Messaging between kitchen and front of house

In addition to notifying front of house when an order is ready, a good kitchen management system should offer a range of messaging between kitchen and front of house.

Mains away messages can alert the kitchen that the starters are finished, and the final preparation can be done on the main course. 

Cancellation messages can inform the kitchen of cancelled orders as soon as possible and prevent wastage from dishes being made unnecessarily.

Custom messages can also be sent between kitchen and front of house to inform around anything from service times to low stock.

Flexible order routing

Whether you use a kitchen screen or printed tickets, it’s important you can route the right orders to the right places. At its most basic this may be drinks being routed to a bar and food to the kitchen. If you have multiple sections in your kitchen for preparing different dishes you will want more flexibility than this, for example cold starters to one section and hot starters to another. Whatever your specific requirements are, it's important to ensure your EPOS & kitchen management system can accommodate them.

Recording wastage

The kitchen should have the ability to record kitchen wastage so that it feeds into the same wastage reports as any voids put through the EPOS. In this way total wastage can be monitored effectively, pinpointing any issues and enabling these to be addressed.

Setting quick stock limits

Chefs should have a quick way of notifying front of house if any dishes on the menu are running low. This could be achieved through a message, but even better is being able to set the remaining number of dishes available so that this feeds through to the front of house EPOS and prevents any more dishes being sold. This is a great way to save time on staff checking orders with the kitchen or processing refunds, as well as avoiding disgruntled customers.

Monitoring & improving service times

If you use a kitchen screen a big benefit is being able to monitor service times from an order being received, acknowledged, prepared, and delivered to the table. Doing so can identify any issues with particular areas and allow these to be addressed, improving service times and customer satisfaction.

Takeout & delivery

A number of venues now offer in venue, click & collect or delivery of food either via their own systems or integrating with popular delivery apps. A good kitchen management system will allow you to manage all of your orders within a single platform, ideally your EPOS which will then feed into your sales and stock. Our Hospitality EPOS allows you to offer click & collect or delivery via our mobile ordering app, feeding back updates on the status of an order as it moves through the kitchen. We also integrate with popular delivery apps, bringing those orders into the system as well.