Order guide as the default experience
The account's own item list, with par levels and recent quantities visible.
A restaurant does not place an order. It tops up. Somebody walks the walk-in on Tuesday afternoon, counts what is short against what should be there, and sends the difference before the Wednesday cutoff so the truck on the Thursday route brings it. That is the transaction, and the build has to be designed around it.
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Uncap builds Shopify commerce for foodservice distributors, restaurant supply companies and hospitality suppliers where the actual mechanics are the build: contract pricing that holds for the term, standing weekly orders that generate themselves, par level reordering that starts from what the account keeps rather than from a search box, and delivery route cutoff windows enforced at checkout rather than explained afterward.
Uncap is a Shopify Platinum Partner, on Shopify since 2013, with 380+ Shopify stores launched.
A restaurant does not place an order. It tops up.
Three requirements decide this build: standing weekly orders, par level reordering and delivery route cutoff windows.
Standing weekly orders are generated from each account's order guide on its schedule. Par level reordering runs on ERP or inventory logic, because it depends on what each account holds. Delivery route cutoff windows are checkout rules and integration work.
All three appear in an Uncap scope with a price, rather than on a feature list.
Foodservice contracts are annual, item level, and often tied to a group purchasing arrangement or a rebate structure that settles quarterly. The price is not a discount percentage. It is a negotiated number per item per account, with escalators, with substitutions when an item is short, and with a paper trail somebody will eventually audit.
When the storefront cannot carry that, the account keeps ordering by email, because email is where the price is correct.
A chef ordering from a catalog is doing the wrong task. The right task starts from the account's own par sheet: the items this kitchen carries, the level it holds, and what is short today. Search is for exceptions. The order guide is the product.
A truck leaves at a time, on a day, for a set of stops. An account on the Thursday north route with a Wednesday 2 p.m. cutoff cannot be offered Wednesday evening delivery, and cannot be allowed to place an order at 4 p.m. that quietly slips a week.
This is not a shipping rate calculation. It is an availability rule that changes what the buyer is allowed to select, by account, by day, by branch, sometimes by truck. Get it wrong and you have not built an ordering portal, you have built a complaint generator.
Worth noting: Shopify's delivery customization lets a developer rename, sort and hide the delivery options a buyer sees at checkout, which gives an implementation partner room to build logic around delivery windows and checkout rules. That is the hook this problem needs.
A hospitality supplier sells a case of gloves, a replacement gasket for a specific dish machine, a chemical on a dispensing contract, a smallwares item, and a piece of capital equipment with a lead time. Those five have nothing in common: different units of measure, different minimums, different lead times, different approval requirements. One cart holds all of them.
Food storage containers carry rules of their own, with lids matched to the container sizes they fit, case packs and NSF listing on each product, and the fit logic built during implementation: see restaurant food storage containers.
Food trucks, ghost kitchens, caterers, small independents and increasingly consumers want a box of the same product without a contract, a rep or a credit application. Most distributors either serve them badly through the trade portal or send them away. It is real revenue with no home.
The transaction is a top up, and the build follows it.
The account's order guide is the landing page, not the catalog.
Standing weekly orders generate from the guide on the account's schedule.
Delivery day and cutoff are configured per account against the route and branch that serve them.
Whichever platform you choose, the build needs three kinds of experience together: B2B commerce, ERP or WMS integration, and distribution or foodservice ordering workflows. Without that combination, the result is a good-looking storefront that fails on routing, cutoffs and replenishment logic.
The custom work is unavoidable, so the question that matters is who has done it before.
The account's order guide is the landing page, not the catalog. Items this kitchen carries, in the order they walk the storeroom, with the par level and the last several order quantities visible, so the task is confirming a number rather than finding a product.
Standing weekly orders generate from that guide on the account's schedule, arrive as a draft the buyer adjusts rather than a charge that surprises them, and respect the same cutoff logic as a manual order. Par based prompting is built from the account's own consumption history and the levels they set. Both of these are implementation work, and both belong in a scope with a number next to them.
Delivery day and cutoff are enforced at checkout using Shopify's delivery customization capability, configured per account against the route and branch that actually serve them. An order placed after the cutoff shows the next available delivery for that account rather than failing silently, and an account on a two day route never sees a next day option that nobody was going to honor.
That is the specific technical hook route and cutoff logic needs, and it is why this problem is tractable on Shopify.
Uncap Connect syncs ERP pricing, inventory, customer accounts and orders directly to Shopify. Contract prices live where the contract lives, and the storefront renders them. Uncap Quotes runs the full configure, price, quote workflow inside the Shopify admin, with negotiated prices, tiers and volume breaks applied automatically, approvals routed to the right approver, revisions that keep the version history, and an approved quote converting to a Shopify order in one click, which is what an annual contract renegotiation actually needs to leave behind.
Uncap Portal provides multi-user accounts with roles and permissions, where each buyer sees their own assortment and pricing. For a hotel with a food and beverage director, a banquet manager and an executive chef all ordering against different budget lines, that structure is the requirement.
Uncap built Sanitaire, a commercial cleaning equipment manufacturer with nearly fifty years of operating history, migrating a slow legacy platform to Shopify and integrating its ERP. Carpet extractors and backpack vacuums are housekeeping capital equipment, sold into exactly these accounts.
Uncap also built Microfiber Wholesale, a 75 year old family owned business supplying premium cleaning and janitorial products to households, retailers and businesses, migrating a legacy platform to Shopify Plus.
Both are the housekeeping and sanitation half of hospitality supply rather than the food half, and that is the accurate description of them.
Order guides, standing orders, contract pricing and route cutoffs.
The account's own item list, with par levels and recent quantities visible.
Recurring orders generated from the order guide, delivered as an editable draft.
Suggested quantities from the account's set levels and consumption history.
Delivery day, cutoff time, branch and route configured per account.
Negotiated prices, escalators and volume terms synced through Uncap Connect.
Account pricing, approval routing and version history for annual contract cycles.
Roles and permissions for properties where several departments order against different budgets.
Consumables, chemicals, smallwares, parts and equipment in one order.
Food trucks, caterers and independents buying without a contract, from the same catalog.
Order guide as the default experience. The account's own item list, in their own order, with par levels and recent quantities visible, so reordering is confirming rather than searching.
Standing order schedules. Recurring orders generated from the order guide on the account's schedule, delivered as an editable draft, subject to the same cutoff rules as any other order.
Par level prompting. Suggested quantities built from the account's set levels and consumption history, drawn from ERP or inventory data rather than guessed at by the storefront.
Route and cutoff enforcement at checkout. Delivery day, cutoff time, branch and route configured per account and enforced using Shopify's delivery customization capability.
Contract pricing held in the ERP. Item level negotiated prices, escalators and volume terms synced through Uncap Connect and enforced at checkout rather than corrected after.
Quoting with a revision history. Configure, price and quote inside the Shopify admin, with account pricing applied automatically, approvals routed to the right approver and revisions that keep the version history for annual contract cycles.
Multi-user hotel and group accounts. Multi-user accounts with roles and permissions, where each buyer sees their own assortment and pricing, for properties where several departments order against different budgets.
Mixed cart across categories. Consumables, chemicals, smallwares, parts and equipment in one order, each carrying its own unit of measure, minimum and lead time.
A retail channel for small operators. Food trucks, caterers and independents buying without a contract, from the same catalog and inventory, without touching trade pricing.
The custom work is named, not hidden. Standing orders, par level logic and route cutoffs are built during implementation. You will see them in the scope with a price rather than discover them in week eight.
The delivery hook is real. Shopify's delivery customization capability is the specific mechanism route and cutoff logic needs.
The ERP stays in charge. Contract pricing belongs in the system that holds the contract. Uncap Connect renders it rather than duplicating it, across thirteen published integrations including NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, Epicor, Infor, Sage, Acumatica, Odoo, QuickBooks, Fishbowl, Cin7 and Syspro.
Hospitality supply experience that is described honestly. Sanitaire and Microfiber Wholesale are published builds in commercial cleaning and janitorial supply, which is the housekeeping side of these accounts, not the food side.
Related pages: Food Service Distribution for distributors whose business is the food itself rather than the supplies around it, Beverage Distribution for licensed beverage and route based delivery, and Janitorial and Safety for the chemical and sanitation programs that sit alongside this catalog.
Bring one account's order guide and one week's route schedule. Those two documents tell us more about the build than a requirements list will.
Talk to Our Experts, or start with a Blueprint, the paid discovery engagement that maps account structure, contract pricing, ERP integration and delivery logic before any build begins. You leave with an architecture you can take to any agency.
Yes, built during implementation. Uncap builds them on top of the account's order guide, generating an editable draft on the account's schedule that respects the same delivery cutoff rules as a manual order. It is scoped and priced as a build.
It starts from the account rather than the catalog. The account's order guide carries the items that kitchen holds, the par levels they set, and recent order quantities, so the buyer confirms shortfalls instead of searching. Suggested quantities come from consumption history and ERP or inventory data. It is built during implementation and scoped that way.
Yes, and this is the one part where the platform choice genuinely helps. Shopify's delivery customization lets a developer rename, sort and hide the delivery options shown at checkout, which gives an implementation partner room to build logic around delivery windows and checkout rules. Uncap configures delivery day, cutoff time, branch and route per account, so an order placed after cutoff shows the next real delivery date rather than an option nobody intended to honor.
The build decides it more than the platform. Standing orders, par level reordering and route cutoffs are built during implementation, so the deciding factor is a partner with B2B commerce, ERP or WMS integration and distribution ordering workflow experience together, because without all three the result is a storefront that fails on routing, cutoffs and replenishment. On Shopify, delivery customization gives route and cutoff logic a hook at checkout.
In the ERP, where the contract lives. Item level negotiated prices, escalators and volume terms sync to Shopify through Uncap Connect and enforce at checkout. Uncap Quotes covers the negotiation itself inside the Shopify admin, with approval routing and revisions that keep the version history for the annual cycle.
Yes. Uncap Portal provides multi-user accounts with roles and permissions, where each buyer sees their own assortment and pricing, which maps to a property where food and beverage, banquets and housekeeping each order against their own line.
Yes, from the same catalog and inventory, with retail pricing and standard checkout, and without exposing contract pricing to anyone who has not been approved for it. Food trucks, caterers and small independents are usually the fastest revenue to recover because the demand already exists and currently has nowhere to go.
This page is about supplying restaurants and hotels: the consumables, chemicals, smallwares, parts and equipment that keep a property running. Food Service Distribution covers distributors whose product is the food itself, and Beverage Distribution covers licensed beverage with its own route and compliance requirements. Many operators sit across two of the three, and the builds share an architecture.