What is AIR?
AIR is a restaurant operating system: POS, KDS, direct ordering, loyalty, reservations, waitlist, menu SEO, reporting, and AI workflow in one subscription.
The questions restaurant owners ask before trusting a new operating system.
AIR is POS, direct ordering, SEO, loyalty, reservations, delivery controls, and AI workflow in one place. This page is the honest version: what works on day one, what needs setup, and what is still coming.
Day-one clarity
What has to work before the first service.
Revenue clarity
How direct ordering, SEO, loyalty, and delivery conversion fit.
Roadmap honesty
What is live, what is beta, and what restaurants should keep.
Buying AIR
Plans, pricing, and what is included
Why are the plans priced at Free, $99, $199, and $299?
Free gets you a full POS and a free website to start. Core ($99) covers the day-one operating system and removes per-order fees. Pro ($199) adds delivery integrations, channel pricing, food cost, inventory, and margin controls. Premium ($299) adds AI-R Host, website enhancement, SEO reporting, and deeper growth workflows.
Is direct online ordering really included?
Yes. AIR includes direct ordering and does not charge commission on your own orders. Guests can order from AIR-hosted ordering pages or from a website AIR enhances for you.
Do you take a percentage of my online orders?
No. AIR does not take commission on direct orders. Payment processing still applies, but AIR does not add a platform tax to guests who already wanted to order from you.
What is not included in the subscription?
Payment processing, hardware, SMS/voice usage over included pools, and some third-party vendor costs are separate. We try to surface those honestly instead of hiding them in a quote.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. AIR is designed to earn the restaurant every month, not trap it in a long contract.
Cutover
Getting live without breaking service
How long does setup take?
A basic restaurant can evaluate AIR in a week. A real cutover depends on menu complexity, printers, payment terminals, table maps, staff training, delivery integrations, and phone/text approvals.
Can we run AIR beside our current POS before switching?
Yes. The safest path is parallel testing: import the menu, check modifiers and pricing, verify printers, run fake orders, then schedule the real cutover.
What has to be ready on day one?
Payments, terminals, menu, modifiers, tax, printers, receipts, kitchen routing, floor map, staff PINs, and PWA order entry. Everything else can ramp after the restaurant can safely serve guests.
What can wait until day 30, 60, or 90?
Plate costing, inventory confidence, smart shopping lists, advanced marketing, social posting, deeper SEO reporting, and AI optimization get stronger after AIR has real operating data.
Do you help with the cutover?
Yes. Beta operators get hands-on setup help. AIR also includes a cutover plan so owners can see what is done, what needs verification, and what can wait.
POS
Service, payments, hardware, and printers
Does AIR replace my POS?
Yes. AIR includes POS, KDS, table map, coursing, expo, receipts, modifiers, staff PINs, and order entry on iPad and phone PWA surfaces.
Can I use my existing iPads?
Usually, yes. AIR is designed around standard iPads and browser/PWA surfaces instead of proprietary terminals.
Which payment processors does AIR support?
AIR is designed to work with Square or Stripe at cost. We do not mark up processing, and we want restaurants to keep flexibility as rates change.
Does AIR print kitchen tickets and receipts?
Yes. Printer setup is one of the most important cutover checks. AIR supports kitchen routing, receipt printing, auth-slip settings, and fallback planning.
Can AIR handle different printer routing by channel?
That is the goal: dine-in, direct online, phone, DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and KitchenHub orders should route to the right kitchen and receipt printers.
What happens if Wi-Fi goes down?
The target architecture is web printing first, with local fallback options where the restaurant needs them. We plan cutovers around the actual network and printer layout.
Website
Direct ordering, SEO, and the restaurant website
Is a website included?
AIR can host or enhance a restaurant website as part of the plan. The goal is to include website plus online ordering without adding another vendor bill.
Do we have to redesign our current website?
No. The first step is to audit the current site, keep what is working, and add direct ordering, menu SEO, schema, and conversion paths. A rebrand can come later.
What does built-in SEO mean?
AIR structures menu items, categories, ordering paths, schema, local business data, and internal links so Google can understand the restaurant and menu.
How do you prove SEO work is improving?
AIR is building a tracking loop: baseline grade, changes made, indexed pages, ranking movement, direct-order starts, reservations, loyalty signups, and 7/30/90-day reporting.
Can AIR help convert DoorDash guests to direct guests?
Yes. AIR uses direct-order links, receipt paths, QR inserts, loyalty, and future delivery-channel reporting to move repeat guests back to the restaurant's owned channel.
Can reservations and waitlist live on the website?
Yes. AIR can provide reservation and waitlist flows, and restaurants can also keep or embed existing providers when that is the better path.
AI
Maestro and AI-R Host
What is Maestro?
Maestro is the unified AI surface inside AIR. It can focus on CFO, Ops, or Marketing questions while using the restaurant's own data and workflows.
What can I ask Maestro?
Examples: What were sales yesterday? What item should we push tonight? Did Robbie clock in? Which DoorDash issues need attention? Are we better off paying for OpenTable or running local ads?
What is AI-R Host?
AI-R Host is the phone-facing part of the system. It can answer calls, take pickup orders, book reservations, send links, and hand off to staff when a person should take over.
Can AI-R Host take real menu orders?
That is the plan. The menu, modifiers, hours, channel availability, loyalty, and handoff rules need to be correct before live order taking is turned on.
Why not sell AI-R Host as a standalone product?
A phone agent sounds simple until it has to quote the right menu, modifiers, hours, prices, reservation rules, handoffs, loyalty, and kitchen flow. It works best when it is connected to AIR.
Do we have to activate AI-R Host on day one?
No. A smart launch path is shadow mode first: let it listen, test menu recognition, run QA, collect corrections, then activate when the restaurant is confident.
Delivery
DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and direct delivery
Does AIR integrate with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub?
Pro and Premium are built around third-party marketplace integrations. For Chan Nara, KitchenHub is the API path for marketplace access.
Can AIR sync delivery menu prices?
Yes. AIR includes channel pricing so restaurants can protect margins by platform instead of manually editing every marketplace.
Can AIR pause channels or adjust prep times?
AIR is building service pace controls. Some platforms limit what can be changed after an order is accepted, so the best flow may be queueing orders briefly, setting the right time, then accepting.
What is Chargeback Fighter?
Chargeback Fighter is a planned workflow for monitoring delivery reports and helping dispute invalid chargebacks. It belongs in the post-cutover value layer, not the day-one critical path.
Can AIR support local delivery from the restaurant website?
That is the goal. We are exploring delivery dispatch partners such as Shipday for restaurants that want direct delivery from their own website.
Data
Food cost, inventory, loyalty, and reporting
Does loyalty work on day one?
Yes. Loyalty can start on day one. The richer reporting gets better after the restaurant has 30 days of orders, redemptions, and guest behavior.
When does food cost become useful?
Food cost becomes useful after recipes, invoices, vendor prices, and sales mix are entered. The first 30 days are about building the habit and improving confidence.
Can AIR scan invoices?
Yes. AIR is designed to use invoices to update vendor costs and eventually connect purchasing, plate costs, waste, and shopping lists.
Can AIR replace accounting or payroll?
Not yet. AIR can support timeclock and exports, but restaurants should keep accounting and payroll software until replacement workflows are truly ready.
What reports matter most early?
Day one: sales, orders, payments, printer status, and service flow. Day 30: loyalty, food cost confidence, delivery margin, SEO movement, and staff habits.
Roadmap
Coming soon and beta expectations
What is coming soon?
Social media content creation and posting, deeper marketing automation, chargeback workflows, stronger inventory intelligence, richer SEO reporting, and more Orion-backed setup guidance.
What will Social Media Content Creation and Posting do?
The goal is to generate menu-item images and short videos, create campaign assets, and schedule social posts using live menu, specials, loyalty, and website content.
Is AIR finished?
AIR is in active beta. The day-one restaurant operating workflows are the priority; advanced growth features are being layered in carefully so we do not overpromise.
Why should a restaurant join beta?
Beta operators get closer setup help, influence the roadmap, and can help shape the workflows that make AIR practical during real service.
Still deciding?
The fastest answer is to run AIR with your menu.
The demo shows menu upload, website enhancement, direct ordering, and the owner workflow. That is usually clearer than another sales page.