Restaurant Operations
How to Set Up a Kitchen Display System
To set up a kitchen display system, choose a screen that can be read from the pass, mount it where cooks look anyway, give kitchen staff their own sign-in, split the menu into stations if more than one area cooks, decide how new orders are announced, and run a test service with fake orders before you stop printing tickets. Decide what happens when the connection drops before it ever does.
1. Choose the hardware
- A tablet or a screen with a small computer is usually enough; size it so the ticket text can be read from where the cook stands.
- Prefer a mount over a table stand: off the work surface, away from steam, grease and splashes.
- Power it permanently. A screen that runs on battery goes dark mid-service.
- Test the kitchen Wi-Fi at the exact spot — kitchens are full of metal.
2. Place it in the flow
Put the screen where the cook already looks when a ticket would arrive: above the pass, beside the rail where tickets used to hang. If the bar or a dessert station makes its own items, they need their own screen in their own line of sight, not a glance across the room.
3. Set up who can use it
- Give each cook their own sign-in rather than one shared code, so you can see who did what.
- Limit kitchen accounts to what the kitchen does: see orders and move them along — not refunds or menu prices.
- Make sure the screen is protected, so a guest who picks it up cannot use it.
4. Split the work into stations
If one cook makes everything, skip this. Otherwise list the places that cook — grill, cold, fryer, bar, desserts — and assign every menu item to one of them. Check items that span two stations, such as a burger with fries, and decide where each part is made. Then set each screen to show only its own station.
5. Decide how orders are announced
- A sound for new orders that is audible over the extraction fan, but not one that staff will mute after an hour.
- Clear steps the whole team uses the same way: accepted, preparing, ready.
- A rule for who marks an order ready — the station, or the pass after the plate is complete.
6. Keep a printer if you need one
Many kitchens keep a printed ticket for takeaway bags or for the pass even with a screen. Decide which orders still print, and check that your printer and its connection are supported before service.
7. Run a test service
- Place test orders from every channel you use: tables, counter, kiosk, phone, online.
- Include awkward ones: many options, an allergy note, an item for each station.
- Have cooks work them through to ready while front of house watches the status.
- Pull the network cable or switch off Wi-Fi for a minute and see what happens when it returns.
- Agree a fallback — a printed ticket or a written list — for a real outage.
New to kitchen screens? Start with what a kitchen display system is.
Setting up the Thmenu kitchen display
Thmenu's kitchen display runs in the browser, so any tablet or screen with a modern browser can be the kitchen screen. Add your cooks as staff with their own PIN — there is a ready-made kitchen role that can see orders and move them along — and they sign in on the screen with it. Create stations in the panel, pin each product to one, and set each screen to its station; the choice is remembered on that device. New orders from tables, the kiosk, staff entry and pickup arrive as waiting with a sound, a cook accepts each one and moves it to preparing and ready, and the screen asks the browser to stay awake. Tickets can also print on ESC/POS printers connected over USB, serial or Bluetooth from Chrome or Edge.