How do I set up wall screens?

Put screens on your walls — staff and customer boards, a customer waitlist, a menu board, book-with-us and event-door screens, and a self-service kiosk.

Wall screens in the sidebar is the home for every wall screen: a card for each screen type, the display links that let a TV run without signing in, and one combined list of every paired device. It's gated — wall screens are on the Pro and Complete plans, and every paid standalone product except Your domain includes them too (the free Tickets tier doesn't; and each screen still needs its own content: a gift-cards-only venue gets the gift-cards screen, not the menu board); plans and products below that see an upgrade link, and two screens additionally need the Complete waitlist.

The screens you can show

There are eleven wall-screen types, grouped below by the job they do, plus the Orders (kitchen and bar) card at the top of the page, which opens your Orders screen in its Wall layout (see the Order & Pay guide). Each one is its own choice — a device shows one screen at a time.

Screens for your team

• Staff board — the live service board for your team: Upcoming and Seated columns (plus a Waitlist column when your plan includes the waitlist) with full names, deposits, and allergy, dietary and occasion notes, a live alert banner (late arrivals, overstays), tonight's events with check-in counts, and a stats bar. For a screen only staff can see. Runs signed in — there's no display link for it.
• Orders (kitchen and bar) — not a separate screen type any more: it is your Orders screen in its Wall layout — the three columns Come in, Being made and Ready as a no-touch TV screen that turns its own pages, with the venue's header and clock. Open on this device on the Wall screens page sets this device to the Wall layout and opens Orders; the screen's own footer picker This screen is moves it between Counter, Pass and Wall and between Everything, Kitchen and Bar. Everything about how it behaves — ticking items off, grouping, how a full column turns its pages, its background — lives in the Screens section of Orders → Settings. It runs signed in (there is no display link for it) and, unlike the Counter and Pass layouts, it never signs itself out — it cannot act, so there is nothing a stale session could do. Full detail in the Order & Pay guide. Needs Order & Pay.

Screens for people waiting

• Customer board — the same board made safe for a room: first names with an initial and queue positions only, no alerts, no stats, no check-in counts.
• Customer waitlist — a queue screen for waiting customers: positions, party sizes and estimated waits, with no names shown until a table is ready. Needs the Complete waitlist.
• Self-service kiosk — a touch screen where customers join the waitlist themselves, one customer at a time. Needs the Complete waitlist.

Screens showing your menu

• Menu board — your menu on the wall: sections, dishes and prices, always in step with what you've set up in Menu. Dishes with dietary ticks show small V, VG, GF or DF marks beside their names; a section with serving times shows them beside its name ("Served Mon–Fri 12:00–15:00"); allergen details stay on the customer's phone and your printed information, never on the wall. A dish you've marked sold out stays on the board, crossed out with a "Sold out" mark ("not tonight" rather than "we stopped doing it"); a dish you've hidden from your menu doesn't appear at all. A dish that's one of today's specials is marked in place, with its old price struck through beside today's. When you have an event on today, an event banner (name and time — never check-in counts) shows here too. Needs menus (Pro and above, or the Order & Pay or Your website product).
• Today's specials — just the dishes you've switched Today's special on for, big enough to read across a room, with today's price, the old price struck through beside it, and your one-line note. Dishes appear under their own section name, and the screen clears itself when the last special of the day ends — nobody has to go and switch anything off. When nothing is on special it says so plainly. See menus for how to put a dish on special. Needs menus (Pro and above, or the Order & Pay or Your website product).

Screens that bring people in

• Book with us — an invitation screen for passing customers: your branding, a short message and a QR code they scan to book a table from their phone. Today's events show as a banner here as well.
• What's on — your upcoming events and any live offers, rolling one after another, for a window or a waiting area. Events show the date, time, what it costs from, and a sold-out mark when there are no tickets left; your own What's-on listings show their repeat wording ("Every Thursday") instead of one date. Offers show what they're worth ("20% off", "A free glass of fizz") and the day they run until, and one that's only for loyalty members says so rather than dangling something a passer-by can't have. It only shows events in the next 30 days, and an offer whose giveaway has already run out never appears — the screen never advertises something your team would then have to refuse. Promo codes are deliberately not shown. Different from the event door screen, which is one event at the door on the night. Needs events or offers — either one on its own is enough.
• Gift cards — a screen that sells gift cards: your branding, a short message you can write yourself, what a card costs (your own suggested amounts, or your range), how long one stays valid, any bonus or discount you're running, and a QR code customers scan to buy on their phone. If you're not selling gift cards online it says "Ask a member of the team to buy one." instead of showing a code that leads nowhere. Needs gift cards (Pro and above, or the Gift cards product).
• Join our loyalty scheme — an invitation screen with a QR code customers scan to join from their own phone, plus your scheme's own earning line. Typing details on the screen is off unless you switch it on; with it on, customers can enter a name and email at the screen itself, and it clears after each person so nobody sees the last customer's details. If your scheme is paused the screen says to ask a member of the team rather than inviting people into something that isn't running. Needs loyalty (Complete, or the Loyalty product).

Screens for event nights

• Event door — for event nights: the event name, start time and check-in numbers right at the door — never guest names. Needs events (Pro and above, or the Tickets product).

Putting a screen up

Staff screens sign in; customer screens use display links. Screens for your team — the Orders screen (any layout) and the staff board — run signed in, on a device that's already in your dashboard or staff portal: updates land instantly and there's no permanent link to look after. There is no display link for these screens — creating one is refused. Screens customers can see or reach — the menu board, the waitlist, book-with-us and the rest — run on display links: the TV shows one screen and holds no staff sign-in at all, so a screen in a window or a waiting area can never open your dashboard.

On a device you're signed in on — open Wall screens and click Open on this device on a screen's tile. The first time a device opens the board it asks "Who is this screen for?" — choose once and the device remembers; the choice is per-device, so your office laptop can show the staff board while the bar TV shows the menu. Change it any time from the board's gear menu, which also has Wall screens settings, Go fullscreen and Exit display (pressing Esc exits too, and on the dashboard you land back on Wall screens).

With a display link (no sign-in — for customer-facing screens) — in the Display links card, click New display link, choose which screen it's for and name it (e.g. "Bar TV"), and you get the link's URL and a QR code once only — copy it or scan it on the TV there and then; if it's lost, revoke it and create a new one. Each link is fixed to its screen type, and you can Rename or Revoke it from the same card at any time (your plan sets how many can be active at once — see the limits below). A revoked screen stops within moments and shows "This screen's access was turned off in Settings."

The first time a link opens on a new TV, the screen says "This screen needs to be set up" — an owner or admin signs in on that device once, gives it a name (the suggestion is "Front-of-house TV") and clicks Approve this screen. They're signed straight back out: the TV holds no sign-in at all, it just shows its board.

How many screens can you have?

Active display links and paired TVs are limited by plan: Pro includes 3 active display links and 6 paired TVs; Complete includes 10 active display links and 20 paired TVs; a venue running on standalone products without one of those plans gets 2 active display links and 4 paired TVs. The Wall screens page shows your usage against the limit (for example "2 of 3"). At the limit, creating another link or approving another TV is politely refused — revoke one you no longer use, or upgrade your plan. Nothing is ever taken away: if you move to a smaller plan while over its limit, every existing link and TV keeps working — you just can't add new ones until you're back under it.

Signed-in board screens have a generous ceiling of their own: up to 25 can be open at the same time across your venue. Past that, opening another shows a friendly note until one is closed — nothing running is ever closed for you, and screens count themselves out within about half an hour of a tab being shut.

Signed-in screens

The Signed-in screens list on the Wall screens page shows every device showing the Orders screen right now — which layout (Counter, Pass or Wall), which half it shows (Everything, Kitchen or Bar), who signed it in and on what kind of device, and when it was last seen — so you can see from the office which device shows what without walking to the kitchen. It is read-only: a screen's layout and station are changed from its own footer. A device closed without signing out drops off the list by itself within about half an hour.

Paired devices

The Paired devices list on the Wall screens page shows every approved device in one place — staff-portal tablets and TV displays alike — each labelled with its purpose and each with its own Revoke button. Revoking a TV takes its screens down; revoking a staff device never touches your TVs, and vice versa.

Settings → Venue → Wall screens

The page is grouped by screen: pick a screen from the list down the left and everything about it is in one place — its Background, whether it needs a staff PIN to leave (Lock this screen), and its own settings. Each entry shows what it is set to right now, and opens beside the list fully open — nothing starts collapsed.

Two sections come first, for the things that genuinely apply to every screen rather than to one:

• Which screen each TV shows — the default screen for TVs that haven't picked yet (each TV's own on-device choice always wins).
• Settings for every screen — Page-flip speed (3–30 seconds, default 8) for columns with more cards than fit; Upcoming window (All day by default, or 1h/2h/3h — late and arrived bookings always show); Text size (Small / Normal / Large); and Lock screens again after (1–15 minutes, 3 by default), the quiet period before an unlocked screen re-locks itself.

Then one section per screen:

• Staff and guest boards — one section for both, because they share these settings. A Background and a Lock this screen switch for each board, then the card toggles, all on by default: Seated timer, Time remaining (with the red "over time" pill), End times, Arriving countdown ("in 15m" within the next hour), plus Table names, Allergy text, Dietary preferences text, Occasion text and Deposit marker on staff screens only. Switching allergy, dietary or occasion text off keeps an icon — the safety signal never disappears. Sections on the board covers the Alert banner, Stats bar and Event banner on the staff board; customer screens handle these automatically (they never show alerts or stats, and always keep the event name and time without the check-in count).
• Waitlist screen — Estimated waits, the Join-the-waitlist QR code and the Table-ready sound (all on by default) with a Chime tone picker (Table ready / Attention / New booking / Subtle) and a Preview button.
• Menu board and specials screens — Prices and Descriptions toggles, and which menu sections the board shows (new sections appear automatically until you hide them). The Today's specials screen follows these same settings, so a venue that hides prices on the wall hides them on both, and a section you've hidden from the menu board doesn't reappear through its specials. Each of the two screens gets its own Background.
• Book-with-us screen — the Headline (up to 80 characters, standard: "Book a table with us") and Message (up to 200); leave either blank to use the standard copy. The Booking QR code toggle shows your booking web address as text instead when off.
• Event door screen — which numbers show: Checked in, Tickets sold and Still to come.
• There is no longer a section for the kitchen and bar pass here: the Orders screen's settings — ticking items off, grouping, how the Wall layout turns its pages and its background — live in the Screens section of Orders → Settings (a line at the top of this page points there).
• Self-service kiosk screen — the kiosk's Welcome headline (up to 80 characters) and Welcome message (up to 200), blank for the standard copy, and the Queue information toggle (on by default) for the live numbers-only line.

Every screen's Background is Dark unless you change it, chosen separately per screen because a menu board in a bright window and a staff board in a dim service area want opposite things. Your accent colour from Branding is used on both, adjusted so it stays readable either way. A venue that wants every screen light sets it on each screen — that is the trade for having one screen's settings all in one place.

The customer waitlist screen

Each waiting party appears as a numbered row — position, party size and an estimated wait like "approx. 20 min" (rounded up in 5-minute steps, never promising less than approx. 5 minutes, and capped at your maximum wait if you've set one). When a table becomes ready the customer is announced at the top by first name and initial — "Sarah M. — your table is ready!" — with a chime (once per announcement). If the TV's browser blocks sound, a "Tap anywhere to enable sound" pill appears and one tap fixes it. A QR code in the footer lets customers join the waitlist from their own phone.

The self-service kiosk

The self-service kiosk is a touch screen where customers join the waitlist themselves, one customer at a time, without anyone from your team having to type for them. Needs the Complete waitlist.

Between customers the kiosk shows a welcome screen carrying your branding: your logo large in the middle (or your restaurant name if you haven't uploaded one), your cover photo as a dimmed backdrop (without one, a subtle wash of your accent colour), your headline and message (the standard copy is "Welcome — join our waitlist" and "Tap below to add your party to the queue — you'll see your place straight away."), a live numbers-only line (for example "4 parties waiting · current wait approx. 25 min" — never names), and a large Join the waitlist button in your accent colour. The logo, cover photo and accent colour all come from your existing Branding settings; the kiosk's dark or light background is its Background setting, in the kiosk's own section.

Joining walks the customer through one question at a time, with progress dots and a big Back button — and the kiosk brings its own on-screen keyboard, so it works even on a screen locked in kiosk mode that never shows the tablet's own keyboard: letters appear for names and notes, a number pad for the phone, and an @ key on the symbols layer for the email. The steps: how many guests → their wait ("Your wait will be approx. 25 minutes", with the estimated table time and queue position) → their name → email and phone with the notify-me choices → an optional extras step (notes, allergies where your plan includes them, special occasion) → a final confirm step with the loyalty tick, the marketing opt-out and the terms line. It asks for exactly the same details as joining from a phone. The confirmation says "You're on the waitlist!" with their place ("You're #3 in the queue") and a personal QR code under "Scan to track your position", so they can follow the queue from their phone. Tapping Done — or ~45 seconds passing — clears the screen back to the welcome page, and a half-finished join resets itself from any step, wiping anything typed. The kiosk never shows one customer's details to the next. It uses the same self-service join as your public waitlist page, so Enable self-service waitlist (Settings → Waitlist) needs to be on. With it off (or on a plan without the waitlist), the kiosk shows a plain welcome screen instead: the headline becomes "Welcome", the message reads "Our waitlist sign-in is closed at the moment — please speak to a member of staff and we'll look after you.", and the join button and queue line are hidden — customers are never invited to start a join that would be refused.

Screen locking (the padlock)

Customers can't leave a locked screen. To stop customers exiting the menu board, the waitlist screen or any other customer-facing screen, leave Lock this screen on for that screen (it is on out of the box). The lock is a staff PIN — the same PIN your staff use to sign in to the staff portal. There is no separate passcode to set up, and nothing to configure on the TV itself.

A locked customer-facing screen shows a padlock next to the gear. Tapping the padlock (or pressing Esc) opens an Unlock this screen prompt asking for a staff PIN. One staff PIN opens it, and it stays open while your team are using it — no PIN for every single change. Tapping the padlock locks it again straight away, and it locks itself once nobody has touched the screen for a while (Lock screens again after, 1–15 minutes, 3 by default, under Settings for every screen; a countdown appears on the padlock for the last stretch). While it is locked the gear will not open, and pressing Esc asks for the PIN instead of leaving — so customers can't wander from a public screen into your dashboard. Locking is ON out of the box for every customer-facing screen type, and you switch it off with the Lock this screen toggle in that screen's own section. Screens only your team see — the staff board and the kitchen and bar pass — are never locked (and the staff board is the only screen that shows the "?" help button; customer-facing screens hide it). Display-link TVs are unaffected: their gear only offers Go fullscreen, with no way off the screen. Changing which screen a TV shows always locks it again, and so does reloading the page. For a fully locked-down device, also use the device's own kiosk mode (for example iPad Guided Access).

Good to know

Display screens are read-only (the kiosk's join is the one exception) and never sign themselves out — they're exempt from the automatic idle sign-out, so it's safe to leave them running all service. The clock follows your staff time-format setting.

Related: How do I manage the waitlist during service? · What do the booking statuses mean and how do I move customers through them? · How do I customise the dashboard display and quick actions?