Austin restaurants on Clover: measure what heat, rain and festivals do

Yes, an Austin restaurant on Clover can see exactly what ACL Fest, SXSW week, the August heat and rainy days did to its sales. Othra reads your Clover orders (read only), works out every figure itself, and answers your questions in plain English with figure cards, charts and ranked lists. Ask about a festival week and it shows that week next to the period just before it.

This post does not guess what a festival "usually" does to restaurants. A taco truck near Zilker Park, a quiet neighborhood bakery and a delivery-heavy pizzeria will each see something different. The answer is already in your Clover orders, and you can read it.

Why Austin's calendar is a sales question

Austin has a few weeks every year that change how people move around the city, and a climate that changes when they want to be outside. According to the National Weather Service, Austin's temperatures peak in the first half of August with normal highs in the upper 90s, the city gets an average of 36.25 inches of rain a year, and the wettest months are May, October and June, in that order.

The festivals stack on top of that. According to FOX 7 Austin, SXSW 2026 ran March 12–18, seven days, with the second weekend cut and the conference and festivals running at the same time. According to Tribeza, the Austin City Limits Music Festival 2026 ran October 2–4 and October 9–11 at Zilker Park. Here is how each of those moments turns into a question for Othra.

How big is the restaurant business in Texas?

Restaurants are the largest private employer in Texas. According to the National Restaurant Association's Texas fact sheet (2025 data), the state has 58,426 eating and drinking place locations, 1,496,200 restaurant and foodservice jobs and $140.4 billion in restaurant and foodservice sales.

What does Othra do?

Othra connects to your Clover point of sale, read only, and answers questions about your sales. Every figure is calculated by Othra from your own orders, day by day, in your restaurant's time zone. The AI explains those figures and suggests what to do, and it is told to use only those figures and to say so when the data is not there. For the full tour, read What is Othra?.

Each answer shows exactly which days it covers: the start and end date, the number of days and the number of orders. One question can cover up to about three months of orders, and for periods up to about six weeks Othra also compares the period before.

How do I compare a festival week with the weeks before?

Ask Othra about the festival dates and it compares them with the period just before. ACL Fest 2026 ended on October 11, so both weekends are well inside the three-month window right now. A question like "How did October 2 to 11 compare with the period before?" brings back cards for sales, orders and average ticket, a chart by day, your best and slowest days, and best sellers by sales and by quantity, each set against the earlier period.

You can also ask about the two weekends on their own, or about the weekdays between them. On a festival Saturday itself, open a new chat: it starts with today's sales and orders so far, compared with the same time last week.

SXSW needs a little timing. Because one question reaches back about three months, ask about SXSW in the weeks right after it ends, while those orders are still inside the window. Then ask for a PDF report so the answer is saved for next year.

Hot afternoons versus evenings: reading sales by hour

Sales by hour show whether your day shifts when Austin is at its hottest. According to the National Weather Service, the first half of August is the peak, with normal highs in the upper 90s. Ask Othra for sales by hour for August 1 to 15, then for a stretch in late September, and compare the afternoon hours with the evening hours.

Othra's weather view sorts days into sunny, cloudy, rainy and snowy, not by temperature, so for heat the comparison is done by dates. That works well in Austin, where the hottest stretch arrives on a known part of the calendar. August is also still inside the three-month window as of mid-October.

Rainy days versus sunny days in Austin

Othra looks up the daily weather at your ZIP code (from Open-Meteo) for the days it reads and sets sunny, cloudy, rainy and snowy days side by side. A day with at least 0.04 inches of rain counts as rainy. Ask "How did rainy days compare with sunny days over the last 90 days?" and for each kind of day you see the number of days, average sales a day, share of sales and the difference from an average day.

October is one of Austin's wettest months, according to the National Weather Service, so the question is timely right now. The app header also shows the weather where your restaurant is; hover over it to see the next 24 hours and the next five days, which helps when you plan prep and staff for the week ahead.

Dine in, take out and delivery during festival weeks

Othra shows the share of your orders that were dine in, take out and delivery for any period. Set the ACL weekends against a normal September weekend and you see whether your guests stayed, picked up or ordered in. With the Payments permission it also shows cash, credit and debit shares, which is useful when you decide how much cash to keep in the drawer on a busy weekend.

Scheduling staff with sales by hour

Sales by hour are the starting point for a better schedule. The Texas minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, the federal rate, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Every hour on the schedule costs something, so it helps to know which hours actually bring in sales.

Othra shows sales by hour and your busiest hour, and with the Employees permission it shows sales, refunds and average ticket by staff member as ranked bars (the number on the left, the name inside the bar, the amount and order or refund count on the right). Othra does not touch your schedule; you put its figures next to your rota and decide.

Sales tax and tips collected

With the Payments permission, Othra shows how much sales tax and how many dollars in tips you collected for any period. According to the Texas Comptroller, sellers collect the 6.25% state sales tax plus local sales tax, and local tax cannot be more than 2%, so the most is 8.25%. Your exact rate depends on where you are; Othra simply reports what your Clover payments collected.

It also shows refunds and discounts, so after a festival weekend you can check whether either rose and, with the Employees permission, which staff the refunds came from. Othra reports figures; for tax questions, talk to your accountant.

Questions to ask after a festival weekend

The best time to ask is the Monday after, while the weekend is fresh. Type these as they are:

• "How did sales on October 2 to 4 compare with the weekend before?"
• "What were my busiest hours during the ACL weekends, and did they move?"
• "Which items sold best from October 9 to 11, by quantity?"
• "What share of orders was take out or delivery during the festival weeks?"
• "How much did I collect in tips and sales tax from October 2 to 11?"
• "Were refunds or discounts higher during the festival weekends?"
• "Who sold the most during the festival weekends?" (needs the Employees permission)
• "Make this a PDF report."

The last one turns the conversation into a report with the Othra logo on the left, your business name on the right, a summary, the figures, charts and recommendations. For more ideas, see Questions to ask your restaurant sales data.

How to connect your Clover to Othra

All you need is one API token from your Clover web dashboard.

1. Open Othra at ordero.si/connect and sign in with an Ordero account, or create one.
2. If you want to look around first, open the free sample data: a made-up pizzeria with three months of orders.
3. In the Clover web dashboard, create an API token with Read on Orders, Inventory and Merchant. Add Payments for tips, tax and payment types, and Employees for sales by staff.
4. Paste the token together with your Merchant ID. Othra checks it and connects.
5. Ask your first question. The first read of a month or more takes the longest; after that, answers come back in seconds.

Othra costs $19.99 a month per restaurant, billed by Stripe, and you can cancel any time (it stays on until the end of the paid month). See pricing. One-click approval inside Clover is on its way.

Ordero is made in Austin

Ordero is a local company. Ordero is AI software for restaurants in the United States, made by Ordero SI LLC, a Texas limited liability company based in Austin. Othra is one part of it (product page), and no Ordero product takes a commission on any order.

Voice Agent for the festival rush

When the dining room is full and the phone keeps ringing, the Ordero Voice Agent answers in your restaurant's name. It says it is an automated assistant and that the call may be recorded, takes orders from your real menu (sizes, toppings, half-and-half pizzas) in eight languages including English and Spanish, takes several calls at once, and passes the call to staff when a caller asks. It never takes card numbers. Plans start at $500 a month (Counter $500 for 100 calls a day, Kitchen $750 for 225, Rush $1,000 for 300). Call the demo line at +1 (516) 724-9773 to hear it.

Your own online ordering page

The Online Order System gives your restaurant its own ordering page at ordero.si/yourname, with an AI chat that takes orders from your menu. Customers pay at pickup or on delivery. It costs $50 a month, with no commission.