The Stack Report: what UK hospitality runs on.
Annual research by Nick Carter. No public data says what British venues trade on, so I measured it.
Three markets, not two.
Everyone splits hospitality into cloud and legacy. There is a third group with no till at all, and it is bigger than the legacy end. Ranges, not point figures: there is no register of what venues run.
Cloud with an API
The majority. Data can leave the till, but in most venues it doesn't: the API exists and nothing is connected to it.
Legacy, no API
Older on-premise systems. Reporting is whatever the supplier prints. Replacing them is a project, not a setting.
No EPOS
Card terminal and a cash drawer. No record of what sold, only what was paid. Coffee is the reachable end of this group: single sites, simple menus, owners who already think in units.
Payment lock-in
Many tills are sold on the back of a card processing contract. The venue picks a payment rate and inherits an EPOS. Moving one means moving both, which is why stacks stay put long after they stop fitting.
Edition one draws on my own estate, the systems I have migrated and replaced, and supplier documentation.
Declared interest: I own Control Suite, an EPOS. Read the figures with that in mind; the split does not depend on it.
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