How to take restaurant phone orders during a rush

To take phone orders in a rush, answer at a station with a POS screen in reach and key the order in while the guest talks. Ask before you put anyone on hold. Read the order back from the screen, give a clock time from the POS, and settle payment before you hang up.

Our restaurant phone scripts give the words for each kind of call. This guide covers everything around the words: where the phone sits, who picks it up, when a caller goes on hold, and the order the steps go in when two lines ring at once.

How should you set up the phone station?

Time on a busy phone line goes to small trips: walking to a terminal, checking whether an item is sold out, asking the kitchen how long pickup will take. Set the station up so each of those answers is within arm's reach.

Station item	Why it matters on a busy line	Check before service
Handset or headset next to a POS terminal	Staff key the order in as the guest speaks, with no paper copy to retype	The cord or cordless range reaches the screen
POS open on the takeout or pickup screen	The order starts with the right order type and fires to the right station	The screen is logged in at the start of the shift
Current pickup quote on the screen	Staff give the time the kitchen has set	The quote matches what the kitchen says today
Required choices built into the POS	The POS asks for the side or the temperature before the item can go through	Your five most-ordered items prompt for every choice
A card listing sold-out items and tonight's specials	The answer is on the wall, so nobody asks the line mid-rush	Updated after the pre-shift meeting
A callback pad with name, number and time only	Captures a guest you promised to ring back	No card numbers on the pad, ever

On Toast, manual quote times apply to phone orders entered on the POS, and Toast says staff can see the expected pickup time on the POS so they can give it over the phone. Toast also lets you make a modifier group required, so staff cannot send the item to the kitchen without a selection. Set these up before you train anyone on the steps below.

Who should answer when the phone and the counter both need someone?

Name one person per shift as first to answer and a second as backup. Write both names on the shift sheet, and tell the rest of the team who they are.

A simple rule to start with: the first person answers within three rings; if they are on another call, the backup picks up. If both are on calls, the next caller goes to a hold queue, an answering service or voicemail, depending on your phone system. That rule is our suggestion. Our guides to restaurant phone lines and ring groups and counting lines and people at peak help you set up the routing behind it.

When should you put a caller on hold?

Put callers on hold only between orders, and keep the promise you make when you do. The rules below are our suggestions.

Situation	What to do
A second line rings while you are mid-order	Finish the order you are on, or ask the backup to answer. Do not leave a half-entered order to take a new call.
A new call rings between orders and the counter is busy	Answer, name the restaurant, ask "Can you hold for one moment?" and wait for a yes.
A caller has been holding for about a minute	Pick up, say you are still there, and offer a callback with a clock time.
The guest asks a question you cannot answer from the station	Say what you are checking and how long it will take. Keep the caller on the line and leave the order open on screen while you ask.
Three or more callers are waiting	Take name and number from each, then call back in the order they rang.

The one-minute check-in is a rule of thumb. The aim is that the caller hears a person before they give up, and that every callback promise has a time and an owner.

What order should the steps go in?

Keep the same order on every call so a new hire can pick it up in one shift. The script page has the words for each step.

1. Answer with the location. The guest finds out now if they called the wrong store.
2. Take the phone number first. If the call drops, you can ring back. Toast's steps for entering a delivery order by phone also start with the guest's number.
3. Set pickup or delivery, and now or later. Choose the order type in the POS before the first item.
4. Key each item as the guest says it. Let the POS prompt for required choices. Type each change as a modifier while the guest says it.
5. Stop at any allergy. Hand the call to the manager or the person trained to answer it, and make sure the allergy prints on the ticket.
6. Read the order back from the screen. The screen shows what the kitchen will get. Fix any mistake on screen while the guest listens.
7. Quote a clock time. Read it from the POS quote: "Ready at 12:40."
8. Take payment or mark it pay-at-pickup. See the next section.
9. Send the order and put the name on the ticket. The name and pickup time are what the counter matches at handoff.

Check that your POS can hold a pickup time and a name on a phone order. Square's help page on creating future orders shows a pickup option that records the customer, pickup time and an optional note. The steps differ by Square app and mode, so follow the ones for the app your restaurant runs.

How should staff take payment on a phone order?

Pick one default for your restaurant and train it. The common choices are pay-at-pickup, a card typed into the POS during the call, or a payment link sent by text.

Keep card numbers off paper. The PCI Security Standards Council's guidance on telephone payments (November 2018) says that when the person answering writes the card details down, that counts as storing card data, which brings the process into scope for the PCI Data Security Standard. Type the card straight into the payment screen, or skip it and let the guest pay at pickup.

Square's help page on manually entered card payments says they carry a higher fee and that chargebacks on them are harder to contest. Check your own processor's typed-in rate before you make it the default.

How do you know the method is working?

After two busy shifts, check four things with the person who ran the phone:

1. Calls answered and calls missed in the rush, from your phone provider's call log.
2. How many callers went on hold, and whether anyone waited past the check-in.
3. Phone orders that needed a remake or a refund, and the step where each went wrong.
4. Callbacks promised and callbacks made on time.

Change one step at a time, and look at the same shift a week later.

Can software take phone orders at the rush?

Yes, if it follows the same steps: a required choice, a read-back, a pickup time and a ticket in the POS. Maple Pro takes phone orders into supported POS systems, including Toast, Square, Clover and SkyTab (now Shift4 Dine), and lists payment over the phone and order confirmation texts on the pricing page. Check your POS on the integrations list, then run the test order on the product page: a required choice, a modifier and a change, compared with the final ticket. Bring your station checklist to a demo.

Published by Maple. This AI-assisted guide combines Toast and Square help pages and PCI Security Standards Council guidance with an original station checklist, hold rules and order of steps. The rules of thumb are our suggestions. It does not report a test at any restaurant or promise a result.