topic Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group in Restaurant Operations

Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 04:00:26 GMT

I have some combo meals on the menu. I've created a mod group called Combo Beverage Choice, and then chose to use an existing menu group called Beverage as the choices of beverage for the combo. I want the beverage choice to be required.

It works great from the POS. We can pick the combo meal, and are forced to choose a beverage.

HOWEVER, if the mod group is flagged as required, any combo meals that use that mod group go out of stock on the self-ordering kiosk only. If I flag the mod group as optional/force or optional, the combo meals are shown as back in stock, but the customer is never prompted to choose a beverage. If I switch the mod group from using the existing menu group to using manually entered mods, then it works fine. But, I want to use the existing menu group, so I don't have to update the various beverages and prices in 2 places.

I spent more than an hour on the phone with Toast, then they escalated to an expert who emailed that I had to make the mod group optional/force (which DID solve the issue of my combo meals showing as out of stock), but since the customer can't choose a beverage, I've traded one issue for another.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

au79teahouse — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 05:29:39 GMT

I have a little bit difficulty understanding the situation here.

But if the options work fine on the pos but options aren't showing up on the kiosk, it could be you have too many layers of modifiers (nested modifier), which will not show as intended to on kiosk and toast takeout app.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

rcmck — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 13:44:42 GMT

Kiosk supports nested modifiers, but only one level, most likely have multiple nested mods. If you could you share a screenshot of the menu hierarchy with the menu group, menu item, and modifiers expanded out to the combo drink choice under advanced properties, that might be helpful.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Rob — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 14:30:22 GMT

@Tim_Sandor are these issues happening on the POS or is this drink issue only occurring on the Kiosk? If you can provide a screenshot of how its configured on the backend that would help a lot too!

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 16:31:18 GMT

This behavior only happens on the kiosk.

We have a menu group called Combos. Inside the Combos menu group, there are Items that are our combo meals, including one called Beef hot dog combo. The Combos menu group has Modifier Groups, including one called Combo beverage choice, and the individual combo meals inherit these Modifier Groups from the parent group. One of the choices when configuring a Modifier Group is to Use existing menu group (which makes sense to use, since I already have my beverage choices in the Beverages menu group):

This is where the issue arises: if I config the Modifier Group to be required (after all, what good is a combo meal, without forcing a beverage selection) and to use an existing menu group, the combo shows as out of stock.

I opened a case with Toast, and their suggestion was to config the Modifier Group as Optional - Force Show (and keep it as using the existing Beverages menu group). But, when I do that, the customer using the kiosk is not prompted to select a beverage choice. Again, what good is a combo meal, if the customer doesn't get to choose their beverage.

The only workaround I could come up with was to config the Modifier Group to use manually created modifiers:

This is not a huge deal, but now I have Coke (can) in 2 different places in my menu. If we replace Coke with Pepsi in the Beverages menu group, and forget to change it in the manually added modifiers in the Combo beverage choice modifier group, customers ordering a combo could order Coke, when have replaced it with Pepsi. It seems like Toast had the foresight to leverage existing menu groups (like Beverages) for use as Modifier groups - but something somewhere is broken.

Our full menu setup here:

Thanks to everyone that has answered and provided feedback so far.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

rcmck — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 18:36:11 GMT

The last screen shot, that is with manually created modifiers right? You are saying the out of stock problem doesn't happen with that? Only when using an existing group?

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 18:49:22 GMT

Correct: the last screenshot (showing our entire menu) is with manually created modifiers, and when the menu is configured like that, it works great - other than the fact I have to do duplicate work instead of relying on the "use existing menu group as modifier group" function. If I re-config the modifier group to use an existing menu group, the combos then go out of stock only on the kiosk.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

rcmck — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 18:54:05 GMT

And you said if you use the existing group and set it to optional/force they go back in stock but the customer is not shown the beverage options? Or they are just able to skip it and you don't want that?

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 18:55:26 GMT

That is also correct: when setting the mod group to optional/force, and using an existing menu group as mods, the kiosk customer is never shown an option to choose a beverage.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

rcmck — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 19:05:48 GMT

Thanks, could we see that last screenshot from advanced properties with a wider view and the beverage group also expanded as well as under show/hide only 'visible to' checked?

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 19:10:35 GMT

Like this? To be clear, in this screenshot, the mods under Combo beverage choice are manually added.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

rcmck — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 19:18:58 GMT

Thanks, yeah, was just curious if there was a visibility issues possibly, what is the configuration of the beverage group, is it just a basic menu group with your beverages as options? Other than the Combo beverage choice are there any other modifier groups being inherited by the Combos group?

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 19:33:20 GMT

Yep, Beverages is just a plain old Menu group with a handful of beverages:

And yes, there is another mod group being inherited by the Combos group: it's a choice of several chips or French fry options. It's set up exactly as the Beverages. I hadn't mentioned it for the sake of simplicity.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

rcmck — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 20:04:01 GMT

Have you used the existing group as mods anywhere else or previously? I use it in a few places, but I don't use a kiosk so I can't do any tests unfortunately. Wondering if it's just not compatible with kiosk, though there is no documentation I could find saying that. I have had kitchen settings affect them in a strange ways before, in particular when using meal pacing (course pacing) with a certain setting, do you happen to use course pacing? (kind of grasping at straws but that's the only that I have seen completely broke the feature for me)

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 22:07:44 GMT

The existing menu groups Beverages and Snacks are used as mod groups only for the combos. We also do not use course pacing.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

au79teahouse — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:13:00 GMT

Perhaps, you can try this setup.

Combo Beverage choice (mod group)
- Options (mod item)
>> soft drinks (Mod group)
- add mod item by using your existing soda items here (mode items)
>> water (mod group)
- bottle water, using your existing bottled water item (mode items)

it should solve the problem you have and will work on kiosk by adding one more layer of modifier.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:33:39 GMT

Thank you for the suggestion.

I wish Toast had a sandbox mode so I could make this change and see how it would work, without affecting our live environment. I will make the change when I am able, and report back.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

au79teahouse — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 18:24:13 GMT

Technically there is "sort of" a sandbox mode by using virtual terminal. However, virtual terminal does not work with kiosk mode.

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

Tim_Sandor — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 18:25:09 GMT

😩

Re: Combo meals, mod group, and existing menu group

rcmck — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 18:31:31 GMT

@au79teahouse wrote:
Technically there is "sort of" a sandbox mode by using virtual terminal. However, virtual terminal does not work with kiosk mode.

I think they mean the ability to test a configuration or menu change without sending it out to every device, even with a virtual terminal all changes still go out to everything.