Almost every till sold to a restaurant now is cloud based, which means the record lives on somebody else's servers and the screen in your room is a window onto it. That is mostly good and it changes three things worth understanding before you sign: what happens when the internet goes, how the pricing is put together, and who can see the numbers.
What a restaurant POS is actually doing
Underneath the screen it is keeping one record per order: where it came from, what was on it, how many people were eating, what it came to and how it was settled. Everything else, the reporting, the stock deductions, the loyalty, is arithmetic over that record. When somebody asks what a pos system in a restaurant does, this is the honest answer, and it is why the export question matters more than any feature.
The internet, and what happens without it
Ask this early and get a specific answer. Good products keep taking orders offline and sync when the line comes back; weaker ones stop, which on a Saturday is the end of service. Card payments are a separate question with a separate answer, usually no. A room with a shaky connection should weigh this above almost every feature in the brochure.
How the pricing is assembled
Restaurant pos pricing is normally three things quoted as one: a monthly software fee per site or per terminal, hardware bought or rented, and a card processing rate. Ask for the three separately. Published software tiers for a UK room taking its own orders ran from £99 to £199 a month on Storekit's pricing page read 2026-09-06, and hardware and processing sat outside those figures entirely.
Where mobile and kitchen screens fit
Mobile pos for restaurants means a handheld a server carries, and it earns its place in rooms where the walk between table and till is long or the garden is far from the bar. Kitchen pos usually means the screen at the pass rather than a till at all, which is a different purchase with a different job: it shows the line what is due and in what order. Neither is a substitute for the other and quotes often blur them.
Questions people ask about cloud based pos systems for restaurants
Is a cloud POS safe if my internet goes down?
The good ones keep taking and holding orders offline and sync afterwards. Card payments usually stop regardless, because the processor is online. Ask for both answers separately rather than accepting a general reassurance.
Who owns the data in a cloud till?
You should, and the practical test is whether you can export every order with items and totals whenever you want, without support. That is the question worth putting in writing before signing.
Are hospitality EPOS systems different from restaurant ones?
Hospitality is the shelf label vendors use when one product is sold to restaurants, pubs, cafes and hotels. Check that the version aimed at your room does tabs, covers and courses rather than being a retail till with a new skin.