TheFork and Allvio, put against the same 43 capabilities a venue needs from restaurant management software in a normal week. TheFork is included on ten, does part of the job on three at no extra cost, answers three with a plain no, leaves one that their published material does not settle, and sits outside twenty six. Start with that twenty six, because it is what the page is really about and it is not a complaint. TheFork is a marketplace with a diary attached. It is not trying to be a till, a roster or an ordering page, and any table that scored it as though it were would be useless to you.
What TheFork is genuinely good at
Filling a quiet Tuesday. TheFork inherited Dimmi's Australian venues and sits inside Tripadvisor's diner reach, so people who have never heard of you can find you, compare you and book you tonight. No amount of guest history does that. If your problem is empty covers midweek rather than admin, this is a real answer, and their promotions tool exists for that job: discounts you can pitch by day, by time and by number of covers.
The restaurant booking system underneath it holds up too. Seven of the eight reservation rows are included: the diary itself, the floor plan and table assignment, bookings from your own website, deposits and no show protection, the waitlist and walk ins, confirmations and reminders, and availability rules and trading hours. Ticketed events and set menus is the one nobody can settle from the outside, because what they document is discount based special offers rather than a bookable set menu, so the honest answer there is to check with them. Visit and spend history and notes, preferences and allergies are both included. Reporting on your phone is a row they win outright: their manager app carries statistics, performance, promotions and reviews, and Allvio's reporting runs in a phone browser with no native app yet. Allvio also takes deposits at booking without charging a no show or late cancellation fee automatically, so that row is theirs.
Capability | TheFork | Allvio |
|---|---|---|
Selling and taking payment | ||
Touchscreen till for counter and table service | Not what it does | Yes |
Card, cash, split and part payments | Not what it does | Yes |
Table plan and open tabs | Not what it does | Yes, no floor plan designer |
Kitchen screens or dockets | Not what it does | Yes |
Stock counts and low stock alerts | Not what it does | Part of it, stock moves with sales |
Discounts, happy hour and price levels | Not what it does | Yes |
Gift cards | Not what it does | Yes |
Refunds, voids and exchanges | Not what it does | Yes |
Cash up and end of day | Not what it does | Yes |
Online ordering | ||
QR ordering at the table | Not what it does | Yes |
Pickup and takeaway from your own site | Not what it does | Yes, commission free |
Menu built and changed in one place | Not what it does | Yes |
Modifiers, sizes and dietary flags | Not what it does | Part of it, no nested modifiers |
Online payment and split bills | Not what it does | Part of it, no online bill split |
Upsells and promo codes | Not what it does | Part of it, no automatic upsells |
Orders land straight in the kitchen | Not what it does | Yes |
Bookings and reservations | ||
Booking diary | Yes | Yes |
Floor plan and table assignment | Yes | Part of it, no visual floor plan designer |
Bookings from your own website | Yes | Yes |
Deposits and no show protection | Yes | Part of it, deposits but no automatic fees |
Waitlist and walk ins | Yes | Yes |
Confirmations and reminders to guests | Yes | Yes |
Ticketed events and set menus | Check with them | Part of it, no ticket pricing tiers |
Availability rules and trading hours | Yes | Yes |
Knowing your customers | ||
One customer record | Part of it, included | Yes |
Visit and spend history | Yes | Yes |
Notes, preferences and allergies | Yes | Yes |
Segments such as regulars and lapsed | Part of it, included | Yes |
Loyalty and rewards | Not what it does | Yes |
Marketing | ||
Email campaigns | No | Yes |
SMS campaigns | No, email is their only channel | Yes |
Automated messages such as birthday and win back | No | Yes |
Campaign results tied back to spend | Part of it, promotion level insights | Yes |
Your team | ||
Rostering | Not what it does | Yes |
Clock in and out | Not what it does | Yes |
Timesheets ready for pay | Not what it does | Yes |
Leave and availability | Not what it does | Yes |
Staff app on their own phone | Not what it does | Part of it, phone browser, no native app |
Back office | ||
Invoices and quotes | Not what it does | Yes |
Payroll and payslips | Not what it does | Yes |
GST and BAS figures | Not what it does | Yes |
Seeing how you are doing | ||
Sales and end of day reporting | Not what it does | Yes |
Reporting on your phone | Yes | Part of it, phone browser, no native app |
Four rows that decide it
Marketing is the first and the biggest. Their own published material names email as their campaign channel and SMS campaigns appear in no plan they sell, which is why the SMS row is a documented absence rather than a guess. Measured the way this table measures it, whether you can build a branded campaign off the guest record and have a birthday or win back note send itself, TheFork comes back as no on three of the four marketing rows, with campaign results doing part of the job through promotion level insights across the past fifteen months. Allvio sends email and SMS campaigns from the same record the diary uses and shows what the people who opened them went on to spend.
One customer record is the second, and it does part of the job. She books through the marketplace and TheFork knows her. Your register knows a card and a coffee order. Those are two people with one face until somebody types one of them into the other. In Allvio there is one contact, keyed on email and phone, that the diary, the till and the ordering page all read from.
The third is the menu. TheFork holds no menu, so the steak going up four dollars is a change in the till, then the ordering page, then the website, then the printed list, done after close on a Thursday. A public holiday is the same story with trading hours. In Allvio the register and the ordering page read one menu, and sessions and hours are set once.
The fourth is the twenty six themselves: the till, card and cash handling, kitchen dockets, cash up, QR ordering, takeaway off your own site, loyalty, rostering, clock in and out, timesheets, leave and sales reporting. Every one is a separate signup, a separate setup and a separate place your prices and your staff have to be kept current. Invoicing, payroll and the books also sit inside the Allvio subscription, and that is the only mention they get.
Where the twenty six comes from
From what the product is for, and nothing else. A marketplace that also tried to run your kitchen printer would be worse at both jobs. Narrow is often deep, and TheFork's reach is deeper than anything we could build. What the count tells you is where the work and the money go: somebody has to buy, set up, pay for and maintain the other twenty six capabilities, and somebody has to keep the woman on table six recognisable across all of them. There is a second thing worth weighing while you are there. Marketplace covers carry a commission for each diner on top of a monthly fee, so her fortieth visit is charged like her first, and Australian rates are not published, which makes the sum hard to do yourself, and hard to weigh against no commission restaurant bookings taken on your own site.
Who should stay with TheFork
A metro restaurant with tables to fill on the nights locals stay home, and margin enough to pay for the strangers who fill them, should keep TheFork and work the promotions properly. That is the job it does better than we do. The arithmetic changes when most of your room is people you have already met. Allvio Complete is $399 per month ex GST for one location with every app switched on, plus $299 per month per extra location, with no charge per cover, and the trial runs 30 days with no card.
Every cell above comes from each vendor's own published material, checked in August 2026. Products change constantly: always confirm current capability directly with each vendor before deciding.