My brother runs a pretty nice bar / restaurant and marina and I'm a professional computer nerd, so a couple of years ago we looked at the major Point Of Sale systems. Sure, some were expensive but probably excellent. Some seemed cheesy and cheap. With some you knew the support would be third-rate...I'd be happy to help with the installation but I didn't want to be waken up at 1:00 AM 'cause they had trouble with the beer inventory and would rather have the vendor support the software. Finally we decided to go with what seemed like a pretty good DOS-based application. My brother pays the vendor for support. We bought Dell (not clone) boxes and LCD's and we purchased the touch screen and ticket printers directly from the vendor. In two years there's been two minor glitches. It's been very reliable and it hasn't been expensive and the employees find the system very easy to use. What's more, we find it easy to manage the product - like adding another computer for expansion or adding a printer in the kitchen. My advice? Building a POS from the ground up, including writing the software, wouldn't be recommended. But, instead of spending $15,000 on their computers and LCD's, buy name-brand computers for $2,200 instead.