The hardware your till runs on is one of those decisions that feels technical and turns out to be practical. It shapes what your kit costs, how it copes with a busy kitchen, and how easily you can change things later. The two real options for an independent are a traditional terminal or an iPad, and the choice is genuinely a trade-off, not a clear win either way.
This is the honest version, downsides included. For choosing a till more broadly, the EPOS guide covers the rest.
The case for traditional terminals
A traditional EPOS terminal is purpose-built for the job. Its strengths are real and worth respecting. It is durable, made to survive a hot kitchen and the occasional knock, and the hardware tends to last for years. There is also a solidity to it, a bolted-down permanence that some operators value and that can feel reassuring on a chaotic night.
The honest downsides: it is more expensive, both to buy and to add to, you are usually tied to a specific supplier's hardware and repair timeline, and it is less flexible. Adding a station for a busy weekend is a purchase and an installation, not a quick decision. And the software on traditional systems tends to update less often, so you live with what you bought for longer.
The case for iPad EPOS
An iPad till comes at it from the other direction. The hardware is a consumer tablet, which sounds like a weakness and is partly a strength. It is cheap to buy and cheap to replace, your team already knows how a tablet works so training is faster, and you can add a station by buying another iPad rather than booking an engineer. The software typically updates more often, so the system improves under you over time.
The honest downsides are equally real. A consumer tablet is not built for a hot, wet, busy environment, so it needs a proper case and a charging routine, and it will not survive neglect the way purpose-built kit might. And because it leans on a network connection, you are relying on the software to handle a dropped connection without falling over. An iPad EPOS with a poor offline mode is a genuine liability. An iPad EPOS with a good one is not.
The thing that matters more than the hardware
Here is the part the hardware debate usually misses. Whether you choose a terminal or a tablet, the single most important question is what happens when the internet drops, and that is a software question, not a hardware one. A beautifully built terminal running software that stops at an outage is worse than an iPad running software that carries on. The hardware is the body. The software is whether it keeps working when conditions get difficult, which in a restaurant they reliably do.
So do not let the hardware choice distract you from the real test. Ask any provider, terminal or tablet, exactly what happens during a connection drop, and do not accept a vague answer. The honest ones will tell you plainly.
So which should you choose?
For most independents opening or refitting now, an iPad system wins on cost and flexibility, provided the software is genuinely robust and has a real offline mode. You get cheaper, more flexible hardware your team already understands, and you give up some of the rugged permanence of a terminal in exchange. If your environment is especially punishing, or you simply value the bolted-down solidity, a traditional terminal is a defensible choice and not a wrong one.
What you should not do is choose on hardware alone. Choose on the software, then pick the hardware that suits your room and your budget.
Where Grace fits
Grace runs as a native iPad EPOS, built for the tablet rather than ported onto it, which means it is designed around the strengths and the limits of the hardware. It keeps working through a connection drop because the offline mode is built in, not bolted on, and it feeds one guest record so the till is doing more than ringing sales. You get the cost and flexibility of iPad hardware with the robustness a service demands. You can see the EPOS module for how it works.
It is built this way because I have watched a till stop dead at an outage on a Saturday, and the lesson was that the hardware was never the point. If a feature cannot survive a Friday night, it does not ship, and that starts with surviving a dropped connection.
FAQ
Is an iPad EPOS as reliable as a traditional till?
It can be, but reliability comes from the software more than the hardware. A traditional terminal is built to take a knock, while an iPad needs a decent case and a charging routine. The bigger question for either is whether the software keeps working when the internet drops. - q: "Is iPad EPOS cheaper than a traditional system?" a: >- Usually to buy and to replace, yes, because the hardware is a consumer tablet rather than purpose-built kit, and you can add a station without a service call. Whether it is cheaper overall depends on the software licence and card rates, so compare the full cost, not just the hardware. - q: "What are the downsides of an iPad till?" a: >- A consumer tablet is not built for a hot, wet, busy kitchen, so it needs protecting, and you are relying on the software handling connection drops gracefully. Choose good cases, a charging routine, and software with a genuine offline mode and those downsides are manageable.