How to mark an item READY on the kitchen screen

What happens when the station marks it done

Marking an item ready means closing out a line of the order right on the kitchen display: you tap the READY? button on the right side of the item and it leaves that station's queue. Behind the scenes, qmen.us saves the Ready status on the line, stamps the exact time it was marked done and records the event in the order's history.

There are two ways to mark things done, and the owner picks one in Settings. With Complete item by item on, each line gets its own READY?. With it off, the card shows a single wide button, ORDER READY?, which marks every pending item of that order at your station at once. A card in Draft, the dashed one with the note Waiting for the waiter to send, has no button at all: it's just a preview of what's still being taken down at the table.

Why marking it done at the right moment changes the dining room

• The waiter finds out instantly, without you shouting. At the top of their app the Ready to serve bar lights up with a clickable table, and the phone vibrates and beeps when a new table joins the list.
• The guest stops asking how much longer. The table page updates on its own: the line gets the green Ready label and, when everything is ready, the order shows Order ready! with a note that the waiter is on the way with it.
• The queue stays clean. An item marked done disappears from the display: what's on screen is always what still has to go out, with no old cards getting in the way during the rush.
• Your prep time becomes a number. When the last item of the order is ready, qmen.us stamps the completion time. That's where the Dashboard's Average prep time comes from, next to the house target, along with the estimate in minutes the next guest reads at the table.

How to mark an item READY in 7 steps

Seven steps, from the display open on the wall to the dish on the guest's table.

1. Open the station's display

   Open that station's Display address in the browser of the tablet or TV and type the Display password. There's no app to install, qmen.us runs in the browser. The screen opens dark, with the light/dark theme button in the corner, and it can stay on all day: new orders appear on their own, without anyone pressing refresh.

2. Choose how your restaurant marks things done

   In Settings, the owner chooses the mode with the Complete item by item switch. On, each line has its own READY?. Off, there's only the ORDER READY? for the whole card. Drinks that go out one at a time suit item by item; a kitchen that only sends once everything is plated suits the whole order.

3. Read the card before you tap

   Each card is an order. At the top comes the Table in small type, the order name highlighted when there is one, and the status label. Below come the items in large type: the colored quantity, the faded category and the item name in bold. Size and add-ons appear on the middle line, and the guest's note comes flagged with an alert. Read the note before tapping any button.

4. Tap READY? on the line

   Dish gone out? Tap the green READY? on the line. The card dims instantly, the button locks so it can't be marked twice and the queue redraws without reloading the page. The line disappears from the display because it's no longer pending.

   Tip: Only the line you marked leaves the queue. The other items of the same order stay on the card until someone marks them done.

5. Or mark the whole order done

   When the order goes out all together, use the wide ORDER READY? at the bottom of the card: it marks everything still pending in that order at your station done in one go. If your restaurant has more than one station, don't worry: what belongs to the grill doesn't disappear when the bar taps the button. Each display only touches its own items.

6. Watch the notice arrive

   In the same second the update reaches four screens: the display itself, the waiter app for that order, the guest's table page and the owner's Dashboard. And when no pending line is left, the whole order moves to Ready and gets its completion time.

7. Let the waiter close the loop

   The last leg is left, and it belongs to the dining room. The waiter opens the table from the Ready to serve bar and taps Serve on the line, or Serve order to take everything at once. The line becomes Served and the tab stays open for more orders. If the waiter sends a new item later, the order goes back to Preparing and reappears on your display.

Frequently asked questions

Glossary

Kitchen display

The wall screen that shows that prep station's queue live, protected by a password.

Complete item by item

The Settings switch that decides whether the kitchen marks each line done separately or only the whole order.

Ready

An item's status after the prep station marks it done; the waiter is alerted right away.

Serve

The waiter app button that takes a Ready line and marks it Served, with the tab staying open.

Prep station

The station that makes one kind of thing: grill, cold station, bar, pastry.

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