Automating a Choyxona: Topchans, Hookah, Plov and 20+ Tables

Three choyxona pains: distance, piecemeal orders, sold-out plov

The first pain is distance. The last topchan sits 60 metres from the kitchen. A guest raises a hand, Dilshod doesn't see it, the guest raises it again. Five minutes. In the evening all 25 topchans are full and Dilshod walks 12 kilometres a day.

Second: piecemeal orders. A choyxona guest never orders just once. Tea, then samsa, then plov, then hookah from a different staff member. Every time a call, every time a wait. The paper bill gets muddled at the end: 'It was two teas, not three'.

Third: plov. It goes into the kazan at 12:00 and runs out by 14:30. But a guest arrives at 15:00, sees plov on the menu, orders it, hears 'we're out'. That repeats ten times a day.

A QR menu for outdoor topchans, not a tablet

Tablets don't suit a choyxona. Sun, dust, spilled tea, children. Collecting 25 tablets to charge every evening is a separate job. And the price: 25 × 100 000 = 2 500 000 UZS a month plus the hardware.

A QR is different. A metal plate on every topchan: chorsu-osh.qr.lacafe.app/topchan-17. The guest scans with their own phone, the menu opens, tea goes in the cart, the order is placed. An hour later they add plov to the same bill. The plate lasts five years, the slug never changes, nothing gets reprinted.

Cost: 25 topchans × 10 000 = 250 000 plus the 500 000 branch base, 750 000 UZS a month. Switch the outdoor hall off for winter and those tables aren't billed.

Calling the hookah attendant: routing by staff type

In a choyxona the waiter and the hookah attendant are different people. A guest wants fresh coals, calls the waiter, the waiter goes looking for the kalyanchi. Two steps. In laQR, when a guest taps 'Call', they choose the staff type: waiter, hookah attendant, barman. The call goes straight to the right person.

Where does the call land? A push on Dilshod's laWaiter phone, only for his hall. And in the Telegram group: 'Topchan 17 — hookah'. With forum topics enabled, it drops into the 'Outdoor hall' topic. Even if the kalyanchi has no laWaiter, he has Telegram.

• Waiter call → Dilshod (outdoor hall)
• Hookah call → the kalyanchi on Telegram
• Bill request → Dilshod plus the cashier
• Call statistics in reports: which topchan calls most, average response time

Plov timing and the stop-list: a sold-out dish leaves the menu

The plov is gone: the cashier taps 'Plov — stop' in laBoard or the admin panel. Plov vanishes from the QR menu on all 25 topchans. A guest arriving at 15:00 doesn't see it, orders lagman, and isn't disappointed. In the morning the stop is lifted and plov returns.

Stop-list history lives in the reports. If plov ran out at 14:30 on 22 days in a month, the answer is clear: you need a second kazan. The menu engineering report (profit × popularity) shows which dish deserves a bigger batch.

With iiko, the stop-list comes from there and nobody taps anything. Compared with Dastur-xon or BROS: they have QR menus too, and for a small choyxona 99 000 UZS or $15 is cheaper. The difference is iiko/r_keeper, an offline till, and staff-type call routing.

Cash and Payme: paying at a choyxona

At a choyxona half the payments are cash. The guest taps 'Request bill' in the QR, Dilshod brings it, takes the cash, closes it in laWaiter. The other half is Payme or Click. The guest pays right in the QR, the table closes, and Dilshod never has to walk over.

For the till, a laBoard tablet is enough: 100 000 UZS a month, with the laBranch server inside. No separate PC needed. When the internet drops (choyxonas sit on the city's edge, so it happens), laBoard and laWaiter keep working on local Wi-Fi. The QR, though, depends on the guest's mobile data.