A kitchen display system for the cook, not the owner

A kitchen display system, or KDS, shows the kitchen what to cook and in what order. Orders come from your online site and from the counter. Paper tickets get lost, curl in the heat, and print late. A screen does not.

The kitchen screen at pickup.kitchen opens on any device with a browser. The cook signs in with a PIN you set, not with your owner password, and the device stays signed in.

Each ticket is built for a glance during the rush.

• The pickup or delivery time, large, with the order number below it.
• A pickup or delivery icon and a paid chip such as Paid, Cash, or Card.
• The guest's name, a tap-to-call phone number, and the address on delivery orders.
• Each item as quantity and name, with options underneath, like “Size: Large · Add: extra feta”.
• A highlighted Notes box for the guest's request. “No onions, allergy” is hard to miss.

Online orders sit in Open. Orders typed in at your counter sit in Walk-in, so a phone order does not get mixed in with a delivery. Finished tickets move to Completed.

The cook taps Preparing when they start. The ticket turns yellow so a second cook can see it is taken. They tap Completed when it is done, and the ticket turns green.

Tap Picked up, or Delivered for a delivery order, when it leaves the pass. A wrong tap is fixable: Back to preparing and Back to received are one button away.

A ticket turns amber when its time is within 30 minutes, and red once it is late. A sky-blue tint marks online orders placed during service, so you can see what arrived mid-rush.

Removed and cancelled tickets are not lost. Removed, Cancelled, and Unpaid checkouts each have their own section for the day.

Tap the sound button once and every new ticket plays a chime and says “New order received”. With several at once it says how many.

You can also turn on alerts so a locked phone buzzes when an order lands. If you step out for a delivery, you still hear about the next one.

The board refreshes itself every five seconds. Nobody has to press reload.

Completed is the signal that tells the guest. They get “Ready for pickup” or, for delivery, “On the way”, on their order page and in an email. If they agreed to texts at checkout, they get a text too.

If you cancel or skip a ticket, the guest is told the order won't be made. If a card was charged, the message says it will be refunded.

It is 6:05 p.m. on a Friday. Fourteen tickets are open. Two are amber, because their pickup time is within 30 minutes. One is red: Nia R. ordered a margherita and a Caesar for 5:45, and it is not out yet.

The cook starts with the red ticket and taps Preparing. It turns yellow, so the second cook sees it is taken. A new order arrives, the chime plays, and the screen says “New order received”. Nobody looks up from the oven to check.

The Caesar goes out first. The cook taps Completed, then Picked up when Nia collects it. The ticket moves down to Completed, and the guest has already been told it is ready.

Set a kitchen PIN in your store settings and give it to the people who cook. Open the kitchen link on the tablet or laptop you want to use. Enter the PIN, then tap the sound button once so the chime can play.

Add the page to the Home Screen so it opens full screen with its own icon. The device stays signed in, so nobody types the PIN every morning. Place a test order from your own site to see the ticket arrive.

A kitchen display system works best when everything arrives on one screen. A walk-in order typed at the counter goes straight to Walk-in, on the same menu. See the POS page for how staff take those orders.

Close a day when you run out, or let a slot close when it is full, so the screen only holds orders you can make. The online ordering page covers slots and cutoffs.

The board is one list for the whole kitchen. It does not split tickets by station, such as grill, fryer, and cold, and it does not connect to a bump bar. If your kitchen needs a screen at each station, ask before you switch.