Follow five statuses: Draft while the waiter builds it, Ordered as soon as they tap Send to kitchen, Preparing when a new round comes in, Ready when the station marks it done and Served when the waiter serves it. An order preparing in the kitchen changes on all three screens at the same moment.
What an order's statuses are
An order preparing in the kitchen isn't a message shouted across the room: it's a saved status that every screen reads the same way. There are five in all — Draft, Ordered, Preparing, Ready and Served — plus Cancelled, for when someone changes their mind. Each line of the tab has its own status too, and that's what the guest sees next to the dish: Waiting until the station marks it done, Ready after READY?, Served after the waiter has served it.
Different people move each step. The waiter builds and sends, the kitchen marks what's gone out, the waiter takes it to the table. The whole order only changes when the last item on that tab has changed: as long as an item is left in the station's queue, the card stays there. And none of this needs F5 — the display, the waiter app and the table page update on their own at the same instant, in the browser.
Why it pays to let the order move across the screens
- Nobody has to shout from the dining room to the station. The second the waiter taps Send to kitchen, the card is already on the display. And when the station marks it done, the waiter's phone vibrates, beeps and shows the table that's waiting.
- The guest stops asking how much longer. Through the table QR code they follow the Ordered, Preparing, Ready and Served line moving on its own, with an estimate in minutes taken from your restaurant's own recent orders — not a fixed guess.
- What's ready goes out right away. With Complete item by item on, each line has its own READY? and the Serve button appears only on the items the kitchen has already released. The starter doesn't sit cooling while it waits for the main course.
- A new round doesn't become a new order. Items the table orders later go into the same order, the status goes back to Preparing and it all stays on one bill, with the right total at the end.
- Everything is recorded without anyone writing anything down. The time it was sent, the time the kitchen finished and the time each item was served are saved automatically. That's where the time estimate the guest sees comes from.
An order preparing in the kitchen, step by step
Seven stops, from the draft in the waiter's hand to the bill closed and the table free.
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The order starts as a Draft
The waiter opens the table in the app and taps items from the menu. While nothing has been sent, the order stays in Draft and each new line appears with the not sent yet label. The kitchen can already see this card, but faded and with the message Waiting for the waiter to send — it's there so the station can get ready, not so it can start cooking.
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Send to kitchen makes the order official
On the review screen, the Send to kitchen button sends everything that was waiting in one go. The order leaves Draft and becomes Ordered, the card on the display stops being faded and, if that station has a printer turned on, the ticket comes out on paper too. The list that was sent doesn't change anymore: anything that comes later goes in as a new round.
Tip: A custom item, the one the waiter types on the spot, appears on the display just like the ones from the menu — and the note they wrote is highlighted under the name. -
The station marks READY? on the display
Each item on the card has a green READY? button next to it. Tap it and that item becomes Ready, with the time saved. If your restaurant prefers to mark the whole order done, just turn off Complete item by item in Settings: the card then shows a single ORDER READY? under the list.
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When the last item goes out, the order is Ready
The whole order only changes status when no pending item is left on the tab. Then it becomes Ready, the card leaves that station's queue and the waiter's phone vibrates, beeps and shows the Ready to serve strip with the table's name. On the guest's screen the Ready stage lights up with Order ready!
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Serving is what marks it Served
In the waiter app, every item the kitchen has released gets a Serve button; Serve order takes everything that's ready at once. When the last item on the tab is served, the order becomes Served — and even so the bill stays open, so dessert can be added later without opening a new order.
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A new round sends the order back to Preparing
Added more to an order that was already Ready or Served? When Send to kitchen is tapped again, the new items reach the display as a round of the same order and the status goes back to Preparing. It's still a single tab, with the total adding everything up — for example, R$ 42,00 for dinner plus the dessert that came later.
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Check it from the guest's side
Through the table QR code, the guest sees the same story as a four-stage line: Ordered, Preparing, Ready and Served, with how many items are in the kitchen, how many are already ready and an estimate in minutes based on your restaurant's recent orders. When the guest places the order on their own, the tracking page also shows the I got my order button as soon as the status is Ready — and that marks everything as Served.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the dining room show the order as Ordered while the guest already sees Preparing?+
They're two readings of the same thing. On the display and in the waiter app, Preparing is the status that appears when a new round comes in on an order that had already become Ready. For the guest, as soon as the waiter sends it, the line lights up Preparing with The kitchen is preparing it — which is exactly what's happening.
Can I mark the whole order done instead of item by item?+
Yes. In Settings there's the Complete item by item switch. On (the default), each line on the card gets its own READY?. Off, the card shows a single ORDER READY? under the list and marks all of that station's items at once.
Does the waiter have to keep watching the screen to know something's out?+
No. When an item becomes Ready, the waiter's phone vibrates, beeps and shows the Ready to serve strip with the table's name, which is a shortcut to the order. The notice only appears for the waiter who owns that order, and the screens update on their own, without anyone pulling down to reload.
I marked READY? by mistake. Can I undo it?+
There's no undo button on the display: the item leaves the station's queue and shows as Ready for the waiter. In practice the dining room handles it — the waiter simply doesn't tap Serve until the dish actually goes out. If the item really isn't going out, talk to the waiter so they can deal with it directly on the tab.
Does a Served order mean the bill is closed?+
No. Served only means every item has been served; the tab stays open and takes the dessert, the coffee, whatever comes next. What ends it is the Close bill button, which locks the list, and Free table, which hands the table back for the next guests.
Do I need to install anything in the kitchen?+
No. The display is a page in the browser of the tablet, laptop or TV, protected by the station's own password. For an old device that doesn't render well there's a lite version of the same screen, with the same queue and the same buttons.
Glossary
- Draft
- An order's first status, while the waiter is still putting the list together and nothing has gone to the kitchen yet.
- Preparing
- The stage the guest sees on the table page while the kitchen works on the order.
- Ready
- An item's status after the prep station marks it done; the waiter is alerted right away.
- Served
- The order's status once every item has been served; the bill can still stay open.
- Kitchen display
- The wall screen that shows that prep station's queue live, protected by a password.
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