Restaurant Internet Down? A 10-Minute Checklist

First 2 minutes: find out what is actually down

Is it everything, or one device? If one register or tablet is offline but others work, the problem is that device or its WiFi connection, not your internet. Restart that device first.
Check a phone on the business WiFi. If it connects to WiFi but can’t load a website, the internet line is down. If it can’t even join the WiFi, the problem is your router or access points.
Look at the modem lights. No power light means a power problem: check the plug, the power strip and the breaker. A blinking or red connection light usually means the problem is on the provider’s side.

Unplug the modem, then the router (if they are separate boxes). Wait 30 seconds.
Plug the modem back in first and wait until its lights settle, often 2 to 5 minutes. Then plug in the router, then any switches or access points.
Restart in that order only. Powering everything up at once is a common reason the network “still doesn’t work” after a reboot.

Call your provider’s business support line, or check their outage page from your phone’s data, to confirm an outage and get an estimated fix time.
Switch to a backup. If you have a backup line, confirm it took over. If not, a phone hotspot can carry a register or two in an emergency; keep guest devices off it.
Know your POS offline rules before you need them. Many POS systems, Toast included, offer an offline mode, but whether cards can be taken offline, and the limits and risks of doing so, depend on your settings. Check those settings with your POS provider, or with us, on a calm day.
Write it down. Date, time, how long, and what fixed it. Three outages in a quarter is a pattern, and your provider owes you an answer.

Safety first: never open the modem or work on wiring yourself. If the outage is caused by a cut cable outside, the provider has to fix it.

A second internet line from a different carrier, or 4G/5G cellular backup, with a router that switches over automatically.
A small battery backup (UPS) on the modem, router and network switch, so a power blip doesn’t take the network down for ten minutes.
Payments-first traffic rules, so guest WiFi never slows down your card readers.
Monitoring, so someone knows about the outage before your manager does.

We set all of this up for you, and test the switch-over with you before we call the job done. See backup internet.

A second line, 4G/5G or satellite failover and automatic switching, so outages don’t close you.

Setup, menu builds, modifier logic, troubleshooting and integrations with Olo and delivery apps.

Help desk, devices, network, security and backups, handled by one accountable team.

A free audit of your search, ads, site, POS and network, with the fixes in priority order. No pitch deck, just the list.