How do restaurant orders reach the kitchen?

1. Mina and her dad order a burger, fries and a salad. The server taps each dish into a tablet, along with their table number: table 4.
2. The order zips to the kitchen in a blink. A printer rolls out a ticket: the dishes, the table number and the time. The ticket hangs on a rail where the cooks can see it.
3. A kitchen is split into stations. The grill cooks the burger, the fryer cooks the fries and the cold station builds the salad. Each cook sees only their own part of the ticket.
4. A burger takes eight minutes, fries four and a salad two. So the burger starts first, the fries later and the salad last. That way all three finish at the same moment.
5. The plates meet on a shelf called the pass, under warm lamps. One person checks them against the ticket. Burger, fries, salad. All here? Ding!
6. The server reads the table number on the ticket and carries everything to table 4 together. Hot food hot, crisp salad crisp, and nobody watching the others eat.

Tap each part of the kitchen. Find out what job it does for one order.

• Order tablet. The server taps each dish and your table number into this tablet, and it sends the order to the kitchen.
• Ticket printer. A small printer in the kitchen prints each order as a ticket, seconds after the server sends it.
• Ticket rail. Tickets hang on this rail in the order they arrived, so the oldest order is cooked first.
• Grill station. The hot grill cooks burgers. It is often the slowest job, so it is usually started first.
• Fry station. A basket lowers the fries into hot oil for a few minutes. The cook lifts it out when the timer rings.
• Cold station. Salads and other cold dishes are put together here. It is quick, so it is done last to keep the leaves crisp.
• The pass. Finished plates wait here under warm lamps. Someone checks them against the ticket before they leave the kitchen.
• Order-up bell. A tap on the bell tells the server that a whole order is ready to collect.

Cook one order two ways: start everything at once, then start the longest dish first. Watch how long each plate waits under the lamp.

Experiment: A burger takes 8 minutes and a salad takes 2. If both are started at the same moment, what happens?

1. Press "Start all at once" and watch the timeline.
2. Read how long the first plate waited at the pass.
3. Press "Start longest first" and compare.

What we found: Started together, the salad is finished after 2 minutes and then waits 6 more for the burger. Started longest first, each dish begins just in time and all three reach the pass together, fresh.

Turn on JavaScript to try it yourself.

Start each station at the right moment so all three dishes finish together. Then ring the bell and choose the right table.

When you order in a restaurant, your words have to reach several cooks, and the right food has to find its way back to you. The trick is a ticket. The server taps your order and table number into a tablet, and seconds later a ticket prints in the kitchen.

A kitchen is divided into stations, each with its own tools: a grill for burgers, a fryer for fries, a cold station for salads. Each cook makes one part of your order. Working at the same time, three cooks can finish a meal much faster than one cook doing everything in turn.

But the dishes take different times. If everything started together, the salad would be ready long before the burger and would sit getting warm and limp. So the kitchen starts the slowest dish first and the quickest dish last. Everything finishes at the same moment.

The finished plates meet at the pass, a shelf with warm lamps. One person, the expediter, checks the plates against the ticket and rings for the server, who uses the table number to bring it all to you. The breakfast comparison only goes so far: at home one person times two things, but a kitchen times dozens of dishes for many tables at once, which is why it needs tickets.

Key words

Ticket

The kitchen's copy of an order: the dishes, the table number and the time it was placed.

Station

One working area of a kitchen with its own job and tools, such as the grill or the fryer.

The pass

The shelf where finished plates are checked and handed from the kitchen to the servers.

Expediter

The person at the pass who checks each order and makes sure all its plates leave together.

Fire

Kitchen talk for "start cooking this now".

Stagger

Starting tasks at different times on purpose so that they finish together.

Check your thinking

1. How does your order get from your table to the cooks?

   Show the answer

   The server sends it from a tablet and a ticket prints in the kitchen. The tablet sends the order to the kitchen, where it prints as a ticket for the cooks.

2. Why does the kitchen start the burger before the salad?

   Show the answer

   The burger takes longer, and both should be ready together. Starting the slow dish first and the quick dish last makes them finish at the same moment.

3. A pizza takes 10 minutes and a soup takes 3. When should the soup be started so both are ready together?

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   7 minutes after the pizza. 10 minus 3 is 7. Started 7 minutes in, the soup's 3 minutes end just as the pizza is done.

4. What is the pass for?

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   Checking that an order is complete before it goes to the table. At the pass the plates are checked against the ticket, so the whole order leaves together.

5. Heat lamps keep plates warm at the pass. Why does a good kitchen still try to make the wait there as short as possible?

   Show the answer

   Food dries out, softens or wilts while it waits. The pass is a buffer for small timing errors, but quality drops the longer food sits there.