How management software for kitchen staff can streamline how quickly your orders go out

The food goes straight to the kitchen, while the drink goes straight to the bartender. Each can now quickly prepare their end of the meal, checking items off when they are ready. The very nice lady at the corner table gets her wine and food together, savors both and goes on to brag to her friends about the wonderful meal she had at your restaurant, successfully gaining you more future customers.

Order updates

Across from the very nice lady at the corner table is a man at another table who seems to be allergic to everything. He’s ordered the shrimp campanelle, but says he’s lactose intolerant, so he needs no cheese. Keeping your thoughts on the unusual nature of the order to yourself, you pass it back to the kitchen.

Traditionally, an order like this could be a real problem. If the message is not correctly received, the customer may get upset if he were to receive his dish with cheese. This is far more likely to happen with a handwritten note. Digitization, on the other hand, allows:

The waiter to send the note back immediately, ensuring the note arrives with the order.
The message to be displayed digitally, ensuring it is legible.
The chef checks off the instructions for “no cheese,” communicating that they understand.

As a result, the man receives his order with no cheese, ensuring that he doesn’t have an allergic reaction at dinner. Impressed with the accurate accommodations, he gives you a five-star rating online, which is seen widely.

Keeping better track of time

You also have a party of 4 to attend to, and while they seem mostly happy, you notice that one of their party hasn’t gotten their food yet. That can’t be right, you think as you walk back to the kitchen to check on it. After some lively debate with the chef, you realize the reason behind the delay; the customer ordered late and their order got placed behind their party, and the giant party one table over.

Proper KDS integrations offer restaurants advanced options for tracking tables and orders. For example, talech integrates with FreshKDS, which uses a color-changing alert system to tell you when a customer has been waiting too long. This ensures that groups are prepared together, or at least delivered together. Similarly, it gives waitstaff up-to-the-minute updates on the status of the customer’s dish. That means that, if nothing else, the diner with the order that’s running late at least knows what’s going on and gets a realistic timetable for when they can expect their food.