Restaurants have traditionally relied on inefficient and wasteful order tickets to communicate customer orders from the dining area to the kitchen. Slow ticket times can lead to poor guest experiences and costly inefficiencies.
A POS kitchen software system communicates with a kitchen display system (KDS) letting front-of-house (FOH) staff seamlessly pipe customer orders to back-of-house (BOH) in real time. Not only is it less wasteful and more efficient, but kitchen display systems are also more accurate.
Let’s explore how this exciting new piece of technology can revolutionize your restaurant!
Kitchen display systems (KDS) send customer orders from the point-of-sale (POS) kitchen software to a television screen located in your restaurant’s kitchen. The back-of-house staff read the order on the screen in real-time. Because this technology relies on digital information sharing, you can easily customize customer orders, add notes, or otherwise modify messages as you see fit.
A modern POS kitchen lets you create unique layouts that fit the needs of your business. You can design your order display around your menu items. Color-coded functionality lets you assign specific shades to individual menu items.
Connect your POS kitchen software to your KDS to create the perfect layout to allow your back-of-house staff to optimize efficiency.
A KDS can enhance your restaurant’s profitability by speeding up routine processes. You can take advantage of the tech’s robust functionality to tighten up your restaurant management processes alongside a POS kitchen. And kitchen display systems integrate with restaurant POS systems, creating a smooth ordering process from start to finish.
Here are a few more of the ways that a KDS can improve your kitchen’s functionality.
Traditionally, back-of-house staff relied on kitchen printers. These machines literally printed out customer orders on slips of paper. Not only is it expensive to purchase a printer and keep it stocked with paper and ink, but the possibility of breaking the equipment in a restaurant environment is considerable.
Contrast that with a POS kitchen tool paired with a display screen that’s neatly tucked away in a high corner of the kitchen where it’s unlikely to come into contact with splashes, steam, or misplaced tomatoes. Not only cheaper and more robust, a display screen also facilitates quick service and enhanced restaurant operations.
Printing takes time, forcing back-of-house staff to work on a lag compared to front-of-house workers. A KDS bridges the gap between the two putting them in real-time contact.
POS kitchen systems are well known for their ease of use. This tech acts as an expeditor when taking food orders. It cuts down on wait times by improving connectivity between the front-of-house and back-of-house staff. A waiter can send a customer’s order to the prep station as he takes it.
Alternatively, a customer using a self-serve kiosk can send her order to the kitchen before she’s even taken a seat. In the kitchen, the chefs can use greater levels of information to slash their prep times. That’s because display screens stack orders on top of one another. This makes it easy for back-of-house staff to take in all pending orders at a glance.
With this information in hand, they can reorganize their workflow around the incoming orders so that similar orders are grouped together. For example, if two customers order Hawaiian fried rice and another customer orders fried chicken, the kitchen staff can take that information in at a glance and pair the first two orders together.
A POS kitchen system is more nimble compared to older paper ticket systems. You can create modifiers that allow for greater ordering precision. Smart order management systems also cut down on errors and mistakes.
Both improvements lead to a reduction in food waste by eliminating wrong orders. It also makes it easier to cook more efficiently, leading to fewer wasted resources.
A POS kitchen system can reduce cook time by instantaneously relaying incoming orders to the kitchen staff as they come in. Notifications on the kitchen display screen keep chefs in the loop and are better able to quickly respond to customer orders.
Modifiers are easier to read compared to paper tickets speeding up the cooking process. Furthermore, kitchen staff can easily scan the KDS and take in all of the current orders at a glance. They can use this information to move to the most urgent orders and reorder their workflow to accommodate other meals.
A POS kitchen system lets you elevate your guest experience to the next level. It not only cuts down on your customers’ wait times but also conveys much-needed information to patrons of quick-service restaurants. You can use a second kitchen display system to broadcast status updates to the dining room.
This lets your in-house diners follow along as their meal is being made. The display screen can convey pick-up readiness letting the customer move to the counter as soon as their meal is ready, reducing their wait time.
You can connect your POS kitchen system with your online order system. When the customer pays through your company website or app, the order immediately goes to the KDS screen. Your back-of-house staff can get a jump on the food order, ensuring it’s good to go when the customer comes to pick it up.
A POS kitchen system lets you cut down on your labor costs and saves your front-of-house staff from running back into the kitchen to relay customer orders. You can take the efficiency a step further by introducing self-serve kiosks into your ordering system.
These machines use touchscreen-based technology to facilitate simple and painless transactions. Customers can swipe through different menu items to place their food orders. Self-serve kiosks tend to be intuitive. Friendly display screens allow for solid ease of use as customers navigate through their transactions.
Many self-serve kiosks have embraced cloud-based technology, reducing the need for bulky hardware. Square payment hardware is all you need to transform an iPad into a fully functional KDS system.
Even restaurateurs with a single small business can benefit from self-serve kiosks and POS kitchen systems. New app-based technology lets you transform an inexpensive tablet into a fully capable order management system.
KioskBuddy integrates with Square KDS to provide a stellar POS kitchen system. Simply download the Square Kitchen Display System app on your Android or iOS device from their respective app stores.
You don’t need to purchase any fancy equipment to get started. A tablet is all you need to get started! KioskBuddy is a self-serve kiosk system that works with Square POS to facilitate seamless transactions while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction.
Now with Square KDS, you can eliminate your order ticket system and improve your restaurant’s efficiency even more. Find out more about how Square KDS and KioskBuddy can improve your order management by downloading the KioskBuddy app now!