Why we build restaurant software offline-first

Restaurant service is real-time, but connectivity is not guaranteed. Offline-first means the essential workflow continues locally and synchronises safely when the network returns.

Design for conflict, not just caching

The hard part is preserving order identity, sequence, payments, and staff actions across several devices. Each action needs a durable local record, an idempotent server operation, and a visible sync state. Risky online-only actions must fail clearly instead of pretending to complete.

We test recovery as seriously as the happy path: reconnects, duplicate submissions, clock drift, and devices returning after a long gap.