About NodeDR OrderRestro
NodeDR OrderRestro is a free, open-source restaurant management system built for cafés, coffee shops, bakeries, fast food counters, fine dining, bars, food courts, cloud kitchens, and multi-branch chains — anyone running a kitchen and a floor, not just a checkout counter.
Why we built it
Restaurant owners are usually offered two options: an expensive monthly POS subscription that stops working the moment the internet does, or a patchwork of a billing app, a separate reservations book, and a kitchen running on shouted orders and paper tickets. Neither should be the price of running a modern restaurant.
NodeDR OrderRestro is the alternative — a complete restaurant system that runs on a computer inside your own restaurant. Billing, tables, the kitchen screen, and reservations all keep working with the internet cable unplugged, because none of it depends on a connection to keep running.
What it does
It covers the full floor-to-kitchen workflow: taking dine-in, takeaway, and delivery orders; managing a visual floor plan with a live waitlist; sending tickets straight to a kitchen display screen, routed by station; building a menu with modifiers and combo meals; taking reservations; tracking ingredients and recipe cost through inventory; and keeping a loyalty and visit history on every regular customer.
A real-time dashboard shows today’s revenue, order count, table status, and the kitchen queue as service happens — without sending a single byte of your restaurant’s data to an outside analytics service.
Still growing
This is an actively developed, open-source project. POS billing, tables, reservations, the kitchen display, menu management, inventory, customer profiles, and staff permissions are live and working today. Multi-branch reporting, deeper accounting, delivery management, and marketing tools are on the public roadmap. If a feature your restaurant needs isn’t built yet, the project is open to contributions and feature requests.
Built by NodeDR Infotech
NodeDR OrderRestro is made and maintained by NODEDR INFOTECH PRIVATE LIMITED — a software company building self-hosted tools for small businesses. Our official site is www.nodedr.com.
It’s a sister project to NodeDR POS, our free retail shop POS — built as its own codebase because a restaurant floor and kitchen work differently from a retail counter.
The project is licensed under AGPL-3.0. You’re free to self-host, use, and modify it for your restaurant — if you modify it and run that modified version as a service for others, you must share your changes under the same license. Pull requests and issue reports are welcome on GitHub.
Frequently asked questions
Is NodeDR OrderRestro really free?
Yes. It's open-source software (AGPL-3.0 license) — there's no subscription, no per-order fee, and no feature locked behind a paid plan. You run it on your own computer and it costs nothing beyond the hardware you already have.
Does it work if the restaurant's internet goes down?
Yes. The whole system — billing, tables, the kitchen screen, printing — runs on a computer inside your restaurant, on your own WiFi or network. Order-taking and the kitchen display keep working with the internet cable unplugged.
What do I need to run it?
One computer at the restaurant to act as the server (a low-cost mini-PC is enough for most single-location restaurants), and any tablet, phone, or PC on the same WiFi to use as a till or kitchen screen. If you'd rather manage it remotely, the same setup also runs on a cloud server.
Can more than one till or tablet use it at the same time?
Yes. Every device on the same restaurant WiFi — the counter till, a server's tablet, the kitchen display — connects to the same system at once, and updates (a new order, a table going free) show up everywhere instantly.
Can I print receipts on my existing printer?
Yes. Receipts print through your browser's normal print dialog, so any printer already connected to the till works, or you can save the receipt as a PDF instead of printing.
Is it ready for a restaurant with more than one branch?
Today it runs great for a single restaurant or a single branch. Multi-branch features — centralized reporting and inventory across locations — are on the public roadmap and actively being built; each branch can already run its own instance in the meantime.
What's already working, and what's still being built?
POS billing, table and floor management, reservations, the kitchen display, menu and combo management, inventory with recipe costing, customer profiles and loyalty, and staff accounts with permissions are all live today. Accounting, delivery management, deeper analytics, and marketing tools are on the roadmap for upcoming phases — the project is open about what's done versus planned.
How hard is it to set up?
One command downloads it and sets everything up automatically — it checks for the one piece of free software it needs (Docker), builds the system, and gets it running. A short setup wizard then walks you through your restaurant's name, tables, and first menu items. Most people are ready to take an order within about ten minutes; if you're not comfortable with a computer terminal, any local IT helper can run the one command for you.
Is my restaurant's data safe if the computer restarts?
Yes. All of your data — orders, menu, customers, inventory — is stored in a database on your own machine, not inside a temporary process. Restarting the computer or updating the software doesn't touch your saved data.
Do I need the internet at all?
Only to install the software and to pull updates later. Day-to-day running — taking orders, billing, printing, the kitchen screen — needs no internet connection at all.