Availability

Four separate controls decide whether a customer can order something. They stack rather than override each other, and reaching for the wrong one is the usual cause of “why is this still showing?”.

Control	Scope	Effect
Disable an outlet	Whole outlet	Removed everywhere, indefinitely — including the register
Pause an outlet	Whole outlet	Online orders stop; the outlet stays listed and the register keeps selling
Disable a catalog entity	One menu, category, product, add-on group or option	Hidden from the catalog entirely
Sold out an product	One product	Still visible, greyed out, cannot be added

Hidden and sold out are different on purpose

A disabled product disappears; a sold-out one stays visible and greyed out. Use sold out for “we’ve run out today” — customers who were looking for it can see it exists and come back. Use disable for something you no longer sell at all.

Pausing versus disabling an outlet

This is the distinction worth learning properly, because the blast radius is very different.

Pause is the temporary one. The outlet stays listed, staff can keep serving walk-ins and taking orders at the register, and only online ordering stops. You can pause until you reopen it manually, or pick 1 hour, rest of today, tomorrow, or a custom time up to seven days out — and add a reason, which customers see.

Disable is the indefinite one. The outlet is de-listed everywhere and the register stops selling too. Use it for a location that is closed for refurbishment or not launched yet, never for a busy Friday night.

Both are available from Dashboard → Network → Outlets (/outlet/list-fb) and from inside the outlet at Outlet Home (/outlet/manage/:outletID/home). Staff can pause from the partner app and the POS register as well, so the kitchen can stop the queue without calling you.

Operating hours are not an availability control

Hours describe when you serve, and they do not block ordering — that is what lets customers place a pre-order for tomorrow at eleven o’clock tonight. If you need ordering to actually stop, pause the outlet.

Turning catalog items on and off

Every level of the catalog can be switched off independently — the menu, a category group, a category, an product, an add-on group, and an individual add-on option — one at a time or in bulk, from the catalog builder.

Disabling a parent hides everything under it. Disabling one category is the fastest way to take a whole section off for a day.

Disable until

Any of those toggles can carry a re-enable time instead of being switched off indefinitely: 1 hour, rest of today, tomorrow, or a custom time. The product comes back on its own, so nobody has to remember.

This is the right tool for a section you stop serving mid-service — a lunch menu after 3pm, a dessert case that empties by nine.

Sold out

Marking an product sold out leaves it visible but unorderable. Staff can do this from the partner app, the POS register (the “86” action) and the kitchen display, which matters because the person who discovers the shortage is rarely sitting at a dashboard.

Sold out also accepts a timed re-enable, so “86 the salmon until tomorrow” is one action rather than a note to self.

Stock

Stock is the only one of the four that counts. It is off unless you turn on Track item inventory in the outlet’s Override section, and once on, an product with no stock left behaves as sold out.

Treat stock as inventory, not as a switch: if you just want something unavailable right now, mark it sold out. Setting stock to zero to hide something mixes two meanings and makes your inventory numbers meaningless.

Per-channel availability

An product can be available on some channels and not others, without touching its overall availability. Each product carries a price book with separate entries for delivery, pickup, dine-in and kiosk — and each of those can be marked unavailable independently.

That is how a large sharing platter stays on the dine-in catalog and off the delivery one.

A service-day routine

1. Before open — check nothing was left disabled or sold out from yesterday. Timed re-enables have already lapsed on their own.

2. During service — staff mark things sold out from the partner app, POS register or kitchen display as they run out. If the kitchen falls behind, pause the outlet rather than disabling it.

3. At close — nothing to do. Pauses with an end time and timed disables clear themselves.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause
A sold-out product is still orderable	Check the right outlet — availability is per outlet, not global
Customers can order while you are closed	Hours do not block ordering. Pause the outlet
An product vanished instead of greying out	It was disabled rather than marked sold out
A whole section disappeared	Its category or the menu above it is disabled
Stock changes do nothing	Track item inventory is off for that outlet
Something came back on its own	It carried a timed re-enable — that is the feature working
The register can still sell a paused outlet	Correct. Pause stops online ordering only; use disable to stop everything

Related: Building your catalog · Prep time · POS register · Order lifecycle