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A kitchen takes orders only after it finishes its setup checklist. Until then, it sits under Inactive kitchens on your Kitchens page, and its row counts the steps that are done. The video above walks through fixing a kitchen’s missing steps.
Your kitchen’s two order channels
A kitchen can take orders in two places. The top of each kitchen’s page shows a status for each one, and your Kitchens page shows the same statuses in a column for each.
- In-house is your own ordering page. It shows Active once the setup checklist is done.
- Marketplace is your listing on CaterCow, where customers search for restaurants. On top of the checklist, it needs a menu that CaterCow has approved for the marketplace and a bank account verified with Stripe, and our team reviews your application. While we review it, it shows In review.
Each channel shows Setting up until its setup is done, and Off if the kitchen doesn’t sell there. A kitchen moves to Active kitchens as soon as either channel is Active. So a kitchen can take orders from your own ordering page while it still doesn’t show up in marketplace search.
What each step checks
Each step has to be set up and confirmed. Saving a step confirms it.
- Kitchen information: the address, the name, and which order channels the kitchen uses. It holds a kitchen back only when both channels are off.
- Business hours: at least one day open. See how to set your business hours.
- Delivery: the areas the kitchen delivers to. A kitchen that only does pickup needs no delivery areas: turn on Pickup and choose We don’t deliver. See delivery areas and fees.
- Menu: at least one active menu offered at this kitchen. For in-house, one of them has to be turned on for in-house ordering. For the marketplace, one has to be approved by CaterCow.
- Team: a team admin, someone who gets order notifications, and someone who gets financial notifications. Only teammates who have accepted their invite count.
- In-house settings: how in-house orders are paid out, through a bank account or Square.
- Payment: the card for your Stable subscription. This step only shows for a kitchen that pays for Stable.
- Marketplace settings: a bank account for marketplace payouts, whose legal entity is verified with Stripe. See verifying your identity with Stripe.
The checklist only lists the steps for the channels a kitchen sells on.
How to find and fix a missing step
1. Open your Kitchens page from Operations in the menu. Find the kitchen under Inactive kitchens. Its Setup column counts the steps that are done. Hover over the count to see what’s left. Here, Midtown East Kitchen still needs Business hours, Menu, Team, and In-house settings.
2. Click Finish Setup. The checklist opens on the first missing step. The top of the page says Setting up until the kitchen can take orders anywhere.
3. Fix the step. Here, every day was closed, so we clicked Every day and set the hours from 9 AM to 7 PM. Then click the button at the bottom of the page, which names the next missing step: Continue: Menu.
4. To skip ahead, click any step in the checklist beside the page. Here, Menu is missing only for the marketplace, so we skipped it and opened Team.
5. On Team, check who covers each area, then click Confirm. Here, you’re the only person on the account, so one Confirm covers all three areas. If an area has nobody, click Assign (see managing your team). Click Continue: In-house settings.
6. On In-house settings, this kitchen already pays out to your bank account. Click Continue: Marketplace settings to confirm it.
7. Check the top of the page. In-house now says Active, so this kitchen can take orders through your own ordering page. Marketplace still says Setting up, because none of this kitchen’s active menus is approved by CaterCow for the marketplace.
8. Click Kitchens at the top of the page to go back to your Kitchens page. The kitchen is now under Active kitchens. Its marketplace column says Not taking orders until CaterCow approves one of its menus.
How a kitchen’s status changes
- We re-run the checks regularly. If a step stops passing, that channel says Not taking orders, and the kitchen’s row shows a Fix Kitchen button that takes you to the fix. Hover over the status to see why. A kitchen that can’t take orders anywhere goes back to Inactive kitchens. For example, this happens when the only teammate who got order notifications leaves your team, or when every day is closed in Business hours.
- If you don’t want one of the channels, turn it off under Two ways to take orders on the kitchen’s Kitchen information step. Its status then reads Off, and the checklist stops asking for that channel’s steps. For example, a kitchen that takes in-house orders only doesn’t need a marketplace menu or a Stripe-verified bank account.
- To stop a kitchen from taking any orders, deactivate it instead. Both channels then read Off, and its page says Deactivated. See how to manage multiple kitchen locations.