CAKE POS Reviews

Pros

The price is the most attractive feature, as well as the ease of use. The flexible and affordable monthly payments are nice too.

Cons

Can't use terminal when someone is using the manager functions on other terminal. There are some short delays in running reports at times.

Pros

We don't spend any time on training new team members to use our POS System (CAKE). Seriously, it's so easy we show them a few features and they are running it like a pro on day one. That in it's self has saved us a ton of payroll we use to spend on training.
From a ownership perspective, we have four locations and I'm able to track them from my central office, Wonderful!

Cons

Negatives only fall on one piece of the equipment. The cash drawer and the insert in it are not built for the type of abuse they can take in some operations. I wish there was an option to purchase extra drawer inserts.
There are no other negatives about CAKE.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale, Clover and Toast POS

Reasons for Choosing CAKE POS

To provide my customers a better more efficient experience and to allow our team members an easy to use system that we as owners could easily track.

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

Cake seemed to have a more durable product. The biggest reason was....When I spoke with all the sales staff from the different companies the CAKE representatives were the only ones that never talked negatively about their competitors. That let me know they didn't need to degrade the other guys, they had faith in the system they were selling. I now have the same faith in CAKE.

Pros

Its useful that this POS offers 3 party features to install, to bad you gotta pay of them.
Reports are easy to understand, what comes in and what your taxes are.
Easy point of sale to use for your staff.

Cons

Alright after 2+ years of using Cake here it is for you guys.

1. On the phone with customer service probably 4 - 6 times a month. This is from reporting / dashboard issues, POS issues.

Reporting issues: about 2 times a month we have to call about some kind of labor reporting issue and takes the engineers around 1 to 4 days to fix. Note - same issue occurs, another day or so for engineers to fix.

Dozens of times we will be on the phone with a customer service rep, and both them and I will be having issues loading the reports to examine them. One time we were literally both waiting over 25 minutes for it to load.

As a restaurant one of the best reports you could have is when the system literally tells you the cost of EVERYTHING.
Ya, you won't be getting this with cake. Sure, you can add the cost of a single item to you (why even have this feature if it doesn't deduct it for you) but it wont deduct it for you at the end of the day. You'll have to do this on your own to figure out what it actually cost you.

Cake takes into account on recommendation that their customers give them, I think and thats at least what they say except their features are almost non-existent. No marketing, No rewards, very basic reporting.

Their hardware is super expensive, our kitchen printer stopped working and they quoted us like $450, I found it on amazon for $115.

Just remember the 2.50% + $.10 a swipe, will actually really be costing you 3.50%. I could go on but I'm limited on characte

Pros

Ease of use and simple, initiative design

Cons

I would like more reporting options and a built in inventory feature.

Alternatives Considered

Rezku POS, Epos Now, TouchBistro and Toast POS

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

Ease of use

Pros

User-friendly, love that we can make changes off-site, looking forward to using their Guest Manager program and online ordering!

Cons

We wish the pizza part of their system was easier to use. Half & Half pizzas are almost 50% of our orders, and it is not the easiest to enter on this current version. The only think we liked better with one of our former systems, is that it showed an actual picture of a pizza and we could click and drag toppings from one side to the other. Much easier and better visually. We are hoping Cake implements this in the future. :) (Hope that helps).

Alternatives Considered

Toast POS

Reasons for Choosing CAKE POS

Referral from another restaurant owner, and I actually used their system before making the decision to switch.

Switched From

TouchBistro

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

Strictly on our referral. We never tried Toast. And, we primarily use Sysco, who is the food vendor who supports Cake.

Pros

I love the fact that I have a POS system and I do not have to have a separate CC processing

Cons

Really haven't had any bad problems. We normally call support and it is handled quickly

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Pro

Reasons for Choosing CAKE POS

Changed locations and my Sysco rep told me about it

Switched From

QuickBooks Desktop Pro

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

Wanted something different

Pros

We went thru a total of 7 product demos before selecting CAKE. Hands down was the most inclusive and best reporting features for our Bar / Restaurant / Bowling Alley. The couple times I have had questions, I've had great support and resolution very quickly. I'm not a tech person, and this was a super easy install and implementation for me to do with the rep over the phone. My menu build was very quick and the questions I have had since original upload have been answered quickly.

Cons

The only issue I have had is occasionally something will disappear that I know I have added as a modifier. Unsure if its a glitch, but it's been so minor that we haven't been inconvenienced at all.

Alternatives Considered

Harbortouch POS, TouchBistro, Lightspeed Retail, Toast POS and Shopify

Reasons for Choosing CAKE POS

Purchased the business and knew we needed a better system for accounting and order flow.

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

Overall had the best fit for reporting and user friendliness. Customer Service and our demo were what put everything over the top

Pros

We love that each employee can easily enter and track orders, as well as clock in & out! That coupled with the awesome real-time reports available make this an unbeatable product!

Cons

We have a small frustration with how the POS screen aligns the option buttons in ordering windows. It takes us a few minutes to adjust after we change menu items, but is not a big issue.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale, 1Breadcrumb and Toast POS

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

It seemed to have all of the options we needed in one package, where everything else required additional programs, hardware or services.

Pros

Simple and covers all the bases. Cake has actually impressed customers! How often does a customer look at a cash register and think it's cool? Well, cake has, especially 4 years ago before everyone had an iPad. But we still get comments.

Cons

Can't put my logo on the receipts, would love to be able to shop for my own credit processing. I know that's not going to happen. But my logo on a receipt should be able to.

Alternatives Considered

Restaurant Manager by Action Systems and Toast POS

Reasons for Choosing CAKE POS

Outdated, and they made me angry.

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

Simplicity, style, customer screen, price, and a unit that wasn't an iPad.

Pros

Cake is an easy software to understand and use. Compared to Toast or Square the setup is straightforward, the interface is clean and the POS equipment is very high quality. Reports are instantly available, customer service is top-notch, and transactions are smooth and hassle free.

Cons

Customizing the online ordering screen as well as the second screen for the POS. Both are very limited and don't allow me to alter font, or layout/style. I'd like to represent my image better and I can't do that if I can't alter the fonts and add graphics.

Alternatives Considered

Square Payroll, eHopper and Toast POS

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

Superior equipment(POS), easier setup, and maintenance.

Pros

user friendly and easy to use/program. pulling up reports anywhere anytime is nice, to bad they do not stand by their equipment, and have no loyalty to their long term customers.

Cons

Horrible customer service, junk equipment. I am placing my order for a new P.O.S. with square today after 4 years with Cake. they sell you faulty equipment and then over inflate the price on the replacement equipment. stay awayy!!!! I wish I did. $250 for a replacement router that connects the P.O.S. with the ipads, dead after 2 years, while paying monthly subscription fees per tablet too. what a Joke.

Pros

Very easy to use and robust. Great reporting and features.

Cons

We are experiencing multiple instances of our credit card deposits not depositing on the days that they are contracted to deposit from Cake and it has impacted payments to vendors and payroll. There almost seems to be an disconnect between support and understanding the very real problem that this presents to a small businesses.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale and Toast POS

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

At the time, really liked the ease of use and how robust the software is.

Pros

The product was recommended by Sysco. The cost and the features explained was the selling point.

Cons

There is no partnered labor control ap that works with clock in of your employees on the Cake system . With Labor control being one of the largest cost factors and with all the new features that others offer. Cakes only partner is with 7 Shifts and for that you pay a hefty price even to be able to schedule on it. If you have one location maybe you can get by with the old paper schedule but with multiple locations and a number of employees there are no feature that control early clock ins, no clock ins, breaks, and overtime alerts. The other part of this there is no interest getting it done on a time frame that makes sense. Your told one thing by the top to get you off the phone, bug them enough and they will tell you maybe its not the system for you. So save yourself some money and not buy this system if you are any way wanting to truly manage labor it just does not do it if you have many locations to keep track of. I would say if you have over 25 employees as well , you would save many dollars with systems that help control clock ins.

Pros

Before CAKE we were a small mom and pop shop handwriting tickets with no POS system. Having everything handwritten caused issues for cooks and if we were looking for specific item sales, we had to go through every single hand-written ticket to track that kind of data. What attracted me to CAKE was that it was a rental program, so there was not a lot of out of pocket upfront cost, which is really important for a small restaurant. Having reporting capabilities to see what we're selling and how much has been an invaluable service. I can see our busy hours, how we did last week, all that information is right at my fingertips. I can also change the menu from wherever, even my phone, so I love the fact that no matter where I personally am, I can change prices, add things to the menu, take things off the menu, and check out our sales. Our payroll company can also log in and generate payroll which eliminates the chance of human error and gives them the convenience to do payroll on their time frame. A huge plus is the ability to make changes, additions and deletions on our own without needing someone from Cake to do it. In addition, they are very receptive to our "wish list" and quick with trouble shooting and response to problems. This system truly saves us a lot of time and stress.

Cons

The updates on the system sometimes catch us by surprise and cause a little bit of confusion for the staff. Most of the updates are very helpful, but a times, they will make a change that does not work for us. Perhaps a little more warning on the changes would help.

Pros

This system has Easy to add & Change Menu Items, which works awesome for our daily specials. It is VERY user friendly & Easy to train any age group. This system works great for reports, menu items such as what you are or are not selling, payroll, ect. I am so glad we chose this System!!

Cons

Cannot adjust the pricing after the order has been sent back to the Kitchen. I also wish there were some things you could have print in a different color that goes back to the kitchen. Our ribbons are red and black, but the printer only prints black. I also wish, there was a different way to have the orders print to the kitchen, but we are working through some of those issues. The cooks have to remember that they have to learn a different way to read the tickets as well. There are a couple of other things, but actually they are being implemented in the near future.

Pros

The CAKE POS was very easy to use and I loved the detail it provided for us. As a restaurant and bar, we needed a lot of detail in orders and the ability to print to different stations was amazing vs. having to walk each order back. The reports were easy to use as was the changing of the menu and adding/removing items. It was also great for training staff because it was very straight-forward and step-by-step.

Cons

Table numbers being required would be great. The signature pad being a little more sensitive to picking up finger signatures. Split checks were sometimes burdensome and could use a little improvement to speed things up when it's busy. I would love it if the creating of subcategories would be easier (say you have several of one brand of wine so you have less tabs to have to look for items).

Pros

- Easy to use
- Easy to change the menu
- Online ordering is available
- Keeps track of items left if I put in the quantity left
- Tracks all kinds of things such as discounts, comps, etc.
- System was fairly easy to set up
- Tech support is very good

Cons

- Online ordering will not let you track the number of items left. If I put on the POS I have 3 special left that won't reflect to my online ordering so I have to manually turn it off. This has been my biggest beef because I have limited items on some things and I can't sell them online because the system can't track how many are left.
- Credit Card money is slow to go in, we have not tried paying the extra $25 to make it go in quicker
- Very hard to track Credit card money vs credit card sales as they don't have a good balance sheet system. Sales from one day get combined, deposits get combined
- Ribbons for the kitchen printers are cheap but have to be changed constantly
- Tickets on big orders print very long, would be nice if you could set page breaks for ticket lengths.
- Online ordering - customers call all the time about not getting confirmation
- To add my own I-pad to the system is a extra monthly cost which is too high
- The system was not compatible with my gift cards so I had to buy all new cards and still manually tracking my old cards - They tried to help me with this but my old gift card company would not work with me.
- System has many other useful feature that I would like to use but they cost way too much for small business. If they would charge for the use of the software instead of charging for the program it might be more affordable. A store that has 50 employees vs a store with 10 employees have a lot different budgets.
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Pros

I liked the system because it had a customer facing screen. I also didn't want to buy my own POS system so I could get updates from the software holder instead of getting stuck with outdated software. I like how they do send us updates and try to improve the system, constantly trying to make it better. I do everything remotely so there are a lot of new features that help with that too. I can pull reports quarterly and sales reports, look at tips and do all the payroll without a different system. Everything can be forwarded directly to my CPA. Even though there are things to improve on, I do recommend the system and like it a lot. I was very careful to pick the right one for the flow of the business, it feels right and after 2 years using it, it still feels great.

Cons

More frequent updates to remote manage since I usually work off site. Already does a good job, but lets keep the updates coming. I want to able to edit employee incorrect login times since I am always getting a text from an employee to help them fix it and be able to make discount changes remotely as well.

Pros

Let me start out and state, I LOVE the hardware. I hate those POS systems that you have to flop around or twist for the customer. This hardware looks professional and works well. Our customers like it to as I sanitize after every transaction and they can see what I am doing. For the most part the software runs well.

Cons

I don't like that I cannot access numbers that are not within 120 days. That is a pain as I like to compare figures and also need data from earlier in the year. I hate that. Also the note system should be better and should allow you to add info whenever you need to ... sometimes that is after the transaction and i have to resort to handwritten notes. not fun.

Alternatives Considered

DialedIn CCaaS and Square Point of Sale

Reasons for Switching to CAKE POS

the hardware was the most impressive.

Pros

When we switched from our old POS to CAKE, we were looking for something faster and easier which is exactly what we got. Our old system had a server and all the data made it super slow. We like having the ipads that take orders faster right at the table. It's a lot easier to update the menu or make changes and I can actually change it from my computer so I don't even have to be in the restaurant. I can do it from home the night before and it'll be ready the next day. I also look at sales reports and employee hours from home a lot too. There's not a lot of user error, and it makes things in general a lot smoother.

Cons

the connection with iPad has to refresh often , that means the waitress has to check iPad before going to tables i am not sure is because the system or our connection is very poor.

Pros

CAKE was our first POS for this location. As far as changing menu items or modifiers or printers it's super easy, hands down way easier than any other program I've used. It's also very easy from a user standpoint for staff members to ring things in and find items. Because it's not overly complicated and just very straightforward it was super easy to get the restaurant up and running when we started out. I use the sales reports and also the time and attendance reports for payroll. It's very convenient to have it as well as remote access. We're also able to see if people delete things prior to payment or after being sent to the kitchen to be made, so we were actually able to catch an employee stealing with that information. Overall I think it's great. If you're thinking about trying it I say go for it. The fees are reasonable, it's nice to have credit card processing straight through it, and when we batch out at the end of the month, we can log in and see easily what the fees were and what we received. I'm very happy with it and would definitely recommend it.

Cons

I honestly do not have anything negative to say. However, adding a stylus to the signature pad would be helpful for guests less savvy with tablets.

Pros

My restaurant has been open for 4 years. We started with CAKE POS, and have no plans of switching anytime soon! Never had any issues with the hardware, still using the same touchscreen units. Software has been great, never crashes or loses data or info etc. Very user friendly, straightforward. I have personally programmed our menus and modifiers. We use order pads, just the same as base POS, no learning curve there. We added Guest Manager last year, that has been a great addition. CAKE is constantly updating the software, trying to make it better and more beneficial for their customers. Customer Service has always been Fantastic any and every time I have called with any questions, concerns or issues. I recently had a great experience with [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]. Definitely recommend CAKE!

Cons

Honestly I can't really think of anything glaring. At times we were like "why can't we split a single food item between two guest." But customer service always offered a solution, even temporary, while developers were working on updates for small complaints like that from customers.

Pros

Ease of adding/deleting menu items. Additionally, that its overall easy to navigate. One of my absolute favorite things though is that if you make any changes and upload them (publish them) it happens quick and easy. There's no having to restart the systems and terminals and then wait for them to reload.

Cons

I really dislike that you cannot re-open a server "check out" once they've clocked out. Many times we have had staff missing receipts and then locate it after they've clocked out. Makes them feel like they worked for free. I've used ALOHA in the past and that was a great, frustration saving, feature.

Pros

The overall CAKE experience has been great from day 1 of asking questions to now 2+ years in business and using it daily. "Patience and care" that we knew what we were getting and the knowledge to work it was the deciding factor for our choosing CAKE.

Cons

I miss some of the features from the reports prior to the most recent updates but I like a lot, like the date range being as long or short a time frame as I want, of the new reports. I like the original "Employee Clock-Out Report". I still use it because the new "Payroll" report prints to lightly and is too busy with un-needed columns for my payroll purposes.

Pros

I like being able to contact technical support or customer service 24/7 and getting a LIVE person right away and I like being able to turn my POS system over to the tech so that they can figure out what my problem is instead of them trying to explain to me how I can fix the problem. It's also nice to be able to see my reports online so that I can keep up with my business while I'm away from my restaurant on a trip. POS systems are expensive and their lease-to-own program allowed us to get a top quality POS system so that we could concentrate our money on buying supplies for the restaurant when we first opened.

Cons

The only complaint that I have about this system is that there are limited options when setting up new employees privileges. I would like to set different privileges for each individual employee instead of the current options of "exempt" or "non-exempt". Sometimes I need to give someone additional privileges but not complete run of the whole system.