Redesigning the restaurant experience with ToastApp & POS

At a glance

Toast (now rebranded as Summer) is a Hyderabad-based startup focused on simplifying restaurant management and elevating the customer experience through tech. I joined as a freelance product designer to help reimagine the entire ecosystem—from the backend restaurant Point-of-Sale (POS) platform to the customer-facing mobile app

Role

Product Designer

Brand: Designed the brand identity, design system, messaging, & collateral

Project context

V1.0: Dec 2019 - May 2020

V2.0: Aug 2020 – Aug 2021

Freelance project

Tools used

Figma

Adobe Ai & Ps

Skype 😅

The POS System — Built for Restaurant Teams

Problem Space

When I joined Toast (now Summer), one of the most critical challenges on the table was fixing the broken backend experience that most restaurant teams were stuck with. The existing POS systems were either overengineered for fancy chains or too limited for growing local restaurants.

Our goal was to build a POS that worked in real-life restaurant chaos—not just in ideal scenarios. It ha d to be fast, intuitive, reliable, and usable by staff with minimal training, even during a full house.

Understanding the Landscape

I began by shadowing staff at local restaurants in Hyderabad—understanding what it’s actually like to take orders, serve customers, and manage chaos on a Saturday night.

Some clear pain points emerged:

• Too many touchpoints for a single action: Even taking an order required 4–5 screens.
• Lack of visibility: Kitchen and service staff didn’t always know what was ready, what was delayed, or which table was waiting.
• Training overload: Staff had to be taught 20+ different flows to handle common scenarios.
• No flexibility: POS tools didn’t support dine-in, takeaway, and delivery seamlessly.
• Inventory mismanagement: Stock often ran out without alerts, and reordering wasn’t systemized.

These insights helped me create a POS that didn’t just “look” better—it worked better for the people using it every day.

Core Product Flows I Designed

I designed the POS experience modularly—so each part of the restaurant team (waitstaff, kitchen, cashier, manager) had exactly what they needed, and nothing more.

1. Order Management

• Quick creation of dine-in, takeaway, and delivery orders from a single interface.
• Integrated table map for selecting and assigning orders visually.
• Real-time sync with the kitchen display system (KDS).
• Option to hold, modify, split, or merge orders mid-service.