GloriaFood Review: Is It Right for Your Business?

The days of having to worry about over-extending your credit card limits are gone, as GloriaFood offers a more secure way for you to pay small and large bills. With different plans with varying features, we look at whether this is the app for your business.

GloriaFood is a food delivery service that has been in business since 2013. The company provides its customers with the best possible experience and are constantly innovating to create new, exciting products for their customers.

GloriaFood is a restaurant software platform with online ordering and reservation features that may be used together or individually. Because the basic functionalities are absolutely free to use, you may take your time testing this system. GloriaFood is on a mission to deliver cheap software for small, independent restaurants, including restaurant point-of-sale (POS) connectors, marketing tools, and courteous customer service.

When Should You Use GloriaFood?

GloriaFood is a breeze to integrate into your restaurant’s website. This platform is fantastic for restaurants on a budget since there are no monthly membership fees or commissions.

GloriaFood is especially recommended for:

• Restaurants that need to utilize their current payment processor to accept online orders: In our review of online ordering software, GloriaFood’s online ordering capabilities received a 3.74 out of 5 grade. Because of the low cost and the ability for restaurant patrons to bring their own payment processor, it received great praise.
• Restaurants that need free reservation software include the following: One of our favorite free reservation systems is GloriaFood’s. It is compatible with iOS and Android smartphones and provides contactless prepayment options.
• Free software for mom-and-pop restaurants: The GloriaFood platform is completely free to use. GloriaFood is a fantastic partner for restaurants looking for free reservations or online ordering solutions.
• Food trucks: Keeping expenses under control is a continual concern for food trucks, therefore GloriaFood’s free and low-cost tools will be ideal.

When GloriaFood Isn’t the Right Fit

• High-volume delivery restaurants: If your restaurant receives a large number of delivery orders, you’ll benefit from the more sophisticated dispatch features given by a built-in POS online ordering system like Toast.
• Multi-location restaurants: While GloriaFood will work for a multi-location restaurant, you’ll want to use a comprehensive POS-built program like Revel Systems for the more powerful central reporting features.
• Restaurants that charge a fee for canceling a reservation: The GloriaFood reservation system is unable to take payments in conjunction with bookings. Check out Resy if you wish to take cancellation fees or hefty party deposits.

GloriaFood Costs

GloriaFood operates on a “freemium” model. The basic program is free, but additional features may be purchased to expand its capabilities. You won’t have to pay GloriaFood anything if all you want to do is take food orders and bookings from your restaurant’s website. You will, however, need to add that feature if you wish to take online payments with your online food orders.

Add-Ons

Although GloriaFood’s add-on features are reasonably priced, some of them may seem too rudimentary to warrant a premium. This system, on the other hand, guarantees that little mom-and-pop eateries don’t have to pay for services they won’t utilize. Restaurants that only accept cash or wish to avoid higher card-not-present processing costs don’t have to pay for something as simple as online payments. GloriaFood’s a la carte pricing structure makes it ideal for small businesses such as food trucks and local takeout joints.

Payments

You have the option of using GloriaFood’s online ordering and reservation services without taking any online payments or adding a payment processor. GloriaFood merely serves as a link between your restaurant and whichever merchant account provider you pick if you desire to accept online payments. If you already have a payment processor, you may utilize it, or you can establish an account with one of the available payment gateways, such as Stripe or PayPal.

Being able to bring your own processor may make a huge difference in terms of accessibility. Small eateries with limited margins may choose to exclusively take cash payments in person. Open and connect a Stripe account if you want to take a low-risk look at the procedure.

Hardware

You may use any internet browser to access your GloriaFood dashboard. The app for accepting orders is available on Google Play and the App Store. For maximum functionality, GloriaFood suggests installing the order-receiving app on a dedicated device with a strong, consistent internet connection. It also recommends that you keep the charger plugged in at all times, turn off standby mode, and keep the app open in the forefront.

Features

GloriaFood links your restaurant’s website to a mobile app through a plug-in. The GloriaFood plug-in is available directly in the WordPress app store, which makes the product especially useful for WordPress. GloriaFood’s platform now has over 10,000 active WordPress users.

If your website is not hosted on WordPress, you’ll use a simple HTML code downloaded from your GloriaFood admin page to add your online ordering and reservation buttons to your website. The majority of restaurant proprietors will be able to manage the setup. However, if you hire a designer to maintain your website, they’ll take care of the back-end settings for you.

GloriaFood contains, in addition to the online ordering and reservation capabilities we’ll go over in-depth later, the following:

• Ordering using a QR code: GloriaFood allows you to turn on a QR code that connects to your online menu. This enables you to take contactless orders from inside your company. By leveraging consumer cellphones as self-ordering kiosks, QR code ordering is a simple method to develop your business.
• GloriaFood produces an optimized link for Facebook sharing, allowing you to include a “buy now” button on your Facebook profile. You may add the option to execute sales campaigns for an extra monthly membership. Client segmentation is included in this subscription plan, allowing you to construct customized marketing campaigns.
• Website optimized for sales: The GloriaFood team can simplify your website for an extra $9 per month to guarantee greater search engine presence.
• Customer management: When your customers purchase or make a reservation, GloriaFood asks them to register their contact and payment information, which is then available for future bookings and orders.
• You may provide your consumers with a branded mobile ordering app. This app will include your restaurant’s branding and logo and will be available in smartphone app stores.
• GloriaFood offers an open application programming interface (API), which allows you to link it to other restaurant software that also has an open API.

Online Ordering

• Manual order approval: You must approve each order before it is printed, ensuring that your kitchen is never caught off guard.
• Allow advance orders: Allow orders to be placed days or weeks ahead of time.
• Massive modifiers: Modifications and add-ons appear as simple checkboxes to traverse.
• Allow payments online or in-person: Decide whether you accept online payments or demand that all orders be paid in advance.
• Pickup or Delivery: Give customers the choice of picking up their items or having them delivered.
• Google Maps: Use Google Maps to help you guide and monitor your drivers.
• Set up as many custom delivery zones as you require, along with the associated expenses.

The GloriaFood menu setup wizard leads you through every step, ensuring that you’ve included all of the important details. GloriaFood provides a library of basic photos that you may use if you don’t have images for all of your menu items. Multiple modifiers, add-ons, and combination building are also supported. When a client makes an order, you’ll get an email and a notification on your GloriaFood dashboard. From the GloriaFood dashboard, you can confirm or refuse orders, as well as provide consumers with an actual pickup or delivery time.

From your mobile device, accept or deny online orders. (Image courtesy of GloriaFood)

Customers will see a confirmation on their order page and get a full email confirmation with their receipt after you accept their purchases. If you prefer to provide delivery, GloriaFood enables numerous delivery zones with adjustable order minimums and delivery prices. The technology also works with Google Maps to offer driving instructions and exact delivery timings to consumers.

Reservations

• Customize party size: Set minimum and maximum party sizes so you’re never caught off guard by unexpected guests.
• Set a hold time for your reservation: Determine how long tables will be held for latecomers.
• Set the number of days ahead of time that clients may make bookings.
• Allow reserved visitors to connect their food order to their reservation so that your kitchen has a better idea of what to anticipate.

The reservation system at GloriaFood is rather rudimentary. Although the program enables you to take bookings via your restaurant’s website, it does not include a system for processing reservations after guests arrive. If your restaurant uses a manual method for seating and monitoring tables, this will not affect your operations. GloriaFood, on the other hand, will seem a bit crowded if you’re looking for anything to replace an end-to-end reservation and table management system like OpenTable or Resy.

GloriaFood offers an easy-to-use online reservation system. (Image courtesy of GloriaFood)

GloriaFood, on the other hand, has a lot to offer small restaurants with a decent analog table management system. You have complete control over what party sizes you accept bookings for and how far ahead of time clients may make reservations. You may also enable guests who have made a table reservation to order their meals ahead of time. All of these features are available for free.

Marketing

• Built-in coupon templates may be used to produce banner adverts for your website.
• Customer segmentation: Create personalized promotions by categorizing consumers by order frequency, total expenditure, or other custom criteria.
• Reporting and analytics: Keep track of your promos to figure out which ones are working.
• Heatmaps of delivery: To generate new business, concentrate your advertising efforts on locations with slow delivery times.

A monthly membership is required to access some of GloriaFood’s marketing features. However, at $19 a month, the cost is quite affordable. Small restaurants on a budget may take use of promotional techniques that would otherwise be out of their grasp for that low price. Customer segmentation allows you to define unique categories for monitoring client activity and then pitch each customer type with tailored offers. Basic banner ad campaigns, such as providing a percentage off a big purchase quantity, are included in the GloriaFood package, which is available for free.

Heatmaps depict the origins of your delivery orders. (Image courtesy of GloriaFood)

If you utilize GloriaFood for delivery, you may get a heatmap report that reveals where regions of town place the most orders. Identifying locations with a low number of delivery orders will help you determine where a discount in a local door hanger campaign would have the greatest effect. GloriaFood keeps track of all of your promos so you can identify which ones are generating new sales.

Integrations

GloriaFood features an open API that enables restaurant operators to integrate the program with third-party applications. Restaurant owners who aren’t tech-savvy, on the other hand, will almost certainly need to hire a software designer to finish the connections. GloriaFood features various useful, pre-built third-party connectors if you don’t have the technical resources to construct an API interface yourself.

These are some of the integrations:

• Delivery and driver management services: Shipday, Tookan, GetSwift, and OrderLord.
• Third-party delivery systems: Ordermark and ItsaCheckmat.
• POS systems: SambaPOS, DinePlan, MobiPOS, Joy POS.

GloriaFood provides a backdoor POS integration if your desired POS isn’t included on the integration list. You may utilize the intermediate app ItsaCheckmate to input your GloriaFood online orders straight into any of ItsaCheckmate’s 40+ POS systems.

Among the popular point-of-sale systems are:

• Toast
• Revel
• SpeedLine
• HungerRush

GloriaFood’s User-Friendliness

• Setup on your own: Fill out essential details to obtain same-day bookings and orders.
• Option for guided setup: For a price, have the GloriaFood staff build up your menu.
• GloriaFood will call to notify you if the system encounters any problems.
• Extended customer service: Customer care representatives are accessible Monday through Friday, 24 hours a day.

GloriaFood is quite simple to use. When you initially log in to the GloriaFood dashboard, the platform asks you to fill out all of the required fields. The menu system is also very user-friendly. GloriaFood comes with pre-built menu templates for a variety of popular cuisines, including pizza, burgers, Indian, and Italian. You may utilize the GloriaFood dashboard’s bank of enticing food photographs if you don’t have photos of your menu items. If you don’t have the time to put up your menu yourself, you may request a bespoke quotation from the GloriaFood team to do it for you.

If you have any issues, you can contact the GloriaFood staff through in-app chat. Monday through Friday, the chat line is manned 24 hours a day, and Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern time. If the GloriaFood platform encounters any technical issues, the system will automatically produce a phone call to notify you.

What Users Have to Say About GloriaFood

Small, independent eateries that can’t afford online ordering and bookings software are GloriaFood’s biggest supporters. GloriaFood users like this free restaurant management software. Positive GloriaFood reviews may be found anywhere.

• GloriaFood has a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Capterra, based on 37 reviews.
• Based on 8 reviews, G2: GloriaFood has a 5 out of 5-star rating.
• The order-taking app has a rating of 4 out of 5 stars on Google Play, based on 912 reviews.

The option to add ordering and reservation links to their restaurant websites and Facebook pages is quite popular among users. The platform’s hardware flexibility is also appealing to restaurant operators. After upgrades, some users have reported that the program has difficulties. Many people want admin controls on the smartphone app as well. These problems are insignificant in the context of a powerful, free restaurant software application.

Conclusion

GloriaFood’s online ordering and reservation software are free to low-cost, allowing small, independent eateries to compete with huge restaurant chains. You may use this versatile program from any internet-connected device, bring your own payment processor, and just take cash orders. If you want more assistance, you may pay a nominal price for services such as a sales-optimized website. Go to GloriaFood.com.’s website to discover whether it’s a good match for your business and to get started for free.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Gloria foods make money?

Gloria Foods is a privately owned company that produces food products for grocery stores. They are not publicly traded and do not release their earnings.