Describe your menu, service date, and the choices guests need to make. Makeform turns the details into a restaurant pre order form that collects each diner's meal, options, dietary notes, and arrival or pickup time before the kitchen starts prep.
Send pre orders to Google Sheets, Slack, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the builder
Choose a complete prompt, tailor it to your menu, or send it into the Makeform builder. Each structure is an editable example, not a live kitchen order.
Audience
Guests attending a fixed-menu private dinner
Format
One form per guest with conditional courses
Prompt size
386 chars
Example form structure
One form per guest with conditional courses
Guest and booking party name
Choose your starter, main, and dessert
How should your steak be cooked?
Allergies or dietary requirements?
I confirm these meal choices
Suggested routing tags
Dine-in events
Group meals
Pickup orders
Use conditional logic to show side, doneness, and allergy follow-ups only after a guest selects the relevant dish.
Step 1
Share
send one link to guests or organizers
Step 2
Choose
collect meals, options, and dietary notes
Step 3
Sort
group responses by dish, party, or time
Step 4
Prepare
give the kitchen a clear advance count
Why collect choices early
A restaurant pre order form replaces message threads and handwritten lists with structured selections. Each response connects a guest to a dish, its options, dietary notes, and the correct sitting or pickup window.
Required menu choices produce a consistent list that can be sorted and totaled, helping the kitchen plan ingredients and prep by course rather than decoding free-text messages.
Conditional logic can reveal doneness, sauce, side, portion, or add-on questions for the selected item while keeping unrelated options out of the guest's way.
Send submissions to the restaurant inbox and route the response data to the team's preferred workflow, so late entries and special notes are visible before service.
Flexible service formats
Start with the service pattern closest to yours, then replace example dishes, dates, instructions, and response tags with the details your front-of-house and kitchen teams actually use.
Collect course choices for weddings, rehearsal dinners, birthdays, and ticketed suppers, with the booking party attached to each guest.
Use company, department, coach, table, or organizer references so a large list stays grouped when responses arrive individually.
Present a short fixed menu with dish descriptions and conditional accompaniments instead of making guests type orders from scratch.
Combine package quantities, add-ons, customer contact details, and available collection windows for holiday meals or grab-and-go service.
Pre order workflow
Describe what guests may order, add the details needed to match each selection to a reservation, and publish a form your diners can complete on any device.
Tell Makeform the event or visit date, courses, item descriptions, allowed quantities, service format, and the deadline. The generator builds a practical starting structure from that brief.
Replace sample items with the current menu, mark essential questions required, add dietary wording approved by your team, and use conditional branches for item-specific preparation options.
Publish the form and send it to diners, the booking contact, or an event organizer. Put the deadline and edit instructions in both the invitation and the form itself.
Review submissions in Makeform or send them to Google Sheets, Slack, or Zapier. Sort by course, dish, party, seating, or pickup window to create the view each team needs.
Form vs messages vs spreadsheet
The difficult part is not asking what someone wants. It is keeping identity, menu selections, modifications, and timing together as answers arrive and the menu changes.
Field guide
Build the form around the decisions your kitchen needs before prep and the references front-of-house needs during service. Six focused sections keep the order complete without turning it into a long survey.
Guest identity
Start with the guest's name and a shared booking reference. For group events, that might be the host, company, tour, table, or ticket name. A phone or email gives staff a route for questions without making the kitchen identify people from dish notes.
Menu choices
Use one required choice per course or package and give each option the same name the kitchen uses. Short descriptions help guests decide, while fixed choices prevent spelling variations from splitting totals for the same dish.
Preparation options
A follow-up should appear only when it applies. Steak can reveal doneness, a bowl can reveal a protein, and a meal package can reveal add-ons. This produces consistent preparation notes without inviting unsupported custom requests for every menu item.
Dietary information
Ask about allergies and other dietary requirements in a dedicated section instead of mixing them with preferences. Let guests explain relevant details, and add restaurant-written guidance about how staff will review requests and contact the diner when clarification is needed.
Date and service
State the event, visit, or pickup date inside the form. If multiple seatings or collection slots are available, use controlled options rather than open text so staff can filter responses without interpreting times written in different formats.
Deadline and confirmation
Display the response deadline before submission and repeat the important service details in the confirmation message. A checkbox can ask the guest to review names, dishes, quantities, and notes before sending, while a response copy gives them a useful reference.
Related tools
Use a focused form for the adjacent job: a standard restaurant order, catering inquiry, reservation, holiday package, healthy meal plan, or grab-and-go collection.
Build a broader order form for menu items, customer details, and fulfillment choices.
Open toolCollect party size, seating date, time, and reservation contact details before a visit.
Open toolQualify catering requests with event details, headcount, menu interests, and service needs.
Open toolOffer seasonal packages, quantities, add-ons, and collection choices for holiday service.
Open toolStructure meal selections around plans, portions, preferences, and recurring customer details.
Open toolReserve prepared meals in advance and collect the details needed for organized pickup.
Open toolFAQ
Practical answers for restaurant teams collecting meal choices ahead of an event, group visit, or pickup.
A restaurant pre order form lets diners select meals before a scheduled event, group visit, or pickup. It connects each guest's identity and booking reference to dishes, preparation options, dietary notes, and service timing, giving the restaurant a consistent response list before prep begins.
Include guest name, contact detail, booking or group reference, one structured choice for each course, relevant preparation options, separate allergy and dietary questions, and the event date or pickup window. Add the response deadline, review checkbox, and change instructions near submission.
Yes. Conditional logic can show doneness only for steak, side choices only for mains that include them, or add-ons only after a package is selected. This keeps the form shorter and produces preparation notes that map cleanly to the chosen item.
Give allergies and other dietary requirements their own clearly labeled questions, plus space for the guest to explain. Use wording written by your restaurant, explain how the team reviews requests, and provide a direct contact route when a diner needs to clarify what can be accommodated.
Yes. You can ask each diner to submit individually with the same company, tour, table, or host reference, which is usually easier when everyone chooses their own meal. For a small order entered by one organizer, use repeated item and quantity questions and collect guest names where the kitchen needs labels.
Put the deadline prominently in the introduction, invitation, and confirmation. Explain how guests should request a change after submitting and who to contact when the cutoff has passed. Export or tag the response list at the deadline so staff know which version is being prepared.
Yes. Makeform is unlimited free for generating, editing, publishing, and collecting responses. The paid tier only removes the Makeform badge, so you can run the complete pre order workflow without a submission limit or trial cutoff.
Responses appear in Makeform and can be sent into workflows using Google Sheets, Slack, or Zapier. Choose fields that make sorting useful: dish, course, party reference, dietary-note status, seating, and pickup window. Always have the team review the current response list before service.
Collect the choices before prep starts.
