Restaurants and cafes in Egypt are experiencing rapid growth, with over 400,000 establishments nationwide, including 140,000 in Cairo alone. This surge can be attributed to a growing middle class, increasing disposable income, and a diverse array of dining options.
However, restaurant owners face numerous challenges, including intense competition, rising operating costs, inflation, heightened customer expectations, and the escalating prices of ingredients and supplies.
Digital transformation plays a crucial role. A modern cashier system allows for real-time digital menu updates, inventory management, and sales tracking. This system enables data-driven decision-making and facilitates payment acceptance and processing across multiple channels without the need for expensive infrastructure. As a result, it enhances the overall customer experience while significantly reducing operational costs.
Studies show Egypt’s food service market reached nearly $9 billion in 2024, with projections it could double to $18.14 billion by 2029. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.94% during 2024-2029 period.
In this article, we will explore Foodics’ cloud-based cashier system and the major challenges facing the restaurant and beverage sector in Egypt. We’ll also show you how this cashier system can help address these issues.
What is a cloud cashier system?
A cloud cashier system, also known as a cloud point-of-sale (POS) system, is a modern and advanced version of traditional POS systems. It uses the internet to store data, providing restaurant and café owners with greater flexibility and control over their daily operations.
Cloud POS systems offer secure data storage online, enable remote management, and allow users to access various reports instantly. Additionally, the software can be updated and expanded quickly and easily.
What are the most important challenges facing Egyptian restaurants in 2025?
The restaurant and café sector in Egypt is grappling with several complex challenges that impact profitability and sustainability. Here are the most critical challenges:
1. Inflation and rising costs
Inflation and the continuous rise in prices pose significant challenges for restaurants in Egypt. The costs of ingredients, rent, and operational services are continually increasing, which squeezes profit margins.
This forces restaurants to either raise prices or compromise on quality, affecting customer satisfaction and overall business continuity.
2. Labor management difficulties
Restaurants struggle to find and retain qualified workers due to intense competition and high wages. Training new employees and ensuring excellent service present ongoing challenges, especially given the long and unconventional work hours.
High turnover rates lead to increased recruitment and training costs. To manage expenses, restaurant owners often hire younger workers, which can negatively impact the quality of service provided.
3. Financial tracking challenges
Many restaurants in Egypt face difficulties with weak financial tracking tools, particularly when relying on traditional or manual systems.
This hampers performance analysis, makes it harder to detect waste or theft, and complicates accurate cost control.
These issues negatively affect financial decision-making and reporting, such as budget creation or reporting to investors and government agencies.
4. Integrating online ordering with delivery service providers
With technological advancements and changing consumer habits, online ordering and delivery services have become essential to the restaurant experience in Egypt.
Many customers depend on these services for food delivery at work or home. Restaurants that do not adopt these channels risk losing significant market share.
The challenge extends beyond merely providing the service. It involves achieving seamless integration with various delivery apps (such as Talabat, Elmenus, etc.) or developing restaurant-specific platforms, which can be costly for many small or new establishments.
5. Rising customer expectations
Customer expectations for the restaurant experience are at an all-time high. Simply offering good food is no longer sufficient. Customers now demand prompt service, high-quality experiences, and accurate order fulfillment.
Any minor mistake could lead to negative reviews, ultimately harming the restaurant’s reputation.
How cloud-based cashier systems solve these issues
Cloud cashier systems come with essential features that help restaurants and coffee shops tackle various challenges.
1. Remote management
The cloud cashier operates as a restaurant management system (RMS). It helps owners manage one or more restaurant branches from anywhere via the internet.
They can monitor sales performance, control menus and prices, track inventory, and evaluate employee performance across all locations. They can also compare sales performance or reports by day, week, month, or year, or compare performance across branches.
This streamlines operations, saves time and effort, and ensures consistent policies across all locations.
2. Real-time sales and inventory tracking
The cloud cashier system updates sales and inventory data in real-time with every purchase carried out inside the restaurant, online, or via a delivery platform.
This allows restaurants to monitor stock levels and receive alerts when supplies are low. It also helps them identify the dishes and beverages with the highest demand.
This reduces waste, improves purchasing and restocking, and prevents sudden shortages, ensuring business continuity.
3. Simplified financial reporting
The cashier system integrates seamlessly with accounting solutions, making it a powerful tool for streamlining financial reporting and management for restaurants. It automatically collects data on sales, ingredient costs, operational expenses, and other financial information.
This functionality facilitates the quick and easy generation of accurate financial and POS reports, such as profit-and-loss (P&L) statements, cash flow reports, and item performance analyses.
This reduces errors and provides a clear view of the restaurant’s financial health, aiding in sound financial decision-making.
4. Integration with delivery platforms
The software integrates with various food delivery platforms, like Talabat, Elmenus, Mrsool, and others in Egypt.
The system consolidates orders from various food delivery platforms into a single interface, simplifying order processing and reducing entry errors. Some systems even allow direct management of menus and prices across these platforms.
5. Loyalty programs and CRM
Restaurants can easily create and manage loyalty programs. It also includes a customer relationship management (CRM) system, which lets you create customer profiles and track their preferences, visits, and purchasing habits.
This helps restaurant owners create personalized promotions, build lasting customer relationships, and enhance customer loyalty.
6. Data-driven decision making
The restaurant cashier system collects a massive amount of data and turns it into actionable insights. Managers can analyze sales patterns and identify profitable items, by day, time-of-day, week or month, or all the above.
This helps them make strategic decisions about menu adjustments, inventory management, and employee scheduling.
Challenges of using restaurant tech in Egypt
Restaurants in Egypt encounter several challenges that can hinder their adoption of cloud-based cashier systems. These challenges include the high-value subscription fees, usually in dollars or other hard currency, concerns about internet outages, and the necessity for local support, among others.
Here are some of the most significant challenges facing Egyptian restaurants and how using cashier systems helps address and overcome these challenges:
- Offline cashier system: In the event of an internet outage, the system continues to operate offline and automatically synchronizes data once the internet connection is restored. This ensures that sales are not interrupted and that no data is lost.
- Arabic language support: The Foodics cashier system offers full support in Arabic, in addition to English and French. This includes the user interface and reports, which benefits small restaurants and cafes. It enhances training efficiency and reduces the time needed for staff to learn the system.
- Compliance with Egypt’s e-invoicing regulations: Egypt has made it mandatory to comply with e-invoicing regulations. Modern POS and cashier systems can issue electronic invoices that meet the requirements set by the Egyptian Tax Authority (ETA).
This simplifies accounting processes, reduces errors, saves time, and enhances both transparency and financial efficiency for restaurants.
The competitive advantage: How Egyptian restaurants prepare for the future?
Here are several ways cashier solutions are helping Egyptian F&B businesses including restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, and sweets shops.
Supporting expansion and growth with the franchise system: Modern systems help restaurants expand through the franchise business model. This involves standardizing operations and procedures to ensure a consistent customer experience across all branches. Advanced technological systems allow for efficient management of all locations.
Enhancing business attractiveness to investors: Accurate and transparent financial reports enhance a project’s appeal to investors. A cloud-based cashier system provides increased credibility through structured data and insightful reports.
Adapting to new trends such as QR-code menus, Kiosks, and AI: Restaurants and cafes are continually evolving, embracing new trends aimed at improving customer experience and increasing operational efficiency.
Cashier systems are adapting to these trends by incorporating features such as:
- QR code menus: Customers can browse digital menus on their smartphones by scanning a QR code. This reduces reliance on printed menus and makes menu updates much easier.
- Self-service kiosks: These kiosks allow customers to place orders and pay via interactive touchscreens, reducing stress on staff, speeding up service, and minimizing errors. Self-service kiosks can also help boost sales through recommendations.
- Artificial intelligence: Some advanced systems leverage AI to analyze data and provide recommendations on optimal times for promotions, suggest popular items, or even predict future demand for specific ingredients, thereby enhancing operational and marketing efficiency.
Foodics cashier system: Customer reviews in Egypt
Many Egyptian restaurants and cafes use Foodics’ cashier system. Here is what some of those owners have had to say about their experience using Foodics’ cashier, POS, and restaurant management system.
Chickin Worx
Farouk, the owner of Chickin Worx, Egypt’s highest-rated restaurant with over 1,000 reviews since 2019, decided to invest in the Foodics RMS. His primary goal was to collect customer data to better understand customer ratings, track visitor numbers, and enhance customer retention, whether for first-time or repeat visits.
‘The Foodics cashier system has proven effective in helping the restaurant achieve a customer retention rate of over 35%,’ he said. It allows the collection of orders and customer experiences, while also enabling Farouk to track sales, order details, and identify errors remotely without needing to be physically present in the restaurant.
Farouk states that Chickin Worx relies “entirely” on Foodics because it helps them focus on enhancing the customer experience. With plans to expand and open new branches across Cairo, Foodics will remain their primary system and POS.
Tortina
Ahmed Abdel Latif, owner of Tortina, renowned for its unique and unconventional sweets, highlighted the significant role Foodics’ solutions have played in their success. Tortina has 15 branches in Cairo and 10 on the North Coast, making efficient management crucial.
“The Foodics cashier system has allowed us to efficiently monitor the performance of all our branches and provides accurate analytics for each product. The integration feature that Foodics offers with other applications we use has streamlined many processes, saving us time and effort,” Abdel Latif revealed.
To conclude
Given the intense competition and operational challenges, adopting a cloud-based cashier system is essential for the growth and sustainability of restaurants, cafes, and confectioneries in Egypt.
These systems facilitate seamless sales and inventory management, streamline financial and accounting processes, and provide business owners with valuable data and reports. This information enables informed decision-making that can enhance profitability and improve the customer experience.
Additionally, the cashier system integrates directly with delivery platforms and loyalty programs, allowing restaurants to excel and adapt to market changes, ensuring their success and longevity.
Are you ready to start your restaurant’s digital transformation journey?
Don’t let challenges impede your business growth. Experience Foodics’ cloud-based cashier system for yourself and elevate your restaurant’s efficiency, profitability, and customer service.
