How to choose a POS for a multi-location restaurant group

A POS for two or more restaurants should let you build a menu once, change an item's price or availability at one store, see every store's sales in one report, and limit each manager to their own store. Toast, Square, Lightspeed, Shift4 Dine, TouchBistro and Clover all print tools for this. They differ in which plan carries them and how they price each extra location.

This page is about the POS itself. Our multi-location phone routing checklist tests that each call reaches the right store, and our guide to AI for multi-unit restaurants covers rolling out AI across a group. For a single store, start with the general POS buying guide.

What does a restaurant group need from a POS?

Need	What to ask	What to test in a demo
Central menu	Can I build an item once and send it to some or all stores?	Add an item at the group level and publish it to two stores
Local prices and items	Can one store charge more or drop an item without a copy of the menu?	Raise a price at one store and ring it at both
Group reporting	Can I see all stores together and each store alone?	Run yesterday's sales for the group, then for one store
Permissions by store	Can a manager edit only their store, and can a regional manager see a group?	Log in as a store manager and try to edit another store
Publishing control	Who can push changes live, and can I undo them?	Publish a change, then reverse it
Price per location	What does each added store cost, and does the plan price apply to groups?	Get a written quote for your store count

How does each system share menus and set local prices?

Toast can version a menu item for chosen locations. Its menu manager guide gives an Egg Sandwich with sausage, bacon and cheese in Boston and only bacon and cheese in New York City. For price alone, Toast's location-specific pricing sets a corporate price, such as $10, and overrides it for a store or group. Its publishing guide warns that the Publish Now link only publishes to the restaurant you are logged into, and that publishing has no rollback.

Square makes items available at every location you select, and location overrides hide an item at one store. Price overrides set store prices in Square Dashboard and mark those items "Varies by location." Square says the POS app cannot create them. Square's locations guide sets a 300-location limit per account. A location stays on the account once created, and Square lets you deactivate it.

Lightspeed sorts settings into global, shared and local in its locations guide. Discounts, payment methods and user groups are global. Items and menus are shared only after you turn it on in Locations Manager, and you add locations through a sales rep. With shared items, Lightspeed says combos keep the same structure at every store, so an item group, or one item in it, cannot be switched off at a single store.

Shift4 Dine builds menus at the enterprise level and lets each store override them. Its Multi-Location Management FAQs say menu prices can move by a fixed amount, an increment or a percentage. If enterprise settings allow it, stores keep their own items and prices, and group edits do not overwrite a store's own version. Scheduled menus cannot overlap, and holiday menus are not supported.

TouchBistro's multi-unit page says a menu update can sync to some or all stores, with special items and prices at chosen stores. Clover's multi-location dashboard manages shared items, inventory, categories and modifiers, and keeps stock counts in sync.

How do reports and permissions work across stores?

• Toast: enterprise reports let you pick stores or restaurant groups from a drop-down. What you see depends on your permissions, and group reports need permission at the group level. Staff get restaurant access to each location whose devices they use.
• Lightspeed: location reports consolidate business, product, discount, shift and fiscal data across stores.
• Shift4 Dine: user access comes in No, Partial and Full tiers, with separate permissions to manage settings, manage users and publish. Access can be limited to assigned stores or groups.
• Clover: multi-location sales reports show consolidated sales and employee sales across stores.
• TouchBistro: reports cover all stores or one, staff permissions are set per store from one account, and staff can clock in at any store with one login.
• Square: each location gets its own reporting, business hours and bank account for transfers.

What does each option cost for three locations?

Prices are copied from each vendor's own pages. The third column is our arithmetic for a made-up group of three full-service stores with two POS stations each, before card fees, hardware and add-ons. Where a vendor does not say its price is per location, we do not multiply it.

POS	Published price and multi-location terms	Three stores on printed prices	Start here if
Square	Square plans per location: Plus $49/mo., Premium $149/mo.; in person 2.5% or 2.4% + 15¢	Square: 3 × $49 = $147/mo. on Plus, or 3 × $149 = $447/mo. on Premium	You want a per-store price in print today
Clover	Clover full-service Standard: $239/mo for 36 months per system, hardware included; in person 2.3% + 10¢; the multi-location help prints no price	Clover, one bundle per store: 3 × $239 = $717/mo, or $25,812 over 36 months	You want hardware and software in one fixed payment per store
SpotOn	SpotOn POS Essentials: $55/station per month (2.45% + $0.15); Build Your Own, custom pricing, for multi-unit groups	SpotOn at the Essentials rate: 6 × $55 = $330/mo, before a multi-unit quote	You want per-station pricing to compare against a quote
Lightspeed	Lightspeed plans: Essential 189 USD, Premium 399 USD, with no billing term shown; multi-location management on Essential and Premium, not Starter	Ask whether 189 USD is per location	You want consolidated reports with shared menus
Toast	Toast plans: Point of Sale starting at $69/month, for new customers and single locations only; multilocation management is part of Restaurant Management Pro, no price printed	From your quote	You want menu versions, local prices and group permissions
Shift4 Dine	No plan price printed; Multi-Location Management at no additional cost	From your quote	You want group menus without a separate module fee
TouchBistro	TouchBistro plans: Point of Sale starting at $69/month; Essentials Bundle starting at $119/month; multi-unit tools on its own page, no price	Ask whether $69 is per location	You want one login and permissions across stores

Sources: Square restaurant pricing, Clover full-service pricing, SpotOn pricing, Lightspeed pricing, Toast pricing, Shift4's Multi-Location Management overview and TouchBistro pricing. For every fee and card rate, see our POS cost guide.

Compare card rates too. At $50,000 a month in card sales per store, each 0.1 point on the rate is $50 a store, or $150 a month across three.

How should a group roll out a new POS?

The order below is our suggestion. It sets no pass mark.

1. Build the group menu first, with local prices and items marked for each store.
2. Set up roles: owner, regional manager, store manager and staff. Check each can see and edit only what they should.
3. Go live at one store. Run a week of reports and match them against the card processor's deposits.
4. Change one price at the pilot store, publish it, and check that no other store moved.
5. Add the next stores in waves, and keep one person who owns publishing.
6. Test each connected tool at every store: online ordering, delivery apps, reservations and phone ordering.

What should you ask before you sign?

1. What does each added store cost for software, stations, handhelds and kitchen screens?
2. Is the multi-location module included in my plan or a separate fee?
3. Can a store manager change prices at their store, and can I turn that off?
4. How do I undo a published change across stores?
5. Does one contract cover every store, and what happens when I sell or close one?

If your stores take phone orders, check that the phone tool writes into the POS at each one. Maple's integrations page lists Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, SpotOn and SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine) among others, and its Enterprise plan lists multi-location management.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines multi-location help pages, pricing pages and product pages from Toast, Square, Lightspeed, Shift4, TouchBistro, Clover and SpotOn with an original needs table, three-store price arithmetic and rollout order. It does not report hands-on testing of any POS, include a vendor quote, or name a best system.