Restaurant Table Ordering and Kitchen Flow: A Practical Setup

In a restaurant the order is a relay. A guest decides, a server writes, the kitchen cooks, a runner delivers, and the till closes the loop. Every handoff is a chance for a lost ticket, a wrong table or a dish that sits under the lamp. Better software cannot remove people from that relay, but it can remove the shouting and the paper.

This guide covers the setup that makes the biggest difference for a small or mid-sized restaurant: ordering from the table, a kitchen screen that shows tickets in order, one till for every channel, and the back-office basics of stock, recipes and the rota. It is practical rather than theoretical, and it shows where Epidom fits at each step.

Let guests order from the table

Table ordering is not about replacing the server. It is about taking the repeat, low-value trips out of the room: the second round of drinks, the extra bread, the bill. Staff spend their time on guests who want advice, and the others order when they are ready.

• Put a QR code on each table that opens your menu on the guest's phone, with photos for the dishes people ask about most.
• Keep a server for the first order and for anyone who prefers to talk. Table ordering works best as an option, not a rule.
• Mark what is unavailable the moment it runs out, so guests never order the last portion twice.

In Epidom, an order placed from the table arrives as a ticket on the till and on the kitchen screen, tied to the table, with no one retyping it. The live demo lets you see the guest's side and the till's side without signing up.

A kitchen screen instead of paper and shouting

A paper printer is fine until the rush, when tickets pile up and the order they arrived in is no longer the order they are cooked. A kitchen screen shows every ticket in order, with the time it has waited, and lets the cook mark a dish as ready so the floor knows.

• Send starters, mains and desserts to the right station, so the grill does not read the dessert tickets.
• Use course timing: fire the main when the starter is cleared, not when it is ordered.
• Keep a printer as a backup. A screen that loses power during service should never mean a kitchen that cannot read an order.

Epidom lets you route tickets to different printers, such as a kitchen printer and a bar printer, and offers a kitchen display for kitchens that prefer a screen. Pick whichever your cooks will really use; a feature nobody looks at is worse than none.

One till for dine-in, takeaway and delivery

Many restaurants run three or four separate lists: the till, a tablet for a delivery app, a notebook for phone orders. At the end of the week nobody can say what the real numbers are. One till for every channel puts all sales in one report, and it is the only way to compare the channels honestly.

• Record each order with its channel, so you can see what dine-in, takeaway and delivery each bring in.
• Compare delivery-app sales with the commission they cost. A busy channel with a thin margin is not the same as a busy channel.
• Offer your own ordering link for takeaway, so regulars can order direct and you keep the full amount.

Stock, recipes and the rota in the same place

Behind the pass, three numbers decide the month: the cost of each dish, what you threw away, and the hours you paid. They tend to live in three different places, which is why they are checked rarely.

• Write each recipe once with its ingredients and quantities, and let the system work out the cost per portion as prices change.
• Track waste as it happens: a dropped plate, a batch that turned. Over a month it is often the largest cost you cannot see.
• Build the weekly rota from last week's busiest hours, then compare hours worked with what the roster said.

Epidom keeps recipes, stock, supplier orders and staff rosters next to the till, so a sale updates stock and the cost of the dish shows up beside its price. That is the part that usually takes the longest to set up, so start with your twenty best sellers and add the rest over a few weeks.

Where to start this week

You do not need to switch everything at once. Pick the handoff that hurts most. If tickets get lost, start with the kitchen screen or a second printer. If the bill is slow, start with table ordering. If the margin is a mystery, start with five recipes. Try it on the demo restaurant first, then on a quiet Tuesday service, and only then on a Saturday night.