Restaurant Management System

What it does

A full-stack MERN restaurant system where staff manage the menu, tables, and orders through a complete lifecycle — placed → preparing → served → completed — with the table freed automatically when the order is done. Price totals are calculated server-side from actual menu item prices, never from client input. Customers can place their own takeaway or dine-in orders and track status as staff moves them along. The Order entity is the key teaching piece: it breaks from the generic CRUD pattern to handle price validation and table sync.

Features

• ✓Three roles: admin, staff, customer — with clean access separation
• ✓Order lifecycle: placed → preparing → served → completed, with table sync
• ✓Server-side price calculation — client can never submit a manipulated total
• ✓Customer self-service: browse menu, place orders, track status in real time
• ✓Full audit log; admin is the only role that can delete an order outright