Until recently, service at Enigmi Secret Bar in Vasto ran the old-school way: classic pen-and-paper pads.
Paper is dependable, but during a chaotic Saturday night in a dim speakeasy, the cracks started showing fast: hard-to-read handwriting, waitstaff constantly sprinting between tables and the bar just to drop slips, and stressful mental math trying to split bills alla romana.
Traditional cloud POS systems were out of the question: if the Wi-Fi hiccups or the internet drops during peak service, everything halts. So I decided to build Comanda Next: a high-performance, local-first POS and Kitchen Display System (KDS) tailored specifically for the venue.
What I Built
Everything runs entirely on the bar’s local network, executing every action in under 50ms with zero internet dependency:
- Waitstaff Mobile App (
/sala/): An installable PWA replacing paper pads. Waiters select tables, tap products, add custom prep notes (“extra dry”, “no ice”), and fire tickets straight from the floor. - Dual Touch KDS (Kitchen & Bar): Dedicated touchscreens for prep stations (
/kds-cucina/and/kds-bar/) with audio chimes and color-coded urgency timers. - Cassa & Split-Bill Tool (
/cassa/): Rapid table checkout featuring a one-tap equal-split calculator to settle group tabs in seconds. - Smart Stock Deduction (
/magazzino/): A built-in Bill of Materials engine that automatically deducts recipe quantities (flour, mozzarella, spirits, mixers) on every order. - PIN Access Hub (
/): Instant operator switching with a numeric PIN pad, displaying only the tools allowed for each role. - Silent Cloud Backup: An async SQLite queue that pushes sales records to Supabase in the background whenever an internet connection is available, without ever slowing down local operations.
Tech Stack Under the Hood
To keep things lightning fast on low-power tablets and local touchscreens:
- Fastify v5 & WebSockets: For sub-50ms real-time event broadcasting across stations.
- SQLite with WAL mode (
better-sqlite3): Runs in-process with zero network roundtrips and ACID reliability. - React 19, Vite & Tailwind CSS: High-contrast, dark-mode touch interfaces designed for dimly lit bar environments.
- Standalone Portable Runtime: Bundled into a zero-install executable that launches in a single click on standard cash-register hardware.
How It Turned Out
Switching from slips to Comanda Next was a game-changer for the team: no more running tickets back and forth, zero drink mix-ups, and bulletproof peace of mind even if the Wi-Fi drops completely.
It proved to me that modern web tech doesn’t have to rely on fragile cloud connections to be powerful. What do you think of this local-first approach?