Privacy Policy

1. Scope and who we are

This policy applies to the public Food Star storefront and communications you send to Food Star. It does not replace the privacy policies of third parties such as Square, Google, TikTok, your email or telephone provider, or websites reached through external links.

The separate Staff Admin area is used by authorized Food Star personnel for business operations. It does not load Google Analytics.

2. Information we collect

Information you provide for an order

When online ordering is available, we collect your name, email address, phone number, selected item and quantity, pickup location and time, optional kitchen or pickup notes, order status, payment status, confirmation and transaction identifiers, and records needed to fulfill, reconcile, cancel, or refund the order. Please do not put unnecessary sensitive personal information in the notes field.

Payment information

Card fields are hosted by Square. Your card details go directly to Square, and Food Star does not receive or store your full card number or security code. Our application receives a single-use Square payment token and stores or receives transaction information such as payment and order identifiers, amount, currency, location, status, refund information, and timestamps. We send Square the information needed for payment and pickup, including your name, phone number, email address, order, and fulfillment details.

Inquiries and other communications

The storefront inquiry form builds a draft message in your own email application. The website does not submit or store that form. If you choose to send the message, Food Star and the email providers involved receive the name, email address, inquiry type, details, and other content you include. If you call, text, email, or contact us through TikTok, we receive the information and account details you choose to provide through that service.

Website, device, and connection information

Our hosting and security providers may process ordinary connection and request information, such as IP address, request time, requested URL, referring page, browser and device type, operating system, and security or diagnostic information. When you consent to Google Analytics and advertising features, Google also receives the information described in Section 4.

Browser storage

The storefront stores your Google privacy choice in local storage so it can be respected on later visits. During online ordering, session storage holds a randomly generated checkout key, submission state, timestamp, and, when necessary, a payment-review reference. That checkout record does not contain your name, contact details, notes, or card information. Authorized Staff Admin tools separately use browser-local storage for menu and event prototypes.

3. How we use information

We use information to:

• respond to inquiries and communicate with you;
• create, process, fulfill, reconcile, cancel, or refund orders;
• operate pickup service, customer support, and business records;
• protect the website, customers, and business; prevent fraud and duplicate charges; and troubleshoot errors;
• comply with legal, tax, accounting, payment-network, and regulatory obligations; and
• perform the optional analytics, advertising measurement, audience, and personalization activities described below when you consent.

4. Google Analytics, Google Signals, and user-provided data

We are enabling Google Analytics 4 Advertising Features including Google Signals and user-provided data collection. Google Signals can provide aggregated Demographics and Interests and cross-device reporting. Depending on the Google advertising products we link and the settings we enable, consented Analytics and user-provided data can also support enhanced-conversion measurement and attribution, Customer Match support for exported Analytics audiences, audience measurement, and personalized advertising. We will keep this policy aligned with the features actually enabled in our Google property and linked accounts.

Google information and identifiers

After you accept Google analytics and advertising, the Google tag may collect page URLs, referral information, interactions, browser and device information, IP-derived general location, and online identifiers. Google Analytics first-party cookies or identifiers can distinguish visitors and sessions. Google may use those together with Google advertising cookies or other third-party identifiers and, for eligible users who are signed in to Google and have enabled Ads Personalization, Google account information. This can provide aggregated demographics and interests, cross-device measurement, advertising measurement, audience matching, and ad personalization.

Storefront interaction measurement

After you accept Google analytics and advertising, we use Google Analytics events to understand which public parts of the storefront receive attention. We may record when a menu category or list of menu or Order Ahead offerings is actually shown; when you click or select a menu category or filter, menu card, header item, Order Ahead button, public pickup venue, or Order Ahead offering; and when you select an available pickup time.

The interaction parameters we add are limited to finite category, filter, header, and source labels; public menu or Order Ahead item identifiers, names, and categories; a slug derived from the public venue name; list name and position; and, for a selected pickup time, only the weekday and a broad time-of-day group calculated in Central Time. We do not put prices, value, currency, quantities, exact pickup timestamps or window identifiers, addresses, pickup instructions, map links, Square identifiers, caller-supplied page or target URLs, element selectors, customer names, contact details, order notes, payment or card details, order data, administrative data, costing, or event-financial data into those interaction parameters. The Google tag may still associate the general page, device, session, and identifier information described above with an event.

On devices that report a fine pointer, we may record a menu-category or menu-item hover only after the pointer remains continuously over it for at least one second, and only once for that category or item during the page visit. Hover is a desktop/fine-pointer interest signal; touch and mobile use generally does not produce it, so hover counts should not be compared directly with mobile behavior.

Consent controls

We use basic Google Consent Mode. On a first visit, the Google tag is blocked and all four Consent Mode v2 signals—analytics storage, advertising storage, advertising user data, and ad personalization—default to denied. The tag loads only after you select Allow Google analytics and advertising. If you decline on your first visit, no consent signal or website activity is sent to Google by our Google tag. An interaction that occurs while your current choice is absent or denied is not retained for later Google delivery. Your choice is saved in your browser. You can reopen the banner through Google privacy choices in the storefront footer and change your choice. If you withdraw after previously accepting, we send denial updates for future Google activity; this does not erase information already collected, and previously created cookies may remain until they expire or you clear them in your browser.

Separately consented user-provided data

Google tracking consent alone does not authorize us to use your order contact information for user-provided measurement. Checkout contains a separate optional checkbox that is off by default and is not required to order. Only when you select that checkbox, have accepted Google analytics and advertising, and receive an explicitly confirmed paid order may the browser send Google:

• a SHA-256 one-way hash of the normalized email address;
• a SHA-256 one-way hash of the phone number, only when it can be normalized to the required international format; and
• the order confirmation identifier with a purchase event.

The hashing occurs in your browser before the value is placed in the Google analytics command. We do not send Google your raw order email or phone number, name, kitchen notes, card information, payment token, items, quantity, price, or order value through this user-provided-data event. We do not send a Food Star User-ID. Our website code does not automatically scan form fields for user-provided data; Google's automatic form-field detection must remain disabled in our Google tag settings.

Google may match the consented hashes with Google account information for enhanced conversions, advertising measurement and attribution, audience matching and Customer Match support, aggregated demographics and interests, reporting, and personalization, including associating activity across signed-in and signed-out sessions. Google Signals reporting is aggregated; Food Star does not receive an individual user's signed-in Google identity.

Google controls and more information

You can learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services and review the Google Privacy Policy. You can also:

• change this site's Google choice through Google privacy choices in our footer;
• manage personalized advertising in Google My Ad Center;
• review or delete eligible saved activity through Google My Activity; and
• install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

5. Cookies, similar technologies, and third-party content

Local and session storage are used for the choices and checkout-safety purposes described above. Google cookies or similar identifiers are permitted only after Google consent. Blocking or clearing browser storage may cause the site to ask for your choice again or may prevent online checkout from safely resolving an active payment attempt.

The storefront also includes a TikTok creator embed and links to TikTok. TikTok code may connect to TikTok when the storefront loads and may receive connection, device, page, cookie, account, and interaction information under TikTok's Privacy Policy. The Google privacy choice controls our Google tag; it does not control TikTok or an external site you open.

6. How we disclose information

We disclose information only for the purposes described in this policy, including to:

• Square, for hosted card entry, payments, order and pickup fulfillment, refunds, fraud prevention, and reconciliation, subject to Square's Privacy Notice;
• Google, for the consented analytics, Google Signals, advertising, and user-provided-data uses described in Section 4;
• Cloudflare, which currently hosts the static storefront and may process connection, security, and diagnostic information under Cloudflare's Privacy Policy;
• TikTok, through its embedded content and links;
• email, telephone, and other communications providers when you contact us;
• professional advisers, authorities, or other parties when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect rights and safety, investigate misuse, establish or defend claims, or complete a business transaction such as a merger, financing, or sale.

The website does not contain a mechanism that transfers personal information to a data broker or exchanges it for monetary payment. Some laws may define consented disclosure to Google for personalized advertising, audience matching, or cross-context behavioral advertising as “sharing,” “targeted advertising,” or a similar term. You can prevent future collection and disclosure through our Google tag by declining or withdrawing Google consent. Leaving the separate checkbox unchecked prevents the per-order hashed contact-data disclosure. To request deletion of information Food Star controls, contact us; Google controls are listed in Section 4.

7. Retention and security

We retain information for as long as reasonably needed for the purposes described above, including order fulfillment, payment reconciliation, fraud prevention, customer support, tax and accounting records, disputes, and legal compliance. Retention varies by record and provider. The current order application does not apply a fixed automatic deletion period to checkout, order, audit, or reconciliation records; those records remain until manually deleted, subject to legal and operational needs. A formal retention and deletion schedule must be adopted before live online ordering. Email and text communications remain with the providers and accounts involved until deleted under their practices.

Your Google choice remains in local storage until you change it or clear site data. Checkout session state remains in session storage as needed to prevent an unsafe duplicate payment or until browser storage is cleared. Google, Square, Cloudflare, TikTok, and communications providers retain information under their own settings, contracts, and policies.

The current public storefront is served over HTTPS. The online-ordering application is designed to use restricted Staff Admin access, secure server-side credentials, hashed admin session tokens, input validation, rate limiting, and Square-hosted card entry when its backend is deployed and properly configured. Those backend controls have not yet been production-validated. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. Your choices and privacy rights

Depending on where you live and subject to applicable exceptions, you may have rights to request access to, correction of, deletion of, or a portable copy of personal information; to withdraw consent; to opt out of certain targeted advertising, sharing, or profiling; and to appeal a denied request. You may exercise a request by contacting us using Section 12. We may need to verify your identity and may retain information when required or permitted by law, including transaction, tax, fraud-prevention, and dispute records.

Declining Google tracking or the optional user-provided-data checkbox does not prevent you from browsing the storefront or placing an order when ordering is otherwise available.

9. Children's privacy

The storefront is intended for a general audience and is not directed to children under 13. Online ordering and the optional Google user-provided-data matching feature are not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly send Google user-provided data that belongs to a child under 13. If we learn that such information was provided, we will stop using it for that feature and take appropriate deletion steps. A parent or guardian who believes a child provided personal information should contact us.

10. Processing locations

Food Star and its providers may process information in the United States and other countries where they operate, as described in the providers' policies. Privacy protections may differ from those in your location.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our practices, providers, features, or legal obligations change. We will post the updated policy here and change the effective date. If a change materially affects a choice that requires consent, we will request a new choice when required rather than relying only on this posted update.

12. Contact us

For privacy questions or requests, contact: