Kitchen screen layout for four stations

A kitchen with four stations, say grill, sauté, fryer and cold, has to turn one order into four streams of work and then back into one table's plates at the pass. With paper tickets, that is done by copying, shouting and the head chef's memory. With kitchen screens, it can be done by layout: each station sees exactly what it must cook, and the pass sees every table come together.

Getting the layout right is what turns a kitchen screen from a digital rail into something that genuinely helps. Get it wrong and the grill sees dishes it does not cook, the cold section misses the salad that goes with a table's mains, and the pass loses track of which table is nearly ready. This guide covers how to split tickets across four stations without losing the table, where the screens and the expo station go, how tickets should look, and the layout that still works when a party of twelve orders at once. Every figure in it is an example.

A kitchen screen layout has two jobs that pull in different directions. Each station needs to see only its own work, clearly, so cooks are not distracted by dishes they do not make. And the kitchen as a whole needs to keep sight of the table, so that every part of an order arrives at the pass at the right time.

The answer is usually two kinds of view: a station view, showing each station only the items it cooks, and a whole-kitchen view at the pass, showing every ticket complete. Each station works from its own screen; the person running the pass works from the whole picture.

The layout of the screens themselves, where they are mounted, how large they are and how tickets are arranged on them, determines whether cooks can read them at a glance during the rush.

Before setting up screens, decide exactly what each station cooks. Prep stations should be defined by the dishes and the equipment, not by habit or by who usually stands where. Every item on the menu should belong to one station, so it appears on that station's screen and nowhere else it is not needed.

In an example kitchen, the grill takes steaks, burgers and grilled fish. Sauté takes pasta, risotto and pan-cooked dishes. The fryer takes chips, fried starters and anything battered. Cold takes salads, cold starters and desserts.

Some dishes span stations: a steak with chips and a side salad needs the grill, the fryer and cold. Decide how those are split. Usually each component goes to its own station, and the main component's station, the grill here, is treated as the lead for timing.

When a table's order is split across stations, each station sees only its part. The grill sees the steaks, the fryer sees the chips, cold sees the salad. That keeps each screen clear, but it creates a risk: each station works on its part without knowing how the others are getting on.

The fix is to keep the table visible on every part of the ticket. Each station's ticket should show the table number, the number of covers and the time the order arrived, so a cook can see that the chips belong to the same table as the steaks on the grill, and roughly when they will be needed.

The pass does the rest. The person running it sees the whole ticket, every station's part together, and calls each station when the table's dishes need to come together. Our guide to kitchen tickets that never need a shout covers what each ticket should carry.

The expo station, often simply called the pass, is where a table's dishes are brought together, checked and sent out. In a kitchen with four stations, the expo station is the only place where every part of every order meets, so its screen should show the whole kitchen.

That screen shows every ticket complete, with each station's items and their status, so the person at the pass can see which tables are waiting on which station. When the grill's steaks are nearly ready, the pass can call the fryer for the chips and cold for the salad, so everything arrives together.

Our guide to order management, from table to pass covers the role of the pass. On a screen, the expo station is that role made visible: one person with the whole picture.

Each station needs its screen where the cook can read it without leaving the station or turning away from the work. Usually that means mounted at eye level, above or beside the station, angled towards the cook, within a couple of metres.

Keep screens away from direct heat and steam where possible: not directly above the grill or the fryer, where heat and grease will shorten their life. A screen a little to one side, protected and angled, lasts longer and is just as readable.

The expo screen goes at the pass, where the person running it stands, facing the kitchen. In a busy kitchen, a second screen at the pass, facing the floor, can help servers see which dishes are ready to collect.

Screen size matters more than many kitchens expect. A cook glancing at a screen from a metre or two away, between pans, needs to read the ticket in a second. Small screens with small text are hard to read from a distance, especially through steam.

Choose screens large enough for the distance, and set the text large. A busy grill station may need a larger screen than a cold section where the cook stands close. Test them in the kitchen during a real service: can every cook read every ticket from where they work?

Contrast matters too. Bright text on a dark background is often easier to read in a bright kitchen, and colour can help, but never rely on colour alone, because some cooks cannot tell certain colours apart.

On a station's screen, each ticket should show the table, the number of covers, the time it arrived and the items that station must cook, with every change and note under the item it belongs to. Allergies should be the most prominent thing on the ticket, at the top, so they are read before anything is cooked.

Tickets should appear in the order they must be cooked, usually oldest first, so the cook works through them in sequence. Each ticket should show how long it has been waiting, so a ticket that is falling behind is obvious.

Keep tickets uncluttered. Every word that does not help the cook cook is a word that slows them down. Item names should match the names the kitchen uses, and modifiers should be short and consistent.

In a sit-down meal, mains are often ordered with starters but cooked later. The kitchen needs to know which items to start now and which to hold until the table is ready. On a screen, held items should be kept off the active view or plainly marked as held, so the grill does not start the steaks while the table is still on its starters.

When the table is ready, the main course is fired, sent to the stations to start. On the screen, the held items then appear as active tickets, at the stations that cook them, with the time they were fired.

Who fires, and when, is its own decision. Our guide to course firing: mains away when the starters clear covers it in detail.

When a station finishes its part of a ticket, the cook bumps it: marks it done, so it leaves the station's screen. Bumping keeps each screen showing only the work still to do, and it tells the pass that the station's part is ready.

Bumping should be quick and reliable. A touch on the screen works, but greasy or wet hands make touch screens unreliable, so many kitchens use a bump bar, a small set of physical buttons beside the screen. A cook can bump a ticket with an elbow if their hands are full.

Make recall easy too. A ticket bumped by mistake must be easy to bring back, or it becomes an order nobody cooks.

A party of twelve is the test of any kitchen screen layout. Twelve covers may mean twelve mains spread across four stations, plus starters, sides and special requests, all arriving at once and needing to come together at the pass.

On a station's screen, a large ticket should stay readable: items grouped and counted, such as "4 steak, 2 medium, 2 rare", rather than listed twelve times. Modifiers should stay under the items they belong to. If the ticket is too long for one screen, it should be obvious that there is more.

At the pass, the large order should be visible as one table, with each station's part and its progress, so the expo can bring the twelve plates together. Agree in advance how large parties are fired and plated: often in waves, starting with the grill, with the pass calling each station in turn.

A layout only works if the work is balanced. If most mains come from the grill, the grill's screen will be crowded and the grill will be the bottleneck, however well the screens are set up. If the cold section has little to do during the main rush, its cook could help elsewhere.

Look at the load on each station during the busiest hour. How many tickets does each one handle? How long does each station take? Where do tickets wait longest? A station that is consistently overloaded may need its menu items rebalanced, another cook at the peak or a dish moved to another station.

Our guide to ticket times, the only kitchen metric that moves covers how to measure the load by station.

The screen tells each station what to cook; the station's preparation decides how fast it can cook it. A station with its mise en place ready, every ingredient and component prepared and in place before service, can follow its screen quickly. One that is still preparing during service falls behind, whatever the screen shows.

The idea of mise en place, everything in its place, is as old as professional kitchens. A good screen layout builds on it: each station's screen reflects exactly the dishes its preparation is set up for, so there is no confusion about who makes what.

When the menu changes, update the stations, the screens and the preparation together, so a new dish appears on the right screen and the station is ready for it.

Allergies are the highest-stakes information in any kitchen, and splitting tickets across stations makes them harder to manage. A guest with a nut allergy may have dishes on three stations, and each station must know.

Make sure the allergy appears on every part of the ticket, at every station that cooks for that guest, not just at the lead station. It should be at the top of each ticket, prominent and impossible to miss.

The pass is the final check. Before an allergy order leaves the kitchen, the person running the pass should confirm that every dish meets the guest's needs, and the dish should be marked or carried separately so it reaches the right guest.

Many of the kitchen display benefits operators hope for, faster tickets, fewer lost orders, better timing between stations, depend on the layout rather than the screens themselves. A screen that shows every station every ticket is just a digital rail; a layout that splits work by station and brings it together at the pass is what speeds the kitchen up.

The benefits are measurable: ticket times by station, the time from fire to plate at the pass, the number of remakes and the number of tables whose dishes arrive at different times. Our guide to kitchen display benefits, measured not promised covers how to measure them.

Measure before and after changing the layout, so you know whether the change helped.

A new layout needs training. Every cook needs to know what appears on their screen, how to bump and recall, how held items work and what the allergy marking looks like. The person running the pass needs to know how to read the whole-kitchen view and call each station.

Train during quiet services, and run a practice on a busy night with an experienced chef at the pass. Expect the first few services to be slower while the team learns.

Ask the team what is working and what is not. Cooks will quickly spot items that appear on the wrong screen, text that is too small or a screen in the wrong place. Their feedback in the first fortnight is the fastest way to a layout that works.

An invented brasserie with a grill, sauté, fryer and cold section starts with a single kitchen screen showing every ticket to everyone. Cooks scan through dishes they do not make to find their own, the fryer often sends chips too early or too late, and the head chef shouts to coordinate every table.

The brasserie sets up four station screens, each showing only that station's items, with the table, covers and waiting time on every ticket, and a whole-kitchen screen at the pass. Mains are held until fired from the floor. Each station gets a bump bar. Allergies appear at the top of every part of a ticket. Large parties are fired in waves, called from the pass.

Within a few weeks, ticket times fall, chips arrive with the steaks rather than before them, and the head chef spends less time shouting and more time checking plates. A party of twelve on a Saturday comes together at the pass in two waves without a single remake.

In servearound, the kitchen is set up as stations, and each dish belongs to the station that cooks it, so each station's board shows only its own work. A kitchen screen can be set to one station or to all of them, which gives the pass its whole-kitchen view, and the stations page shows how many tickets each station has live. Tickets arrive oldest first, each showing the table and its age as it counts, with the guest's allergies at the head of the ticket, every option, removal and note under its dish, and any dish containing an allergen the guest has shown in red.

Held courses wait on the board, marked as held, until they are fired, from the point of sale or with a second tap on the held ticket, and tickets are bumped by touch or with a bump bar, with recall for a ticket bumped too soon. Kitchen analytics then show ticket times by station, where the minutes go between the queue, prep and the pass, and which dishes take the most kitchen time. See Order Fulfillment.

By what each station cooks, with every menu item assigned to one station, so each screen shows only its own work.

Every station's ticket shows the table, covers and time, and the pass has a whole-kitchen view showing every station's part of each order.

The pass: where a table's dishes come together, are checked and sent out. Its screen should show every ticket complete.

At eye level, beside or above each station, angled to the cook, away from direct heat and steam.

Large enough to read from where the cook works, in a glance, through steam. Test during a real service.

Apart from live work, off the active view or plainly marked as held, until fired, so stations do not start mains while the table is still on starters.

A small set of physical buttons beside the screen for marking tickets done, useful when hands are wet or greasy.

Group and count items on each station's ticket, keep modifiers under their items, and fire large parties in waves called from the pass.

The allergy appears at the top of every part of the ticket, at every station cooking for that guest, with a final check at the pass.

A kitchen screen layout for four stations has to give each station only its own work while keeping the whole table in view. Define the prep stations by dishes and equipment, assign every menu item to one, and show each station's part of a ticket with the table, covers and waiting time. Put a whole-kitchen view at the expo station, so the pass can bring every table's dishes together.

Mount screens at eye level away from heat, large enough to read in a glance, with tickets oldest first, allergies at the top and modifiers under their items. Keep held courses off the active view or plainly marked as held until fired, use bump bars, group and count large orders, balance the load across stations, and measure ticket times before and after any change.