Kitchen Display, or KDS, replaces paper tickets with a live screen your team can read quickly. A full-service restaurant needs a bit more setup than a fast counter, since you often run more than one station, and each ticket carries more detail. This guide covers what to check.
Note: Each station has its own settings. If you want different settings for different stations, set up each one separately. For example, your Kitchen station and your Front of house station can each show different information, so every screen shows exactly what that team needs.
View type
Set View type to Gallery. Turn off Automatic columns, and choose the number yourself instead. Each ticket shows more detail here, so it helps to control exactly how many fit on the screen.
Compact gallery saves space in gallery view.
Grid view collapses long tickets into fixed cells.
Rails view shows each ticket as one column, similar to a printed ticket, but shows fewer tickets on screen.
Ticket text and density
Keep Ticket text size set to Large, the default. This makes it easier to read details like courses and modifiers.
Ticket density controls the space between products on a ticket. Set it to Cozy, so everything fits without scrolling.
Viewing other stations' tickets (coming soon)
If you'd like early access to this feature, send us an email at [email protected]
If you work with multiple prep stations, turn on Show products from other stations. This lets you see items from the same course being prepared at another station.
Kitchen station settings
In your Kitchen station, choose whether to show Completed under allowed statuses. This depends on your head chef's preference:
Turn it off so a cook's screen only shows active tickets.
Keep it on to check what has already gone out.
Either way, completed courses now also show a completed time, so you always know exactly when a course finished.
Front of house settings
In Front of house, narrow the view down to show only what your team needs to act on. Under Filter by course status, select only Ready to serve and Completed. This way, your runners can mark a course as complete after they serve it.
Header settings
By default, Header info shows everything. You can also select only what works best for you.
Set Header text size to Medium. This makes the header smaller, so there's more room for the ticket.
Advanced settings
Quick Ticket Completion: off. You can turn it on if you want, but it has some risk: one tap can mark a whole ticket as done, even before every course has gone out.
Complete course automatically: on. This closes a course once every item in it is ready. For fine dining, you can turn this off instead, so your team confirms each course manually before it's marked done.
Ticket groups: on. This is optional, but it works well for fine dining, and it's also easier to manage if you only work with set menus. It keeps every course from the same table together, so your team sees the whole meal, not just one course by itself.
Reorder on status change and Animate ticket layout: on. Tickets move into place automatically when one is completed.
Unfired courses: depends on how your kitchen works. Some kitchens want to see every course as soon as it's ordered. Others prefer to see a course only once it's fired. Choose what works best for your team.
Working with multiple stations
If you run more than one station, select the station selector. You can switch between stations, or select more than one to see every queue at the same time.
If you run only one prep station but want to see orders from just one area or floor, use table and area filters instead. This is common in restaurants with multiple floors.
Finding completed tickets
Once a ticket is marked Completed, it disappears from the main screen. You can always find it again under View closed tickets.
If a ticket was marked as completed by mistake, select the undo button to reverse it.
Using the side panel
The side panel can show a Log, a Status view, or your Products list, giving you a quick view of the status of your service. If you'd rather keep both views open at the same time, select the pin icon to keep the side panel in place.