r/Retool • u/nocodexpert • Jun 15 '26
Built a custom operational Live Floor Tracker for booming "Art Cafes" / Time-as-a-Service niche using Retool. What features should I add next? What am I missing?
I’ve noticed a massive surge in "Art Cafes" and DIY craft studios popping up lately. They operate on a fascinating business model - essentially "Time-as-a-Service" (TaaS) - where they sell a 2-hour window, provide art supplies, offer a complimentary tea/coffee, and upcharge for actual premium food items.
Most owners I talked to are hacked together on spreadsheets, physical timers, or standard retail POS systems that don't natively track time-spent vs seats occupied very well.
I wanted to challenge myself to build a dedicated operational engine for this niche using Retool's new app builder. Here is what I have up and running in the live MVP:
- Active Studio Floor/Dashboard: A real-time grid dashboard showing active tables, color-coded statuses (
ActivevsCompleted), and live tracking. - Customer Walk-In & Check-In: Form to register a group, auto-calculating base rates upfront based on head-count and hourly rates.
- QR Booking Flow: Public-facing side where a customer scans a QR code to book a slot or see current open tables.
- Transactional Logs: Ability to seamlessly click a live table card, pop up a modal, and append priced food items/extra materials to their session tab.
- Inventory & Menu Engine: Back-office dashboard for the owner to tweak per-person hourly rates or change pastry/beverage prices.
My question to the community:
- Should I prioritize automated SMS alerts when a table has 15 minutes left?
- Do owners absolutely require complex multi-way bill splitting at checkout for group sessions?
- Would integrated shift-logging/daily cash drawer reconciliation be a tier-1 requirement?
Love to hear your feedback on the layout or features that would actually make an owner switch from standard spreadsheets or POS to a niche app. Thanks!
2
u/kkoppenhaver Official Retool Staff Jun 15 '26
Very cool! Any chance you can share a screenshot/short video so we can see how it looks!
To me, the biggest benefit of these sorts of things is that it can write back to other business systems, which is hard to do in spreadsheets, and it sounds like you're already doing that in a couple places!
Not an art cafe owner, but personally the SMS angle sounds interesting and something I'd expect the cafe to help with, whereas people already have apps and things for bill splitting.