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Lightspeed Restaurant
4.4
Overall rating
Reviews
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About Lightspeed Restaurant
Lightspeed Restaurant is a cloud-based point of sale (POS) solution for restaurants suitable for full-or quick-service restaurants, bars, nightclubs, hotel restaurants, cafes and more. Key features include floor management, customer tracking, inventory tracking, gift card support, offline mode and an iOS mobile app.
Lightspeed Restaurant enables users to create and update menus with photos and descriptions and incorporate cooking options and toppings into the menu, which will automatically factor into the cost of the product. The system links communication between the kitchen, wait and host staff in real time and management can control stock levels, track labor and monitor sales reports.
Each customer can be assigned to their own seat, and staff can merge or move tables in real time, even in the middle of a shift. Users can generate detailed sales and performance reports to track employee productivity and keep track of best-selling items, trends and customer habits.
Lightspeed Restaurant pricing
Lightspeed Restaurant does not have a free version but does offer a free trial. Lightspeed Restaurant paid version starts at US$69.00/month.
Starting Price:
US$69.00/month
Free Version:
No
Free trial:
Yes
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Lightspeed Restaurant Reviews
Feature rating
5 reviews of 205
View all reviews
Ondrej
- Industry: Sports
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5
5
Reviewed on 14/4/2022
Best POS I've used
We wanted a simple to use, reliable and feature rich application and Lightspeed delivered, only wish we could write our own extensions a little easier.
Pros
The ux is absolutely straightforward and intuitive, you hardly even need the manual from set up to production
Cons
API behind a pay wall. As a software developer who casually wrenches and has set up lightspeed in multiple businesses, I'd have liked to get in deeper on the nerdy side. From a regular user perspective that's not an issue though.
Malcolm
- Industry: Restaurants
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5
4
Reviewed on 8/2/2021
Choose Lightspeed!
Lightspeed was, is, and will continue to be great for us.
Staff loves the ease of use of the front end. I love the simplicity of updating the online site, the data available for export in the office, and the full integration with our other software.
Pros
We had the highest expectations for Lightspeed POS and have been ecstatic about the choice.
Staff appreciates the ease of use and the quick customization (once familiar with back office which does not take that long).
We have continued to appreciate the helpful 24 hour customer service team. Even when they did not have answers for our unique problems, they always did their best to figure out a workaround.
The ability to export raw data of every receipt item for every receipt entered has proven invaluable. With knowledge of Excel, data analytics have been insightful and highly beneficial.
Since the pandemic began, Lightspeed has continued to innovate and has improved their product which has allowed us to create an online ordering site for pickup and delivery.
And the best part is full integration with our online site, POS, accounting software, and scheduling software.
Cons
First, no POS is perfect, including Lightspeed. Understanding the back end has allowed us to create work arounds for things the software is currently incapable of doing as intended at this time. One thing has been problems with combos, which we resolved with a workaround.
The biggest con is the process used for some software upgrades. Understandably, when a request is made often, it is pushed up the programmer's priority list. There are however some upgrades that, although not highly requested, can definitely improve the product. I have several requests into the programmers at this time.
Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Restaurant
Lightspeed being Ipad based was the first consideration which eliminated some. Then online reputation, customer service, and sales process were taken into account. And, as a publicly traded company, the Lightspeed stock at the time of purchase was in the news and it was at the start of it's rise. At this writing, it is almost triple that price.
Hannah
- Industry: Hospitality
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
-
Review Source
Value for Money
3
Features
5
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
5
3
Reviewed on 10/9/2024
Not for us!
Overall the platform/epos does what it needs to do! We personally had constant connectivity issues between devices which they always try to lay blame elsewhere, which caused issues with kitchen printing and network printing in general. We installed a £5k new internet / network across one of the sites to resolve all and it did nothing to improve with 800mb speeds
We have several pubs / restaurants, and this was really not suited to our operations!
We also were not allowed to add a new site without using light speed payments at the new site with the epos which we didn’t want to do as they couldn’t match our current card machine rates. Therefore this resulted in the new site using a different epos, which we have now moved all the businesses too.
I don’t think it’s your worst option of an epos, but for someone with a small operation such as ours with a couple pub/restaurant sites, this is not the epos for you!
Pros
A lot of features and reporting - integrates well. Nice user interface and design for staff
Cons
I found the system overall too much, everything was just harder than it needed to be to set up, harder than it needed to be on the back offfice, inventory was far more complicated than it needed to be, reports covered everything but were also just a little too meticulous at the same time that it was counter productive and just needed to provide the information needed.
Alternatives Considered
Toast POSReasons for Choosing Lightspeed Restaurant
For a better service and epos provider with less issues and better connectivitySwitched From
Epos NowReasons for Switching to Lightspeed Restaurant
Features and user interface looked good! Highly recommended online
VAUGHN
- Industry: Food & Beverages
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Value for Money
2
Features
3
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
1
4
Reviewed on 29/4/2020
!!SMALL BUSINESS WARNING!! NOT FAIR
!!WARNING!!! THIS COMPANY IS NOT FAIR!
They bundled in the loyalty program in our automatic renewal. We were looking into the addition to see if it fits our business. Another $800 was tacked on to our renewal for the Loyalty program that I did not authorize. They are refusing to refund the Loyalty program fee say that we are in a contract and they have a phone recording committing to the contract (they won't actual share the recording though). We have no need for this extra program at the moment, have not used it and do not plan to use it at this time as our business volume has a ceiling and the margins do not support it at this time. We understand the value in the loyalty program by cannot presently justify it.
I have not worked for or worked with a company that does not work fairly with their customers.
I do not recommend LightSpeed and am stuck with them for another 11 months and plan to find a better POS partner.
Pros
The software is comprehensive. Many add-ons are available at high costs.
Cons
It can get complicated and takes some effort to train new staff.
Support is good for the software although I have found that are led down the wrong path and wast time. Some of the representatives are not knowledgeable enough.
Response from Lightspeed
Hello Vaughn,
We would like to apologize for your recent experience with Lightspeed and hope that we can work with you in order to get things moving in the right direction. We see that you have been in touch with our Customer Success team and we encourage you to continue working with them.
Thank you,
Lightspeed POS
Replied 6/5/2020
Erin
- Industry: Restaurants
- Company size: 2–10 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5
5
Reviewed on 7/4/2022
Take the plunge, get Lightspeed
Started with Lightspeed during covid, and it was possibly one of the best decisions we could have made for our restaurant. We are now able to accurately determine quantities of items sold and see what menu items are performing under to be able to advertise and highlight those items. Customer support is always available and I’ve never had to wait long to be connected to someone when I needed help. They will do their absolute best to fix every problem you have. We also recently went through a Hurricane that caused power and internet outrages for extended times in our area. We were still able to use Lightspeed despite not being able to connect with the internet thanks to their software and technology. Once the internet was restored (about a month later), Lightspeed was able to back up all sales and report information from when the internet was out. I highly recommend taking the plunge and starting up with Lightspeed. We are very satisfied.
Pros
Ease of use, ease of setup, always someone to help available 24/7
Cons
I can’t even think of something I don’t like about Lightspeed. We are very satisfied with them.
