Customer ordering — how it all flows

Every order moves through these states:

1. Pending — customer placed it; awaiting your acknowledgement
2. Accepted — you confirmed; kitchen knows
3. Preparing — being cooked
4. Ready — waiting for pickup or driver
5. Delivered — done (auto-triggers payout window)

Two terminal states: Cancelled (by customer or you) and Rejected (by you — out of stock, kitchen closed).

At each transition the customer gets:

• An email with the new status + items + total
• An SMS (if you have an SMS provider configured — Twilio / Vonage)
• A push to the live order tracker at /track/{tenantId}/{orderId}?email={email}

The kitchen sees every new ticket on the Kitchen Display System (coming soon).

• Pickup — customer collects from the restaurant. No address required.
• Delivery — driver delivers. Address + zone validation required.
• Dine-in — customer is at a table. QR-pay flow handles the bill.

Customers pick the type at checkout. You can disable any of the three under Settings → Ordering.

After checkout, customers get a "Track this order live" button on the confirmation page. The tracker page (/track/[tenantId]/[orderId]) polls every 4 seconds while the order is live and shows a 5-stage progress bar + full event timeline + ETA + share/copy links + self-cancel button (within the escrow grace period).