Ordercube

Ordercube GmbH develops a smart waiter call system for hospitality venues. The core product is an LED cube placed on each table that doubles as an electronic candle replacement; guests tap a sensor field marked SERVICE or PAY, after which the cube changes colour along a configurable time-based gradient so staff can see both who needs attention and who has been waiting longest. The same signal is mirrored to the Ordercube app on a smartphone, smartwatch or tablet, giving servers and owners a live table overview and chronological notification list.

Beyond the call function, the system bundles a table plan, food-runner and pager function, theft protection, reservation and feedback tools, live tracking, and NFC delivery of the menu to a guest's smartphone in place of a QR code. Cubes connect over Bluetooth (described as Bluetooth mesh with unlimited range), are weather-resistant for indoor and outdoor use, and each carries a unique ID assigned to a table through the app. Batteries last roughly two to three weeks and recharge via a wireless charging station (six hours to full, up to 20 stations linkable) or USB-C. The app allows configuration of colours, brightness, time intervals, colour profiles, employee accounts, push notifications and theft protection, and reports anonymized statistics such as average waiting time, occupancy, sequence duration, interactions and active server counts.

The company positions the system for restaurants, bars, hotels, wellness areas, cafés, casinos, amusement parks and ship restaurants, and states the product is manufactured in Munich and the surrounding area as a "Made in Germany" product.

Founding story

Ordercube GmbH was founded in 2016 by Daniel Pasternak and Igor Suslov after the founders repeatedly failed to get a waiter's attention in a crowded restaurant, where a single server handled roughly 20 occupied tables. They observed that hungry guests may leave without ordering, costing the operator both revenue and online reputation, and that airline-style call buttons had solved a similar problem. Because an extra button on an already crowded table was not viable, they focused on the obligatory table candle and replaced it with a light element carrying an additional call function.

Business model

Hardware combined with SaaS: customers either rent the Ordercube, which includes continuously updated software, or purchase the hardware and pay a low monthly software licence fee. Tablets are included with orders, along with one smartwatch per ten cubes, and the minimum order quantity is ten cubes with no maximum. Support and a structured onboarding programme covering the first 28 days after installation are part of the offering.

Revenue comes from rental of the cube hardware including software, or from hardware sales paired with a recurring monthly software licence.

Traction

Roughly 10,000 Ordercube units are stated to be in operation in restaurants, hotels, bars and cafés. An earlier founder interview cited close to 50 restaurants, 12 of them in Berlin. The Android app lists more than 1,000 downloads.

Latest developments

The company's website reports approximately 10,000 units in operation and markets rental or purchase-plus-licence models, an NFC-based menu feature replacing QR codes, and a structured demo and onboarding process. The Ordercube Android app continues to receive updates, including changes to waiting-time and offline logic, sorting fixes and firmware-update list handling.