Captain App
A phone or tablet app for your stewards. Take the order standing at the table, send it to the kitchen without walking to the counter, and see live table status across the floor — every order landing in the same POS as everything else.
Kitchen · 4 seconds later
— less spicy
1 × Dal Makhani
Run your own numbers
How much of a shift is spent walking to the terminal?
Every order placed on paper is written once, carried across the floor, and typed again. Count the round trips your captains make in an evening and the number gets uncomfortable quickly.
Floor time reclaimed, per year
605 hrs
that your captains currently spend walking rather than serving.
- Round trips a year
- 29,040
- That is working days of walking
- 76
- Cost of that time
- ₹96,800
- Re-fired orders a year
- 312
Reclaimed time is not money by itself — it becomes money when it goes into serving more covers or selling more per cover. The re-fired orders line is the more direct saving: every one of those is food cooked twice.
What a paper order costs
Written once, carried, typed again
The walk
Table to terminal and back, for every round of every table. On a full evening a captain covers the floor dozens of times for no reason a guest would ever notice.
The handwriting
The kitchen reads what it thinks the chit says. Sometimes it is wrong, and the dish comes back. That is food cooked twice, a table kept waiting, and an apology.
The queue at the terminal
Four captains, one till. Three of them stand there while the kitchen sits idle on orders that were taken five minutes ago.
The chit that disappears
Pocketed, dropped, or stuck under a plate. The guest ate it, you cooked it, and nobody billed for it — and you find out at stock-take, if at all.
What you get
Everything the captain app does
Order at the table
Tap the items, add a note, send. The KOT reaches the right station in seconds while the captain is still standing with the guest.
Station-wise routing
Starters to the hot kitchen, drinks to the bar, dessert to the pastry section — automatically, from the same order.
The live menu in their hand
Sold-out items are simply not there, so a captain never promises a dish the kitchen ran out of an hour ago.
Shares the table with QR orders
Guests can scan and order while the captain adds items verbally. One table, one running bill, no reconciliation.
Notes and modifiers
Less spice, no onion, an allergy, extra sauce. Typed once at the table and printed on the ticket, not relayed and remembered.
Settle without leaving the table
Cash, card, UPI or dynamic QR — or post it to a guest room, where an OTP to the registered mobile confirms the folio.
Tables, rooms and banquets
The same app takes an order against a table, a room service request or a banquet function, and routes each to the right bill.
Permissions that hold
Discounts, voids and complimentary items can each need supervisor approval, and every one is logged with the captain, time and reason.
Captain-wise reporting
Covers served, average bill and items sold per captain — the basis for an incentive that is about selling rather than about hours.
How the pieces fit
Three ways an order reaches your kitchen
All three land in the same queue and print to the same stations. You do not choose one — a busy outlet uses all of them in the same service.
The captain app
For guests who want to be served, large groups, and anybody who would rather talk to a person than to a phone. Which, in most Indian restaurants, is most of them.
Table QR
For guests who are ready to order the moment they sit down, or who want another round without flagging anyone down.
In-room QR
For room service, where the alternative is a phone call to a stranger in a second language at eleven at night.
Getting started
Three steps to a captain who never walks
Install on the phones
Any reasonably current Android phone, including ones your captains already carry. No dedicated terminals to buy.
Set stations and permissions
Which items print where, who can discount, who can void. Configured with you during onboarding rather than left as settings to discover.
Run one service alongside paper
Most captains stop reaching for the notepad halfway through the first evening. Keep it available until they do.
Worth saying plainly
Three things that decide whether this sticks
Wi-Fi in the far corner
Orders taken out of coverage are held and sent on reconnection, so nothing is lost — but a rooftop or a basement with one weak access point will frustrate a captain. Walk your floor with a phone before you roll this out.
Your senior captain has to want it
If the most experienced person on the floor keeps using paper, the junior staff will too. Train them first and let them find the shortcuts, rather than announcing it to everyone at once.
Phones need charging
Unglamorous and the most common reason a rollout goes quiet in month two. Two chargers behind the pass and a spare handset costs almost nothing and prevents the problem entirely.
Frequently asked questions
What phone does the captain app need?
Any reasonably current Android phone. It is built for low-cost devices on a busy floor, not for the latest handset, and captains can use phones they already carry if you prefer that to issuing devices.
What happens if the Wi-Fi drops in a corner?
Orders taken out of coverage are held on the phone and sent the moment it reconnects, so nothing is lost. Coverage on a rooftop or in a basement is worth checking during onboarding, because that is where it usually bites.
Can captains give discounts or void items?
Only if you allow it. Discount, void and complimentary actions can each require supervisor approval, and every instance is logged with the captain, the time and the reason.
How does it work with table QR ordering?
They feed the same table and the same bill. A guest can scan and order a starter while the captain adds the mains verbally, and it stays one running tab. See table QR ordering.
Can a captain settle the bill at the table?
Yes. Cash, card, UPI or a dynamic QR — or post it to a guest room, where an OTP sent to the mobile on the booking confirms the folio before anything is charged.
How long does training take?
Most captains are comfortable within one service. The screens are deliberately large-target and low-typing, because a captain is standing up, holding a phone in one hand, on a loud floor.
Does it handle room service and banquets?
Yes. A captain can take an order against a table, a room or a banquet function, and each routes to the correct kitchen and the correct bill.
Is the captain app an add-on?
No. The captain ordering app is included in Zotaki Complete (₹29,999 + GST a year) and Zotaki Command. See pricing.
Your captains should be on the floor, not at the till
Book a 30-minute demo and we will set your own menu up on a phone, so you can watch an order reach the kitchen while you are still standing at the table.