5 Types of Restaurant Kitchens and How to Optimize Them

In the following blog, we will learn how restaurants can optimize their operations and 5 different types of restaurant kitchens, and how they are managing their operations. 

Every restaurant kitchen is different from others although there are some similarities in the level of efficiency, the floor operations vary. Some kitchens are very good in speed, precision, and efficiency but they are lacking in design or other things.

There are different types of technologies that restaurants are using to optimize their operations. Some of them are mentioned below 

Nowadays a very famous and effective tool used in restaurant kitchens is KDS which Kitchen Display Screen (KDS) helps kitchens in many ways. It reduces the time, removes the hustle, improves accuracy, and most important says Good-Bye to the old traditional ticketing system. 

Once an order is punched from POS it will be directly displayed on the Kitchen display screen. Where kitchen staff can prepare the food accordingly by looking at the screen. If you are thinking of bringing a KDS into your restaurant, but you are confused and don’t know how it would fit into your workflow? Well, in this blog, we’ll cover five different types of restaurant workflows and how they might be leveraging KDS in their operations.

The first type of kitchen, we are going to discuss is a fast-casual concept kitchen where there is a large number of takeaway orders. Most often, these kitchens are usually divided into two parts one is for in-house orders and the second one caters the takeaway orders. They usually have two prep lines where staff is working on different stations.

For example, in many restaurants, the “dine-in” prep line at the front of the store follows a typical fast-casual “build-as-you-go” workflow. In this workflow, we don’t require any KDS screen as the customer is building the order live. But in the back of the kitchen, there is a second-line crew that is responsible for the online orders and the takeaways. This line may have a KDS unit for tracking and fulfilling orders and a printer for the customer receipts for labeling takeout containers.

With the help of KDS, the line cook can double-tap the order from a bump bar when the order or specific item is ready it will automatically indicate on the dispatcher screen that the specific order is ready This helps the expo (or whoever is packing the order) identify which items should be bagged together and how many total items there are because it will be mentioning on the screen. The dispatcher can assemble the order and can tally from the screen. So, there is less chance of mistakes.

At fast-casual pizza joints like any Pizza restaurant, diners order at the start of the line instead of the end, which is called a “post-pay” here the food is made after the payment is done. In these types of kitchens, the prep line might follow an assembly line broken down into different stations such as sauce, cheese, pasta, veggie, fries, etc.

Here you will be needing a different KDS on each station, for instance, there should be a separate screen on the fries station that shows only the fries order, etc. Every staff member will be focusing on their stations and at the end, the dispatcher or assembler will assemble all the orders in one place.

With a KDS, modifiers can be configured to display with highlight colors.

 With KDS time can be optimized mistakes can be prevented as taken in manual orders. Every staff member is responsible and accountable for his station hence you can manage the staff and orders simultaneously.

In tapas or small plate restaurants, plates are sent out as fresh as possible – as they become ready – rather than waiting for all the food for a table to complete cooking.

In this type of kitchen, line cooks are typically working on one item at a time. Waiters can pace the meal by directing two or three plates together in “rounds.”

Problems occur when there is a single order of one party for different tables on a single ticket. If the chit is taken out in the first round, so there is a chance that orders can get forgotten or mistakenly brought to the wrong table.

A KDS can be configured to display each item on its ticket, rather than having all items for a single table on the same ticket. 

When one item is ready, the line cook will put the plate on the pass and can tap on the done button with the bump bar on the KDS and will continue to the next. That’s how operations can be optimized, and errors can be reduced.

Full-service casual dining restaurants having a high volume should be efficient in speed and have a great dinner experience.

To keep things managed these types of restaurants are usually using two expediters one is looking in the kitchen and the other is outside the kitchen. Another option is for one expo to manage dine-in orders and one expo to manage takeout orders.

When guests aren’t choosing their order right in front of you the way they would in a fast-casual restaurant, allergens can become a more potent risk in this type of kitchen.

To prevent mistakes with guests’ dietary needs, a KDS can highlight allergy modifiers in a bright color to be very visible to line cooks. At the time of order. Order takers can add special notes to the order from POS and that will be directly displayed to the KDS where the chef can see the notes and can prepare the order accordingly.

In more traditional full-service restaurants, meals (and their preparation) are broken into traditional courses such as appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Waitstaff will typically take the entire order for all courses at the start of the meal and enter it into the POS System.

FoodBucket POS provides all the options in its menu where you can add appetizers main courses and desserts so the order take can easily take orders from the Waiter POS and can send the order directly to the kitchen display screen. 

KDS helps the kitchen crew to prepare courses more efficiently and can ensure that all food items finish at the same time and food is served to the customer as fresh as possible.

FoodBucket KDS is showing the timeline for every order so that orders can be served within time and if there is any delay the kitchen staff can be accountable for that. Hence you can optimize your kitchen operations and can automate your restaurant with a FoodBucket system.

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