What is TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh?

By
Katherine Pendrill

There are hundreds of things happening at once in a busy restaurant kitchen. As cooks fulfill outstanding orders, new ones are constantly coming in, sometimes from multiple different channels at once. As a result, directing orders to the proper station and making sure they’re prepared in a timely manner can be a bit chaotic if your restaurant is still relying on paper tickets. Fortunately, TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh eliminates the need for hundreds of paper tickets each day and helps to streamline back-of-house management.

However, if you’ve never used a KDS before, you might be wondering how the technology works and whether it’s the right fit for your restaurant.

In this guide to TouchBistro’s Kitchen Display System (KDS), we’ll cover the ins and outs of the technology to help you figure out if a digital system is right for you. Keep reading to learn:

  • What TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh is
  • How the TouchBistro KDS works
  • The benefits of using TouchBistro KDS
  • How to get started with TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh

What is TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh?

The TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh provides a seamless line of communication between your front-of-house (FOH) and back-of-house (BOH) teams by displaying digital order tickets sent directly from your TouchBistro POS.

With features like color-coded ticket statuses, analytics organized by location and screen, and bump bar compatibility, TouchBistro’s KDS helps improve kitchen communications, decrease ticket times, and eliminate errors – all of which make your kitchen operations more efficient.

Why Do Restaurants Need a KDS?

If you currently communicate orders to the kitchen via printed or handwritten tickets and are experiencing any of the following challenges at your restaurant, it might be time to switch to a digital kitchen order system:

  • Staff members sometimes miss printed tickets or miswrite paper tickets, leading to frequent errors and a poor customer experience.
  • You spend precious resources on paper tickets, ink, and pens.
  • Employees waste time manually writing out tickets or running them to the kitchen.
  • Keeping track of orders and modifications is difficult because you have multiple stations in the kitchen.
  • Customers are complaining about long wait times for dishes and staff are unable to provide updates because you don’t know how long tickets have been open.
  • Your FOH and BOH teams have trouble staying in sync because your restaurant lacks a centralized system for managing orders – it’s like an ongoing game of telephone with several missing links.
  • You’re having trouble keeping track of orders coming from multiple sources, like within your restaurant and from your online ordering platform, resulting in missed or incorrect orders.
  • Printed paper kitchen tickets and inaccurate orders are creating unnecessary waste and extra cleanup work at the end of the day.

Fortunately, TouchBistro’s Kitchen Display System was designed to make these pain points a distant memory. Keep reading to learn how.

How Does the TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Work?

Back of house software, including TouchBistro’s KDS can help your front of house and back of house operations run more seamlessly. Here’s a simple breakdown of this sophisticated kitchen technology:

  1. Your restaurant’s POS receives orders when staff input them directly into the POS in-venue and when customers place them through your online ordering platforms.
  2. These orders automatically flow from the POS to the KDS. Then, a digital ticket instantly appears on the KDS screen, corresponding to the correct station at the back of the house.
  3. Kitchen staff members prepare meals based on the information on those digital tickets and track how long tickets have been open.
  4. Customers receive – and enjoy – their meals in a timely manner.

Now that you know how to use the KDS, you probably want to know what the KDS can do for you. The TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh comes with many powerful features, including:

  • POS Integration: Orders placed on your TouchBistro POS appear immediately on the KDS screen, prompting kitchen staff to start preparing items seconds later.
  • Order View: Orders appear instantly on the KDS screen and are signaled by an optional loud, audible alert so you never miss a ticket.
  • Customizable Display and Touchscreen Interface: Customizable ticket and font sizes, instinctive controls, and color-coded ticket statuses make the KDS easy to learn and use.
  • Easy-to-Clear Tickets: Ensure your entire BOH team is on the same page and eliminate redundancies by striking through ticket items and modifiers to quickly clear tickets as you go.
  • Ticket History View: Easily identify and correct errors with the option to view and recall past orders at any time.
  • Routing Capabilities: Minimize missed orders or long wait times by strategically routing orders to appropriate cook stations.
  • Online Order Fulfillment: Eliminate double entry by displaying all orders from your POS and online ordering system in the KDS as different order types on a single screen or on individual screens dedicated to each order type.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Gain valuable insights that help you monitor BOH efficiency and improve performance with a dashboard that provides average number of tickets, average bump time, and more.
  • Bump Bar Compatible: Keep your order queue organized and your KDS screen clean by using a bump bar to update orders in real time.
  • Offline Mode: TouchBistro’s KDS is equipped with a redundancy feature that ensures your devices can continue to communicate and orders can still be taken.
  • Multi-Location Functionality: Multi-location businesses can see reporting for all of their venues in one place, while allowing admins to customize KDS settings at each location.
  • Order Tracker App: Customers can watch their orders come to life in real time through the Fresh KDS Order Tracker App.
  • Cross-Screen Communication: Sync multiple KDS screens together to track order bumps and item strikethroughs.
  • Print Order Labels or Tickets: Quickly and easily print order labels and tickets by connecting your KDS with a compatible Bluetooth or wireline printer.
  • Commercial-Grade Hardware: Designed to handle heat, spills, and falls, this KDS hardware is tough enough for any restaurant kitchen.

What are the Benefits of Using TouchBistro KDS?

As you can see, TouchBistro’s Kitchen Display System comes with many helpful features. Here’s a practical breakdown of exactly how these features can benefit your business.

Faster Service

Simply put, TouchBistro KDS speeds up service at your restaurant, while helping your team fulfill complicated orders. When orders are routed to the proper cook stations, you can avoid missing them, reduce wait times, and ultimately serve more customers.

Improved Order Accuracy

TouchBistro KDS is designed to minimize mistakes. You can reduce voids and costly order errors by sending orders directly from the POS to the KDS, instead of relying on handwritten tickets.

Greater Kitchen Efficiency

TouchBistro KDS helps you do more with less. You can identify bottlenecks and make meaningful changes thanks to in-depth reporting on average ticket time, fulfillment speed, ticket transition times, and more.

Less Waste

TouchBistro KDS helps your restaurant reduce paper waste by replacing paper tickets with digital ones.

More Sales

All of the above benefits work together to help your restaurant drive more sales. When you create instant communication between your front of house and kitchen, you can serve customers more quickly and turn tables faster, thereby generating more revenue.

How to Get Started with TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh

Are you interested in adding TouchBistro’s KDS to your restaurant? It’s easy to get started!

If You Already Have TouchBistro POS…

Contact your account manager to get started with TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh.

If You Aren’t a TouchBistro Customer…

If you aren’t a current TouchBistro POS customer, click to get started with TouchBistro POS and KDS.

As a restaurateur, you’re always looking for ways to run your business more efficiently. TouchBistro Kitchen Display System Powered by Fresh streamlines communication between the front of the house and back of the house, so you can save time, maximize revenue, and keep customers coming back for more.

by
Katherine Pendrill