By Dominick Del Bosque, Founder
When golfers call in food from the course, someone stops what they're doing to answer, writes the order down over cart noise, and hopes the name and the order are right. Nothing is paid until the golfer shows up, and the kitchen has no idea when that will be. Here is the same order taken both ways.
Published Updated
| Phone order | Pre-order with Foreturn IQ | |
|---|---|---|
| Who takes the order | A staff member answers the phone and writes it down. | The golfer, on their own phone. No app, no account. |
| When it's paid | At pickup, if the golfer shows up. | Up front, by card, before the kitchen starts. |
| Getting it right | Written down over cart noise, then read back if there's time. | Picked item by item from your menu, so there's nothing to mishear. |
| When the kitchen starts | When the ticket reaches the kitchen, whenever that is. | Timed to the golfer's predicted arrival, and tightened by their phone's location as they get closer. |
| On a busy turn | Calls stack up or ring out while staff are at the counter. | Orders keep landing in the queue. Nobody has to pick up a phone. |
| At pickup | A name called across the counter. | A 4-character pickup code. |
| Cost to the course | Staff time on every call. | $0. Golfers pay a 5% + $0.50 service fee per order. |
| Setup | Nothing to set up beyond a phone number. | Build your menu (about 20 minutes), QR codes on the carts, connect Stripe. |
Phone orders look free because there's no software bill. The cost is the person answering. Say each call takes about 2 minutes to pick up, write down and read back. At 40 calls on a busy day, that is 80 minutes, well over an hour of someone's shift spent on the phone instead of at the counter or on the line.
Those minutes land at the worst time: when groups are making the turn and the counter is already backed up. Every call answered is a golfer at the counter waiting, and every call missed is an order that may not get placed at all.
A phone line handles one call at a time. When three groups reach the turn together, the calls stack up or ring out, and whoever is on the phone is not making food or handing it over.
With pre-orders, golfers order before the round, from the cart or at the turn, and every order lands in a live kitchen queue bucketed Prepare Now, Coming Up and Later Today. Each ticket shows the golfer's predicted arrival and when to start prep. If the golfer shares their phone's location, that window tightens as they get closer, so the kitchen works ahead of the rush instead of reacting to it, and food doesn't sit waiting for a group that's running behind.
A phone order is a promise. If plans change and the golfer skips the stop, the food is already made and nobody pays for it.
A pre-order is paid up front by card before the kitchen starts. If something runs out, turn the item off in the admin panel and golfers stop seeing it right away. If a golfer already paid for something you can't make, cancel the order from the order queue and they get a full refund to their card, service fee included.
Over the phone, orders get misheard: a name, an item, a count. Writing it down and reading it back helps, but takes even longer.
With pre-orders, golfers tap items from your own menu, so the ticket shows exactly what they picked. At pickup, staff call out a 4-character code instead of a name, so there's no confusion when two groups finish the same hole.
Take a course doing 100 pre-orders a week at an $18 average order. That is about 433 orders and $7,794 in food and beverage sales a month. Your course keeps all $7,794, plus tax and tips, and pays $0 for the platform. Each golfer pays a $1.40 service fee at checkout.
Keep the phone for the regular who always calls, the golfer whose phone is dead, or anyone who would simply rather talk to a person. Pre-ordering doesn't have to replace every call. It takes the routine ones off your counter, so the calls you do take get your staff's full attention.
Add items in the admin panel with a name, price, category and which pickup windows they're available in. It takes about 20 minutes.
Golfers scan from the cart and land on your ordering page. They pay with a card on their own phone.
When the phone rings for a food order, staff can tell the golfer about the code on the cart for next time. Keep taking the call in the meantime.
We set it up with you so you can see your own numbers before committing to anything. The goal is to be live in one afternoon.
No. Golfers scan the QR code on the cart and order in their phone's browser. There's no app and no account to create.
Keep taking their call. Pre-ordering doesn't have to replace every phone order. It takes the routine ones off your counter so the calls you do take get full attention.
Nothing. Golfers pay a service fee of 5% of their order plus $0.50 at checkout, and your course keeps 100% of its menu prices, plus tax and tips, paid to your own Stripe account.
No. Foreturn IQ runs alongside your POS, so nothing about your current system changes. If you need every order to post into your POS, it isn't the right fit today.
Yes. Golfers can add a tip at checkout, and tips go 100% to your course. They are not part of the service fee.
We set up a pilot around a few tee times so you can see how many calls pre-orders replace before committing to anything.
Not ready to talk yet? See pricing or compare pre-orders to phone orders.
Requests go straight to Dominick Del Bosque, founder. About Foreturn IQ