What a KDS does
Every paid order appears as a ticket the moment it is placed, oldest first, with the reference, the name, the items with their options and the note. Tickets move through a few states: new, being prepared, ready, picked up. Moving a ticket is one big button, which is the whole interface, because the person pressing it has wet hands and no time. The screen also tells the customer where their order is, which is the part the paper rail never did.
The parts that matter in a small kitchen
Every KDS has columns and a button. These are the things that separate one you keep from one you switch off after a week:
- Timers that change color at minutes you set, amber then red, so a ticket that has been waiting too long is visible from across the kitchen.
- A late ticket that flashes, and a sound that repeats while a new ticket sits unacknowledged, both of which you can switch off when they are not wanted.
- An all-day view: how many of each item is still to be made across every open ticket, which is how a cook batches rather than reading tickets one at a time.
- Undo. The wrong ticket gets bumped on every shift, and the fix has to be one press rather than a phone call.
- Tap an item to strike it through as it is plated, so the person finishing a ticket can see what is done.
- A light theme as well as a dark one. Dark is right in a dim pass and unreadable under daylight or bright tubes.
- Today's count and the average time from order to ready, in the header, so the shift knows how it is going without asking.
What it should not do
Drag and drop. It looks good in a demo and it is wrong on a wet, gloved hand: a drag that misses drops the ticket in the wrong column, and a ticket in the wrong column is a dish not made. Kitchen screens are tapped. It also should not need an app installed, an account per cook, or a screen so busy the ticket is lost in it. Big type, few words, one button.
Telling the customer
When a ticket is marked ready the customer should hear about it without anyone picking up a phone: an email, a text where you have that turned on, and a line in the chat they ordered from. The customer who ordered from a QR code at the table or from your Instagram link finds out the same way. This is the part that removes the "is it ready yet" question, which in a small place is a real share of the interruptions.
Hardware
A tablet with a browser. That is the whole list. It should stay awake while the board is open, run full screen, and survive being wiped down. A stand and a charger by the pass finish the job. Dedicated KDS hardware exists and is right for a kitchen with six stations; for one pass and one screen, the tablet you already have is the better purchase.
How ours fits
The kitchen display is part of online ordering: the same orders that reach your dashboard reach the board, and moving a ticket on either shows on both. It turns on per account, the timer minutes and the alerts are yours to set, and online orders can be paused from the board when the kitchen is under water and resumed when it is not. Unpaid orders never become tickets, so nothing gets cooked for a card that did not go through.