the kitchen display system (KDS)

A kitchen display system, or KDS, is a digital screen that manages customer orders for restaurants. It replaces paper order tickets and helps restaurants organize, prioritize, change and track orders. 

Using a restaurant kitchen order system allows your staff to receive food orders from the POS in real-time. You can even send orders to various screens placed on different prep stations. KDS is becoming increasingly popular in the restaurant industry and is one of the cheaper solutions with easier implementation. 

It may sound like a simple enough task, but an automated restaurant ordering system offers myriads of benefits for your restaurants and kitchen. 

Your KDS also works as your order number display system and helps eliminate the chances of human error. Once your customer enters an order into the system using a self-ordering kiosk, the POS sends the order directly to your restaurant order display system for the chefs to prepare food.

Integration of this solution takes away the need for a cashier, an intermediary, which eliminates the room for human error when taking an order. A customer can modify the order based on their dietary preferences. In simpler terms, the restaurant kitchen order system improves your order-taking accuracy resulting in better customer experience and low wastage or order cancellation costs.

Once your KDS receives the order, the restaurant order display system automatically tracks its preparation and estimated time to cook. You can run an individual analysis of each food prep station by looking at their respective display screens.

This allows your back-of-house staff to monitor as well as understand the overall performance and pain points to address. An order number display system can help optimize your processes and overall workflow.

On a busy night at your restaurant, you can pace up the order preparation by screen analysis. Instead of orders piling up in the pipeline, you can look at the screen at each station and assign food orders as per priority. Looking at the information on the restaurant kitchen order system, you will be able to predict the estimated time for each dish/order.

Your KDS will also be able to track your inventory levels and update them in real-time as you receive an order. The system is also smart enough to notify your staff about any stock or ingredient reaching a critically low level.

This integrated preparation workflow keeps staff on track with the task at hand instead of becoming overwhelmed, and it helps avoid any stock shortages.

Installing a kitchen display system will help organize incoming orders more efficiently. The system sorts out orders as per their status, importance, and urgency to ensure quicker prep time for maximum efficiency. The system will also notify your staff of which orders to complete first.

A good restaurant kitchen order system will always be well lit and brightly colored. This will ensure that your employees can clearly keep track of your orders and work on them collectively. KDS Screens by GRUBBRR come with highly optimized and easy-to-read displays. Using a GRUBBRR KDS will enable your employees to only focus on 3 to 4 urgent orders at any given time. This will help safeguard your staff from being overwhelmed, discouraged, and distracted by order tickets piling up.

KDS also offers time analytic capabilities to increase work efficiencies, thanks to its ability to monitor the time duration it will take for your chef to complete the order. This will allow you valuable insight into the entire food prep process and identify the step taking the most time and try to fix it.

The system also automatically sets timed goals for order completion. These concrete goals ensure that your employees work at a consistent pace to provide a pleasant dining experience to all your customers.

Kitchen display system software will help you organize internal communication between front-of-house and back-of-house domains, making sure that you do not miss any orders. This is a feature that a traditional order ticket system lacks because it produces paper tickets that you can lose, misinterpret, or even damage.

However, the color-coded and brightly lit displays help your system avoid making any mistakes. Your staff can coordinate as soon as the customer places an order instead of waiting for an employee to bring in the order manually.

Your employee will also be able to change the order status from received or in progress to complete, keeping everyone in the loop on their urgent tasks. The order number display system will also notify your FOH staff when the order is ready to go out. This will ensure that your customers/diners receive piping hot fresh food straight out from the kitchen.

Did you know that the restaurant industry generates over 1.5 billion pounds of paper waste every year? Using a kitchen display system contributes to waste reduction and reduces your carbon footprint. Using a KDS will also help you save money as you go paper-free. You can even boost your business as a green or eco-friendly establishment. 

You can integrate your online food ordering via a website or a food delivery app. The system will display orders by the preference of their pickup and delivery time.

KDS can also pause your incoming online orders when your kitchen is extremely busy. This will take the extra burden off and allow your team to get back on track, ensuring a convenient and pleasant experience for all customers, whether ordering in-person or home.

You can integrate data collection and time analytics with your menu. This data will help you understand your restaurant’s strong suits and weed out any errors and low-performing items. The restaurant’s kitchen display system will give insight into any gaps in timing or workflow efficiency and also identify areas of improvement in your menu, stock ordering, and pace. 

Customer Satisfaction is the ultimate goal of every restaurant owner. KDS will help boost your order processing efficiency, which in turn improves your table turnover rate.

Improved Customer Experience Customer Satisfaction is the ultimate goal of every restaurant owner. KDS will help boost your order processing efficiency, which in turn improves your table turnover rate.

This will guarantee a comfortable and relaxing dining experience for customers and a transparent food preparation process for employees.

As technology advances, kitchen display systems will likely become even more widespread in the restaurant industry. With their ability to improve order accuracy, increase efficiency and productivity, and enhance the customer experience, kitchen display systems quickly become essential for restaurant operations. 

By assessing the key features and considerations when choosing a kitchen display system, restaurant owners can ensure that they are making a suitable investment for their business by considering the key features and considerations. 

The Kitchen Display System (KDS) is a vital ordering and information display system in the backend of restaurant kitchens, enhancing efficiency significantly. Its popularity has surged, especially in quick-service restaurants, where swift customer service is paramount. Integrated with cloud-based POS technology, the KDS operates remotely, seamlessly displaying orders as they are entered into the POS software. This automation minimizes staff workload and drastically reduces the likelihood of manual errors, making the KDS an essential asset in today's restaurant kitchens. 

Integrating a Kitchen Display System (KDS) with your Point of Sale software can work wonders for your restaurant. This seamless integration ensures that orders placed in the POS are automatically updated in the KDS, streamlining communication with the kitchen staff. 

Restaurant kitchens face challenges like lost or illegible orders, leading to chaotic inaccuracies. Kitchen Display Systems (KDS) solve this by displaying clear order details, including dietary preferences. They enable real-time tracking of changes, prompt food preparation, and monitor serving times, enhancing efficiency and ensuring a seamless dining experience.