Kitchen display system (KDS)

A kitchen display system, or KDS, is a screen that shows every live order in one queue, split by station, with the time since each was paid for. It replaces or supplements the printer. Its advantages are a single queue for orders from every channel, a visible clock per ticket and a record afterwards of how long things actually took. Its disadvantage is physical: a kitchen is hot, wet and greasy.

In practice

A kitchen display system replaces or supplements the printer. Its advantages are a single queue for orders from every channel, a visible clock per ticket, routing by station, and a record afterwards of how long things actually took.

Its disadvantage is physical: a kitchen is hot, wet and greasy, and a screen has to be mounted somewhere it survives. It also cannot travel with the food, so a shop whose bags go out with a slip attached still needs a printer.

Most of the takeaways we build for end up with both — the printer for the physical ticket, the screen as the queue and the backup — and which one is primary depends entirely on how food leaves the kitchen.

Also called: KDS, kitchen screen.

Questions people ask about kitchen display system (kds)

Is a kitchen display better than a printer?

For the queue, yes: one list from every channel, a clock on every ticket and timings you can look at afterwards. For the food, no: a screen cannot travel with the bag. Most of the takeaways we build for end up with both, and which one is primary depends entirely on how food leaves the kitchen.

Where does a kitchen screen get mounted?

Somewhere it survives heat, steam and grease, at a height a cook can reach with a knuckle rather than a fingertip. The mounting is usually the part that gets left until the day of install and then decides whether the system is used, so it is worth settling first.

What does a KDS record that a printer cannot?

How long each ticket actually took, from paid to bumped, by station and by time of day. That is the number behind an honest quoted wait, and it is the only way to find out whether Friday at eight is genuinely slower or just feels it.

Where to go next

How we build them, and when not to →