Is there a way to limit item or category availability depending on time of day? ex. Breakfast

[mksavage]

For online ordering, there needs to be a feature that allows restaurants to limit the availability of certain items depending on the time of day. For example, if your breakfast menu is only available until 3pm, there needs to be an option to make these items unavailable after 3pm.

[Divide]

I am setting up my online store and was hoping to make certain items only available at certain times or days. For example we have Prime Rib on Saturdays and that is only available on Saturdays. Also I have Dinner items not available before 5pm.

Is that possible?

[Alex_]

Hi @Divide,

Thanks for reaching out. Currently the ability to offer items at specific times is a feature request.

We definitely see how it could benefit your business model. Our teams are constantly looking through our seller's feedback to make necessary improvements, and we will be sure to let you know if anything ever changes or if new updates are released. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions by replying to this thread. 

[KingstonBread]

Just adding my name here because we would love to use this request also. Please know this would be very helpful, and would appreciate any update as to if/when this might become available! 

[cafesoha]

I haven't been able to schedule certain items. We have to manually go in each time and change an item to either "hide" it or make it "visible"

[West94thstpub]

I'm trying to set up a lunch menu and dinner menu, can you set times for each menu's?

[nika]

Hi and welcome to the Seller Community @West94thstpub.

Regrettably there's not a way to do this, and is considered a feature request at this time. You can stay up to date on any changes around this feature here.

Thanks for posting and please let us know if any other questions come up!

[xyz]

We hoped to be able to limit when particular food items could be ordered during the business day.

Business hours are set for the page in ->Pickup & Delivery : Accept Pick up orders : Hours 11am-6pm Mon-Fri.
10 minute prep time
scheduled pick up allowed

Lunch Category created with food subcategories - Set pickup and delivery order window = Mon-Fri 11am-3:45pm

Dinner Category pickup and delivery order window = Mon-Fri 4pm-6pm.

I am unable to put a lunch item in my cart today for a future day of the week - I thought I was able to do that when testing previously??

This morning (Sunday - not within business hours) I was able to put a Dinner item in my cart - and after entering customer data - I could
select a pick up day from Monday - Friday and the time options were 4pm to 6pm. Which is what I wanted it to do!!

..... but......

Now (later in the day Sunday) - when I attempt to put the same item in my cart - it is NOT selectable and says "Next Available Monday 4:00pm" - I cant put the item in the cart for any day of the week to pre-order it like I could this morning.

Additionally - I created a Daily Special category with one item and left time restrictions off - presently I can add that item to the cart (today - Sunday) but the pick up times range through all operational hours of 11am-6pm.

Anyone able to implement this type of set up?

Summary:

- Lunch Items with time limits 11am-3:45pm cannot be added to cart on Sunday for future date orders.

- Dinner Items with time limits 4pm-6pm cannot be added to cart for future dates (however when testing one time this morning it did work!?)

- Menu items with no time limits can be put in cart today for future dates -  available for pick up through all business hours

thanks for input!

[AshleyK]

Hey! Thanks for taking the time to post this and share your feedback. I've merged your post with an existing thread to help keep all this feedback in one place. 

[cafesoha]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Parameters for Breakfast Category

I do not want to offer my Breakfast Sandwiches category after 11am on my website. Is there a way to set a parameter to automatically stop offering that item after 11am? 

[JustinC]

Hey @cafesoha  - 

Setting times restrictions for when food items are available is not doable with the Online Store. Your best bet is to to include the time frame in the item description sections so your customers know when your breakfast menu items are offered. 

[cafesoha]

Thank you

[eight]

I know how to apply business hour to the store but is there any way to add cutoff time on certain items?  Like 11AM for breakfasts, 3PM for lunch specials, and such.  I looked everywhere but couldn't find such options.

[JustinC]

There isn't way to configure cut off times for items in the Online Store right now. A popular request though. I'm moving your post to our Feature Request board so our Product Team can track. 

As a work around, you can manually make items unavailable from the Items Library tab of the Online Store Dashboard:

1. Select the items that are no longer sold for the day.

2. Hit the three dots in the top right corner

3. select Mark as Unavailable

When they're ready to be sold again, just mark them available. I hope this helps! @eight

[eight]

I appreciate your comment on this.  Marking individual item unavailable on daily basis is just way too much work.  I was hoping to see if there is a way to update the status by category but it doesn't seem like is doable either.  The fact that we can't construct our menu properly based on the time is really frustrating.  As matter of fact, we are considering to switch over to another service just for that reason.  Hopefully, dev team can address this issue quickly.

[isabelle]

Hey there! 👋

Just making sure you saw the launch of our Time-Based Categories feature.

[isabelle]

Good news ✨ I've got an update on this feature request...

We've launched Time-Based Categories for Square Online! You can learn more about it here. 

[sugarlab]

This sounds like an awesome feature but it's not an option for me. There's no section for it when I edit the category. Did it go away?

[Alex_]

Hello @mksavage,

Thanks for your post.

Currently this ability/setting is not available and is a feature request. We definitely see how it could benefit your business model. Our teams are constantly looking through our seller's feedback to make necessary improvements, and we will be sure to let you know if anything ever changes or if new updates are released. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions by replying to this thread. 

[mksavage]

Thank you for the reply @Alex_ - do I need to do anything special to request the feature be considered, or will this post serve as a request?

[Alex_]

@mksavage

No worries! This post will be sufficient. We will escalate your request to the appropriate teams and make sure your voice is heard.