Guides 7 min read
How to Run Café Promotions Without Losing Your Margin
Most café promotions feel successful and lose money. The break-even formula and a few rules separate a real win from a busy, unprofitable day.
The Tany blog
Mobile ordering, loyalty & growth
Practical guides for independent cafés and restaurants running on Square — from the team building branded ordering apps that go live in 24 hours.
Square How-Tos 25 Guides 19 Loyalty & Retention 14 Apps & Technology 8 Delivery & Direct Ordering 8 Marketing 7 Operations 7 Local SEO 6 Mobile Apps 3 Square How-To 3 Payments & Fees 3 Payments 3 Marketing & Growth 2 Customer Retention 2 Gift Cards 1 Payments & Tipping 1 Comparisons 1 Marketing & Retention 1 POS Comparisons 1 Growth & Marketing 1 Mobile Ordering 1
Square How-Tos 8 min read
How to Read Your Square Sales Reports (Café Guide)
Square already collects everything you need to run a tighter café. Here are the five reports worth opening every week and what to do with each.
Payments & Tipping 8 min read
Do Mobile Orders Get Fewer Tips? Tipping on Square
An honest look at tipping on pickup and mobile orders: how to turn it on in Square, what actually moves the tip rate, and where a branded app helps.
Mobile Apps 7 min read
Publish a Restaurant App to the App Store & Play
Developer accounts, the $99 and $25 fees, review timelines, and the rejection traps — plus how a done-for-you app gets published without you touching Xcode.
Comparisons 6 min read
Square vs Shopify for Café Online Ordering
Shopify is built for shipping products; Square is built for serving food. Here's the honest pricing-and-fit comparison for a café taking pickup orders.
Operations 7 min read
How to Manage Online Orders in Your Square Kitchen
Online orders land in the same Square system as in-store sales. Here's how to route them to a display or printer, set prep times, and throttle the rush.
Apps & Technology 8 min read
PWA vs. Native App for Restaurant Mobile Ordering
A PWA is cheaper and skips the app stores; a native app gets a real home-screen icon and reliable push. Here's how to choose for a café on Square.
Apps & Technology 7 min read
Square Hardware for Cafés: Reader, Stand or Register?
Reader, Stand, Terminal, Kiosk, or Register? A plain-English buying guide to Square hardware for a café, with current US prices and what each is actually for.
Payments & Fees 6 min read
Can Cafés Charge a Credit Card Surcharge? Canada & US Rules
What's legal, what's capped, and whether passing card fees to customers actually helps a café—or just costs you goodwill.
Guides 6 min read
How Long Does It Take to Launch a Restaurant App?
A realistic, no-hype timeline for getting a branded café app live—and why most of the wait is app store review, not coding.