Restaurant IT projects: getting a new site’s technology ready for opening day

A new restaurant site depends on five pieces of supplier work being ready on opening day. Two decisions protect that date: which internet connection you order at lease signing, and the tests you run in the finished room before sign-off.

Your opening date is fixed around the lease and the fit-out, while the technology that has to work on that date comes from several outside suppliers, each with its own lead times. Each supplier answers for its own piece of the job, although responsibility for the opening date stays with you.

Five pieces of supplier work

Any one of these can run late:

• The till, or point-of-sale (POS) system, with its menu and kitchen printers set up for the new site, often by the supplier’s own team
• Your card payment account, which has to include the new site before its terminals can take payments
• The delivery platforms, connected and, where a platform is integrated with the till, synced so that orders arrive there and print in the kitchen
• The cabling and ceilings from the fit-out, which the wireless access points depend on
• The internet line, which most of the others rely on

Order the internet line first

The internet line should be the first piece of restaurant network infrastructure ordered. Some groups specify a leased line for new sites, which is a business connection with capacity reserved for that site alone, usually over its own fibre. Openreach runs BT’s network and sells access to around 650 internet providers, so whichever provider you buy from, the line is probably Openreach’s.

Openreach’s own figures show that between April and June 2026, roughly one business leased line in eight missed the installation date first agreed, even after excluding delays caused by the business that ordered it.

Protect the testing time

A late supplier eats into the time between installation and the first service, which is when the setup gets tested. Anything left untested, such as which kitchen printer a dish goes to or whether delivery orders reach the till, gets its first test during service. Responsibility often changes hands at the same point, from the team that built the site to the team that will support it. One team holding the full supplier list and chasing every supplier against the same date helps protect that time.

Leased line or fibre broadband

Openreach’s regulatory report gives these figures for April to June 2026.

Measure, April to June 2026	Leased line	Fibre broadband
Installed by the agreed date	87.91%	97.91%
Average working days from order to installation	32.14	8.25 to 13.76, depending on whether an engineer visit was needed

These figures cover Openreach’s network only. The leased-line figures exclude delays caused by the ordering business, while the broadband figures include homes, and because the two sets are reported separately the comparison is only a guide.

Each connection carries its own risk. Ofcom describes a leased line as uncontended capacity with repair times measured in hours, which can cost significantly more than broadband. A mobile data connection can bridge a gap, although Ofcom notes that broadband over mobile networks shares capacity with everyone else on the network, depends on the signal indoors and may not be reliable where mobile demand is high.

Three decisions at lease signing

Settle these when the lease is signed:

• Which connection the site specifies, and who places the order
• The fallback if the line misses its date
• Who decides whether to open on the fallback or move the date

The last decision belongs to the operator, and both options carry risk. Opening on mobile data usually means taking card payments over a connection with no backup, while moving the date means paying for a site that is not yet trading. The operator weighs that risk using rent and booking figures, and IT supports whichever decision follows. Whether a leased line justifies its cost at a given site is a question each group answers for itself.

Set up equipment before it reaches site

Configuring equipment centrally means a site receives switches and access points that are already set up and recorded in the equipment inventory. Our IT procurement service includes pre-configuring equipment in house, which is also the right stage for two checks under restaurant PCI compliance. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requires vendor default passwords to be changed and unused default accounts to be removed or disabled. It also requires a current inventory of the equipment it covers, with a description of what each item does.

Three wireless networks

Access points can be placed from the plans, but walls and furniture change how a signal behaves, so coverage has to be confirmed once the room is built and furnished. A restaurant site should ideally run three separate wireless networks:

• Operations, for handhelds, kitchen screens, printers and delivery tablets, where faults show up during service
• Team, for back-office laptops and your team’s own devices
• Guest, which diners use and notice when it fails

The PCI Security Standards Council’s wireless guidance, written for an earlier version of the standard, treats any wireless network connected to the card payment environment as in scope and still requires a firewall between the two. Operations devices usually need to reach the till, so that network often sits inside the environment, while the team and guest networks should sit outside it, behind a firewall.

Test in the finished room

Each network should get a written test, run in the furnished room with the equipment you will use on the first day. Send an order from a handheld at the furthest table, check that the kitchen screen keeps up when several orders arrive together, and take a card payment in the busiest corner. Ask whoever runs the test to record the result against the site’s equipment list.

Support that knows the site before opening

Restaurant IT support should know a site before its first service. Four things make that possible:

• Add the site to 24/7 restaurant network monitoring
• Give the service desk the site’s address, equipment list and supplier contacts
• Create your team’s till and scheduling accounts before their first shift
• Name an escalation route for opening week

Suppliers work to your specifications and timings within their own constraints, so one person or team should hold the whole supplier list and keep every supplier to the same date. Our IT supplier management service deals with suppliers such as the till company and the line provider on your behalf, which gives you one point of contact for the list.

Review each opening

A short review after each opening can improve the next one. It can record which supplier was latest, which tests failed, what changed on site against the plan and how many days each step took. Unless someone owns writing it down, what the team learned tends to stay with whoever was on site, and the person who held the supplier list is well placed to do it. Those notes can then update your group’s brand standard IT model, so a supplier that ran late is ordered earlier next time and a failed test joins the written test for every later site.

Before your next restaurant lease

If the line at your next site missed its date, which other suppliers’ dates would move with it, and who would be told first?

Cardonet can run a new-site readiness review for your restaurant IT projects before you sign your next lease, covering the connection, the fallback, the wireless design and who holds each supplier’s date. Book a review through Cardonet’s IT project services.

Frequently asked questions

1. When should we order the internet line for a new restaurant site?

Decide which connection the site gets, and who places the order, when you sign the lease. Openreach’s average leased line took 32.14 working days from order to installation in April to June 2026, a figure that covers Openreach’s network only and excludes delays caused by the ordering business.

2. What should we do if the line is late and the opening date is close?

The group can open on a mobile data connection or move the date. Opening on mobile data usually means taking card payments over a connection with no backup, while moving the date means paying for a site that is not yet trading. The choice belongs to the operator, and IT supports whichever option follows.

3. Should a new restaurant site have a leased line or fibre broadband?

Each group answers this site by site. In April to June 2026, Openreach installed 87.91% of leased lines and 97.91% of fibre broadband lines by the agreed date, although the two sets are reported separately and the broadband figures include homes. Ofcom describes a leased line as uncontended capacity with repair times measured in hours, which can cost significantly more than broadband.

4. How should we set up wireless at a new restaurant site for PCI DSS compliance?

Run separate wireless networks for operations, your team and guests, and test each one in the furnished room with the equipment you will use on the first day. Operations devices such as handhelds and kitchen screens usually need to reach the till, so that network often falls inside your card payment environment under the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI Security Standards Council’s wireless guidance requires a firewall between wireless networks and that environment, so keep the team and guest networks outside it.

5. What IT support should be in place before a new restaurant opens?

The site should be in monitoring and on the service desk’s records with its address, equipment list and supplier contacts, with a named escalation route for opening week. Your team’s till and scheduling accounts should exist before their first shift, and one owner for the supplier list helps most in that week.

Related articles by Pratik Patel

• Your Restaurant’s Digital Ordering Channels Will Fail. Are You Ready?
• Multi-Site Restaurant IT: One Brand, Many Locations
• Design your hotel network at the blueprint stage
• Hotel Team Technology: Tools That Shape Guest Experience
• Designing your hotel IT support model before you lock in the technology stack