Diwali falls on a Sunday this year. Almost nothing that decides how the day goes is decided on the day: it is decided in the fortnight before, by people who are already busy. This checklist is that fortnight, working backwards from the date. Updated October 2026.
The section worth reading in October. A captain app, a kitchen display, a self-ordering kiosk and a digital display all need Electron POS or POS Local, the two desktop versions. Scan and order is not on Android POS at all and is limited on POS Lite, POS Lite has no inventory module, and discount caps are a capability of the Android POSS app. Everything else on the list can be fixed late. This cannot.
Decisions only, nothing configured yet: the festive section you will actually run, which dishes get a hard daily limit, who can approve an exception, the rota including who is off, and the supplier delivery dates around the holiday. Includes what each shape of offer does to your tax: a discount leaves the value you are taxed on only if it is given before or at the time of the sale and recorded on that invoice, a free gift blocks the credit on what you gave away, and a buy one get one does not.
The week decisions become settings. Festive items created with their rates and tax rather than billed as open items, the offer set up the way it will actually be billed, printer routing checked for every new item, stock ordered against the plan, and the team briefed while there is still time for questions.
One festive order taken all the way through, an item switched off and then ordered on every channel to prove the switch-off works, and the things that fail quietly: printer rolls and spares, the card terminal and UPI tested with a real transaction, the cash float, what happens when the internet drops, and one sheet of phone numbers by the till.
Short, because by then the work is done. The few things that only exist on 8 November: confirming the festive items are live and priced, saying the day's limits out loud once to the whole team, switching items off the moment they run out, watching the online order queue separately, and keeping one person out of the weeds.
Fifteen minutes on 9 November beats an hour the following week. What ran out and at what hour, where the queue actually was, every workaround anybody used, and which of the section 01 features you wished you had, which is the note that makes the case with a real evening behind it.
Petpooja POSS bills in three clicks, generates and routes KOTs, and deducts stock item by item as you sell, so the festive evening is recorded while it happens rather than reconstructed the next morning.
Explore Petpooja POSSAsk anyone who has worked a festival service what went wrong, and the answer is almost never something that happened that evening. It is a decision that was not made, a setting nobody checked, a delivery that was assumed. The evening only reveals it.
That is why this checklist is a countdown rather than a list. Diwali 2026 falls on Sunday 8 November, and each stage sits in the week where its items can still be changed cheaply. Deciding the festive menu two weeks out is a conversation. Deciding it on the Thursday is a problem for the kitchen. Confirming your supplier's delivery dates in October is an email; discovering them on 6 November is a gap in the stock plan with no way to close it.
One item sits apart from the rest, which is why it is section 01. A captain ordering app, a kitchen display, a self-ordering kiosk and a digital display all run on Electron POS or POS Local, the two desktop versions, and not on Android POS or POS Lite. Scan and order is not available on Android POS at all and POS Lite carries only a limited version. POS Lite has no inventory module, and discount caps are a capability of the Android POSS app. None of that can be changed on 8 November. A restaurant that has planned its evening around a kitchen display it cannot run has a worse night than one that planned around printer rolls from the start, and the only difference between them is who asked the question in October.
The rest is ordinary operational discipline with a date attached. Decide, configure, rehearse, run, review. The dry run two days out is the stage people skip and the one that pays: taking a single festive order all the way through, and then marking a dish sold out and trying to order it anyway, is the stage that finds the thing nobody thought of while it is still Friday.
What this checklist deliberately does not do is repeat work that already has a sheet. The daily opening and closing routine is covered by our Restaurant Opening and Closing Checklist, the hygiene and food safety checks by our FSSAI Compliance Checklist, and the count afterwards by our Inventory Audit Checklist. This one covers the run-up and the day, which none of those do. For the commercial side of the festival, our guides to Diwali offers that increase sales and Diwali menu ideas cover what to run; this covers being ready to run it.
Here's a preview of what you'll get inside:
Diwali 2026, a Sunday. Every stage in the checklist is placed by counting back from it, so each item lands in the week where it can still be changed without costing anything.
Source: central government holiday list 2026, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, read 07-Oct-2026The captain app, the kitchen display, the self-ordering kiosk and the digital display all need Electron POS or POS Local. Scan and order is not on Android POS at all and is limited on POS Lite. Settle this in October.
Source: Petpooja's POSS capability matrix, which follows the POSS Plans (June 2026) sheet. Confirm your own versionThe dry run two days out, in two halves: three that take a festive order end to end and prove a sold-out dish cannot be ordered, and five that catch what fails quietly, from printer rolls to what happens when the internet drops.
Source: the Two Days Out section of this checklist, 8 itemsThe most expensive mistake on this list, because it is discovered at the worst possible moment. A captain ordering app, a kitchen display, a self-ordering kiosk and a digital display all need Electron POS or POS Local. Scan and order is not on Android POS at all and POS Lite carries only a limited version. Ask which ones your version runs in October, keep the answer, and plan the fallback at the same time.
A short festive section built from dishes the kitchen already makes well does most of the work. A new menu creates prep your team has never done at the volume they will have to do it. Our guide to Diwali menu ideas covers choosing the section; the checklist covers being ready to produce it.
A dish that has run out but can still be ordered is a cancelled order and an unhappy table, and on a festival evening it is several. Decide the daily caps in advance, switch items off the moment they go, and use menu management software to do it across dine-in and online from one screen rather than channel by channel.
The festive week is the week topping up is hardest, because your suppliers are working the same holiday calendar. Confirm the actual delivery dates in writing, then build the stock plan backwards from the last delivery before the rush rather than from the rush itself.
Orders from delivery apps arrive on a different rhythm from the floor and peak at a different time. If nobody owns that queue specifically, it gets looked at when the floor goes quiet, which on a festival evening is after the damage.
Diwali is a holiday for your team too. A rota published two weeks out is negotiable and a rota published two days out is a problem. Build in one extra person across the peak hours as a position rather than as somebody staying late.
A short rehearsal on the Friday: one festive order taken all the way through, one dish marked sold out and ordered anyway, one bill raised with the offer on it and read as a guest would read it. If you have set up QR code ordering or a digital menu board for the festival, this is when you find out whether it behaves the way you assumed.
The count after the festival is its own job with its own discipline, and doing it badly is worse than doing it on the Tuesday. Capture the notes on the morning while they are fresh, then run our Inventory Audit Checklist properly when somebody has slept.
| Aspect | Hoping | Ready |
|---|---|---|
| POS features | Assumed, and discovered on the night | Confirmed in October, with a fallback chosen |
| The festive menu | Decided in the last week, prepped blind | Decided two weeks out, practised before the day |
| Sold-out items | Switched off when somebody remembers | Capped in advance, switched off across every channel |
| Stock | A normal order, topped up during the week | Ordered to the plan, backwards from the last delivery |
| The rota | Published late, one person short | Published two weeks out, with a float position |
| The dry run | Skipped, because everyone is busy | A short rehearsal on the Friday, end to end |
| Online orders | Watched by whoever is nearest | Owned by one person for the evening |
| The morning after | A vague memory by the following week | Fifteen minutes of notes while it is fresh |
Swipe the table sideways to see the full comparison.
Download the free Restaurant Diwali Rush Readiness Checklist and work backwards from 8 November rather than forwards from today.
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Petpooja POSS bills in three clicks, generates and routes KOTs to the right station, and deducts stock item by item as you sell, so a festival evening is recorded while it happens. Ask for a walkthrough, and ask which features your POS version runs before you plan the evening around them.
