How do I set up wall screens with Displays?

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.

Displays 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 plan-gated — lower plans see "Displays is available on Pro and Complete" with an upgrade link, and two screens additionally need the Complete waitlist.

The seven screens

• 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.
• 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.
• 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; allergen details stay on the customer's phone and your printed information, never on the wall. Unavailable dishes never show. 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 product).
• 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.
• 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).
• Self-service kiosk — a touch screen where customers join the waitlist themselves, one customer at a time. Needs the Complete waitlist.

Putting a screen up

On a device you're signed in on — open Displays and click Open on this device on a screen's card. 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 Displays settings, Go fullscreen and Exit display (pressing Esc exits too, and on the dashboard you land back on Displays).

With a display link (no sign-in — best for wall TVs) — on a screen's card, click New display link, 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 card at any time (up to 10 active links across your restaurant). 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.

Paired devices

The Paired devices list on the Displays 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 → Displays

Every display option lives on its own settings page, in these sections:

• Screen types — the default screen for TVs that haven't picked yet (each TV's own on-device choice always wins).
• What's on the cards — toggles for the booking cards, 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.
• Board sections — 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).
• Timing & display — 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).
• 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 screen — Prices and Descriptions toggles, and which menu sections the board shows (new sections appear automatically until you hide them).
• 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.
• Self-service kiosk screen — the kiosk's Welcome headline (up to 80 characters) and Welcome message (up to 200), blank for the standard copy, the Queue information toggle (on by default) for the live numbers-only line, and an Appearance choice (Dark by default, or Light) for the kiosk's background.
• Screen locking — PIN-to-exit, ON by default for every customer-facing screen (see below).

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

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 Appearance setting picks a dark or light background.

Joining walks the customer through one question at a time, with progress dots and a big Back button: 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 (PIN to exit)

Customer-facing screens ask for a staff PIN before anyone can leave them — locking is ON out of the box for every customer-facing screen type, and you can switch it off per screen under Screen locking. With locking on, tapping the screen's gear button asks for a staff PIN before the menu opens at all — including Go fullscreen — and pressing Esc asks before leaving, so customers can't wander from a public screen into your dashboard (one PIN opens the menu once). The staff board is never locked (and is the only screen that shows the "?" help button — customer-facing screens hide it), and display-link TVs are unaffected: their gear only offers Go fullscreen, with no way off the screen. 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?