# Restaurant Inventory App: Know What's in the Walk-In and Dry Store

> Hoardo can serve as a free restaurant inventory app: each freezer, fridge and shelf is a box with its own count of items, so the whole kitchen's stock is one search away.

Published 2026-10-04 by Hoardo. Original: https://www.hoardo.com/articles/restaurant-inventory-app

A restaurant inventory app should show what's in the walk-in, the dry store and the line fridges before you write the order. Hoardo does that for free. Each freezer, fridge and shelf becomes a numbered box, each product goes in as an item with a count, and search shows where every case of tomatoes is across the whole kitchen.

## Set up the kitchen as it's laid out

1. **Walk-in and reach-in freezers.** One box each, or one per shelf in a big walk-in.
2. **Dry store.** Rice, flour, oil, cans, one box per shelving unit.
3. **Line fridges.** What each station keeps close.
4. **Bulk bins.** Flour, rice and sugar in tubs.
5. **Packaging and cleaning.** Takeaway boxes, gloves and chemicals run out too.

Give each box a number, a name and a place note ("Back door, left"). Fullness shows at a glance which shelf is getting bare.

*The whole kitchen in one room: each freezer, fridge and shelf with how full it is.*

## Count the dry store before you order

Open the dry store's box and change only the numbers that moved since last time. A count that used to take a clipboard and a spreadsheet becomes a few taps per shelf.

## Add deliveries quickly

When a delivery comes in, add it where it goes. Type it, say it ("three sacks of basmati, twelve cans of tomatoes"), or take a photo of the shelf and let Hoardo list what's on it.

## Find stock across every shelf

Search covers every box at once. Type "chickpeas" and you see the cans in the dry store and the cooked batch in the line fridge, each with where it is.

## Label every shelf and freezer

Print a QR label for each one. Anyone on the team can scan it with a phone camera and see what should be there, which helps when the person who orders isn't on shift.

## What Hoardo isn't

Hoardo doesn't connect to your till or suppliers and doesn't cost recipes. It's a clear, shared record of what's on each shelf, which is what a small kitchen most often lacks.

## Bar and salon owners

The same idea works for bottles behind a bar, see the [bar inventory app](https://www.hoardo.com/articles/bar-inventory-app) guide, and for products on a salon backbar, see the [salon inventory app](https://www.hoardo.com/articles/salon-inventory-app) guide.

## Free for the whole kitchen

[Hoardo](https://www.hoardo.com/) is free for all your boxes and items. There's no billing and no paid tier, so adding a second freezer or a new site costs nothing. For a broader look, see our [roundup of free inventory apps](https://www.hoardo.com/articles/5-best-free-inventory-management-apps).