Your first order

Here is what a real order looks like, start to finish, with the parts nobody warns you about.

Ask like a person

Open your assistant and say what you want:

Order me a medium iced brown sugar oat latte from the Starbucks on Court Street

You do not have to name a location if there is an obvious one near you. "From Starbucks" is enough, and Layout works out which store. If it is genuinely ambiguous, it asks.

Give it a couple of minutes

The first order at a restaurant we have not seen before takes about two to three minutes. Layout is opening their site, finding the item, setting your options and getting to a real total. That is normal, not a hang.

You will get a tracking link while it works. Open it if you want to watch, or ignore it and carry on with your day. Your assistant can also tell you where the order is at any point, because it can ask us.

Returning to a restaurant is faster, because we have been there before.

Check the total, then confirm

Layout comes back with the order and the exact total, including tax and any fee. Read it. This is the moment to catch a wrong size or a store on the other side of town.

If it is right, say "place it." If codes are on for your account, we text you a six digit code and you give it to your assistant. That code authorizes this order at this amount and nothing else.

If it is wrong, say so in plain words. "Make it a large" or "not that location, the one on Main" both work, and Layout rebuilds before anything is spent.

Pick it up

Once the order is placed you get a receipt by email, and the restaurant has it under your name. Layout has already paid the restaurant, with a Layout card rather than yours, so there is nothing to settle at the counter. Walk in, say your name, take the bag.

If something goes wrong

Layout will not tell you an order was placed unless it has evidence that it was. If we are not sure, we say we are not sure, which is less satisfying than a confident answer and much better than a wrong one.

When an order does go wrong, or the restaurant never made it, the help center has what to do: fix a wrong, late, or missing order. Refunds and their window are covered there too, because policy lives in one place.

What made this fast next time

Nothing you have to do. Your saved card, your name and your address are already there, and if you told Layout a dietary rule or a usual order it will apply it every time from here on. See preferences.