.

What we could not confirm

These points were not confirmed when this page was written.

  • Headquarters, founders and employee count (not stated on Square's site)
  • Length of the free trial on paid plans
  • Full integration list: accounting, payroll and reservation integrations are not confirmed
  • Which restaurant features and prices apply outside the United States
  • Interface languages
  • Independent security certifications beyond PCI compliance
  • Availability of restaurant features and pricing by country

Sources

Facts on this page come from the pages below, checked on 29 September 2026. Prices and features change, so confirm with the vendor before you buy.

  1. Product overview and customer quoteshttps://squareup.com/us/en/restaurants
  2. Capabilities list, delivery partnershttps://squareup.com/us/en/restaurants/capabilities
  3. Restaurant POS features, hardware, customershttps://squareup.com/us/en/point-of-sale/restaurants
  4. Plans, fees, per-location pricinghttps://squareup.com/us/en/pricing
  5. Company history, countries served, Block name changehttps://squareup.com/us/en/about
  6. PCI compliancehttps://squareup.com/us/en/payments/secure
  7. Hardware rangehttps://squareup.com/us/en/hardware
  8. iOS app listinghttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/square-point-of-sale-pos/id335393788
  9. Google Play listinghttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squareup