Two seatings, two clocks
Eight seats at five thirty and six seats at eight are two courses running at once. Without the system holding them apart, the itamae is the only record of where everyone is.
Industries · Food and beverage
Payments for sushi restaurants, from the counter to the fish invoice
Two seatings running at different speeds, a menu that is partly written that morning, and an ingredient whose usable weight is never the weight on the invoice. Very little of that is what a general restaurant system was built for.
The service, end to end
What a counter service asks of the system
Six places a sushi restaurant and its software fall out of step.
Fish costed at yield, not at invoice
Costing against purchased weight overstates every piece on the board. Costing against yield tells you whether a course is carrying itself, and it makes the collars and trim visible as the product they are.
Market-list items, named that morning
Rebuild the menu every morning and no two Tuesdays can be compared. One fixed category with an open item and a count from the delivery keeps the history intact.
Routing by item class
One check, two stations. Standard POS capability, frequently unconfigured, and the reason a shared check gets read twice by two people.
Shellfish flags on the ticket the cook reads
At a counter the itamae is often told directly, which works for the seat in front of them and not for the roll going to table nine.
Lot references tied to the sale
Your food safety plan defines the record. The system's job is to hold the reference against the item so the two can be produced together during an inspection.
Buying guide
Before you sign anything for a sushi counter
Seven questions worth asking any provider, us included.
Can it run two seatings on two clocks?
Ask to see a counter view with two sequences at different courses.
Does inventory support a yield conversion?
Ask to configure one whole fish with a usable-weight factor. If it only counts units, you cannot cost a counter.
How are daily items added without breaking history?
Ask what a report looks like across two weeks of changing specials.
Can items route to the counter and the kitchen from one check?
Ask for the routing rules screen, not a description of it.
Where do allergen flags print?
On the production ticket or nowhere. Confirm which.
Can a delivery or lot reference be attached to an item?
Ask how it appears at inspection time.
What is the export when you leave?
Recipes, yields and guest histories are the asset. Ask for the format up front.
Questions
Sushi restaurant questions we get asked most
How does an omakase counter keep two seatings paced separately?
By treating each seating as its own sequence with its own clock. Eight seats that started at five thirty and six seats that started at eight are two courses running at once, and the itamae is pacing both by hand unless the system holds them apart. The workable version shows the counter, seat by seat, which course each guest is on.
Can the system track fish by fabrication yield rather than by weight bought?
That is the only version worth having. A whole fish comes in at one weight and yields a much smaller usable weight after breaking down, and the difference is not waste, it is the trim, collars and scraps that become staff meal or a special. Costing against the purchased weight overstates every piece; costing against the yield is what tells you whether a course is working.
How do daily market-list items get onto the menu without rebuilding it?
As an open item under a fixed category, named that morning. The category holds the reporting, the name changes daily, and the count is what the delivery brought. Rebuilding the menu every morning is how sales data becomes uncomparable between two Tuesdays.
Where do parasite-destruction and freezing records live?
With your food safety plan, not in the POS. What the POS can do is hold the lot or delivery reference against the item so a record and a sale can be tied together during an inspection. We will connect the two where your plan already defines the record; we do not write the plan, and any provider who offers to should be asked who signs it.
Should the sushi bar send tickets to the kitchen or work direct?
Both, routed by item. Nigiri and hand rolls belong at the counter in front of the itamae; the hot kitchen items on the same check belong on the kitchen screen. Routing by item class is a standard POS capability and it is the single configuration that keeps a shared check from being read twice.
Talk to someone who has worked a counter
Tell us about your restaurant
Four fields. A person reads it, looks at what you are running now, and comes back with what they would actually change.
The promise
We will implement whatever is right for you — including keeping what you have. If your counter runs well and the only real gap is yield costing on the fish, that is one part of one system, and that is all we would change.
Payco · Industries · Food and beverage · Sushi restaurant
Two free tools, before you talk to anybody
Both are open to anyone, and neither needs more counter space than a phone.
- Answer the boarding questions Tell it you take omakase deposits, run bar tabs and send takeout out of a small exacting counter, and it returns a starting configuration sized to that footprint.
- Get a free statement audit Send a month with a full booking week in it. Deposits taken weeks earlier settle on different lines from the meal itself, and we will name both.
Last updated: 2026-08-17