WhatsApp ordering for restaurants in Bangladesh: a setup guide

At 12:40 on a weekday, a cloud kitchen in Motijheel gets its lunch rush on WhatsApp. An office manager wants twelve boxes. A regular wants "same as last time". Someone asks if the chicken roast is spicy. Three people ask the delivery charge to Dilkusha.

The kitchen takes orders in a notebook. Two orders have no house number, one has the wrong phone number, and the twelve-box order was quoted at last month's price. Nobody is careless. The process just has too many places where a detail can fall out.

WhatsApp ordering can work well for restaurants in Bangladesh, but only if every order arrives complete. This guide covers the setup: menu, delivery zones, hours, confirmations and updates.

Why do restaurants take orders on WhatsApp as well as food apps?

Because WhatsApp orders come from your own customers, and you keep them. Food delivery apps are good at bringing new people to you. Your own chat ordering is better for the people who already know you.

Most restaurants that take WhatsApp orders keep the apps too. The aim is to give regulars a direct way to order, so the second and third orders come to you.

What does a complete food order need?

A complete food order has everything the kitchen and the rider need, with no follow-up call. Check that every order has:

• Dishes and portions: "kacchi half x2", not "kacchi 2".
• Add-ons and notes: extra raita, less spicy, no onion.
• Delivery area: from your fixed list, so the fee is clear.
• Full address with a landmark: "House 14, Road 7, opposite the mosque" saves the rider a call.
• Phone number: checked, because a wrong digit means a cold meal.
• Time: as soon as possible, or a time such as "1:30 e lagbe" for an office lunch.
• Total: dishes plus delivery fee, written out.
• Payment: usually cash on delivery.

If any of these is missing, the order is not ready for the kitchen.

How should a restaurant set up its menu for chat ordering?

Set up the menu as a list of items, each with one fixed price. This is the single most useful change, because it stops price mistakes in chat.

• One item per portion. "Kacchi (full)" and "Kacchi (half)" are two items with two prices.
• Combos as their own items. "Lunch box A: polao, chicken roast, borhani" with one price.
• A photo for each popular dish. Customers decide from the picture.
• A short description: serves how many, spicy or mild, contains nuts or beef.
• Mark sold-out items immediately. Nothing annoys a customer more than ordering a dish that ran out an hour ago.

Keep a separate short note for things that are not dishes: opening hours, branch addresses, minimum order, halal notes, and dishes made only on Fridays.

How should a restaurant charge delivery on WhatsApp orders?

Charge a flat fee per delivery area. It is easy to say in chat, easy for the customer to check, and does not need a map.

A Mohammadpur cloud kitchen might use something like this (fees are examples):

Three or four areas are enough. Every extra zone is something staff have to remember and customers have to read. Our post on Inside and Outside Dhaka delivery charges goes deeper on zone setup for shops; the same logic works for food.

How do you handle the lunch and dinner rush?

Decide your rules before the rush, and tell customers up front. During peak hours, the problem is not answering, it is promising things the kitchen cannot deliver.

1. Publish a last-order time. "Dinner order rat 10:30 porjonto" in your greeting, your Page and every confirmation.
2. Give a realistic delivery estimate. Add 15 minutes at peak time and say so: "Ekhon rush, 60 minute lagte pare."
3. Use saved replies for the questions that repeat: menu link, delivery fees, location, minimum order.
4. Split the work. One person confirms new orders, another handles "where is my food?" and complaints.
5. Pause items, not the whole menu. If the kacchi runs out at 9 pm, mark it sold out and keep selling everything else.

What should the order confirmation say?

The confirmation should repeat the whole order, with the total and the delivery estimate, so the customer can catch a mistake before you cook.

Order confirmed: CH-000245 Kacchi (half) x2, Borhani x2 Delivery: Lalmatia, ৳40 Total: ৳1,080 (cash on delivery) Address: House 14, Road 7, opposite the mosque Delivery: 40 to 50 minutes

When the rider leaves, send one more line: "Apnar khabar rasta e, rider 15-20 minute e pouchabe." That one message prevents most "khabar kothay?" chats.

If the customer just messaged you, a confirmation sent in the same chat is a normal reply. Messages sent later, outside the 24-hour customer service window, need an approved utility template. Meta has announced changes to its per-message charges: from 1 October 2026, utility templates sent inside an open service window will no longer be free, and normal replies will be free only up to 1,000 per business number each month. Update, 24 October 2026: those changes are now live, and Bangladesh has its own rates on Meta's rate card. Check Meta's pricing page for the current rules before you plan high volumes.

What about table bookings, catering and complaints?

Hand all three to a person. Each one needs a decision only staff can make: whether a table is free, whether the kitchen can make 80 boxes by noon, or how to make up for a cold meal.

For a table request, collect the date, time, number of guests and a name, then let staff confirm. For catering, collect the date, count, menu and address, and let a manager quote. For complaints, apologise once, ask for the order number, and get a person into the chat fast.

How does SaleMag handle restaurant WhatsApp ordering?

In SaleMag, each dish goes in as a product with its price, photo and category, and you set up to 20 delivery areas with a flat fee each, with optional Bangla labels. The AI chatbot answers menu, price and area questions from that list on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Telegram, builds the order and sends a short order form. On an official WhatsApp number, that form opens inside WhatsApp; other channels get a secure link. The WhatsApp order form page shows the fields.

The server adds the delivery fee, re-checks prices and creates a numbered cash-on-delivery order, and staff can get an in-app and push notification for each one. Reservations, catering, bulk orders and complaints go to a person. SaleMag has no reservation calendar, no online payment and no connection to food apps or riders; your team sends the rider and updates the status, and the AI then tells customers that status. The restaurants page covers the full setup, and order form vs in-chat checkout explains the two checkout styles.

Next steps

Start with your 20 best-selling dishes, each portion as its own item, and three delivery areas. Write your opening hours, last-order time and delivery estimates into one note for staff. Run it for a week of lunches and dinners, read the chats, and fix what confused people. When you are ready, start free or see pricing.