A restaurant changes state every few minutes. Orders arrive, stock drops, staff rotate, and by the end of service the only record is whatever someone remembered to write down. This is the system of record for an independent cafe, built end to end on my own.
The problem
Hospitality software usually fails one of two ways. Either it is a point of sale that knows about orders and nothing else, or it is an enterprise suite that assumes a head office and a training budget. A single cafe has neither, and still needs the menu, the orders and the daily numbers to agree.
The constraint that shaped it: the people using this are standing up, mid-service, on a shared device.
What I built
A React and Tailwind CSS app on Firebase. Firebase handles auth and storage, which for a project this size is the right trade: no server to run.
- Authenticated staff access, so the dashboard is not open to whoever has the URL.
- Menu and pricing managed in one place rather than reprinted from a document.
- Order handling as the primary screen, since that is where the time goes.
Working solo
Nobody to hand a design to, nobody to review the code. That changes what is worth doing. I spent more time than usual on shared components and naming, because the only defence against a solo project rotting is that it still explains itself six months later.