Restaurant POS
Posted by brendensimmons | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 29-07-2010-05-2008
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Restaurants operated by major companies are becoming a more high technology business. Owners & operators of restaurants now generally make use of technology to automate and run their organisations more efficiently.
Restaurant systems fall in to different areas of operation, communicating is an main area. Three areas where restaurant technology impacts are:
1 – Communication with the kitchen
2 – Communication with the front of house staff
3 – Communication with customers
Kitchen to front of house is an important area where the communication in a restaurant is important. Systems which help the kitchen staff to do their job efficiently and update the front of house staff of where any particular order is in the cooking process can help a busy restaurant to manage this process more efficiently. A number of restaurants will use a simple ticket printer which process orders and delivers the ticket to a printer in the kitchen, other options are an EPOS Electronic Point of Sale or a Kitchen Display System that shows orders on a monitor and if required can even display cooking and preparation information to the kitchen’s workers and show timing of individual elements of the meals being prepared. The more sophisticated Kitchen Display Systems for restaurants can even show images of the completed meal with plating instructions.
Efficient delivery of orders to the kitchen staff and fast preparation with high quality results are an notable feature of these restaurant management systems. Having these systems integrated with a waiter call system is an additional option. Kitchen Display Screens are also linked to waiter paging systems in many cases, this makes it possible for the front of house serving staff to be informed that a meal is complete for pick up from the kitchen the split second the chef completes the order. As soon as the kitchen staff clear the screen of the fulfilled order the system automatically sends a signal to the front of house staffs pager, this is alerted with a discrete vibration informing the staff that an order is complete to be picked up. Waiter paging systems can also be used as a stand alone solution without the requirement to combine with EPOS and KDS systems. A kitchen to waiter pager system reduces the requirement for having high staffing levels to deliver food and enables the front of house staff to spend additional time with diners, this presents more opportunities for additional drinks and food to be sold.
Restaurant reservation systems also help with the communication with front of house staff, they also fulfill the communicating with customers technology use. A restaurant reservation system can be an invaluable tool to front of house staff, a restaurant reservation system makes it possible for the staff to see the status of tables at a glance and also assists them prepare for the days service and deal efficiently with guests walking in and wanting a table. A restaurant reservation system not only acts as a sophisticated diary showing that days and future bookings, it will display at a glance the current status of all the restaurants tables. Table management using a restaurant reservation system helps to maximise profits and increase table turns.
Many restaurant reservation systems will also manage a wait list and interface with a customer paging systems diners waiting for a table are offered a customer pager and the pager numbered is entered in to the reservation system, when the host or hostess has a table standing by the reservation system will automatically page the customer to notify them that their table is now set. As with the kitchen to server paging system a customer pager system can be used as a stand alone system, this simply entails the host or hostess inputting the customers pager number in to the transmitter to call the waiting diner.
The ability to produce reports from EPOS and Kitchen Display Systems makes it possible for the restaurant operator to look for and scrutinize trends that permit them to make an informed decisions rather than a blind guess. It may be that a particular dish is creating the kitchen problems due to the preparation time, a sophisticated kitchen management system would identify this and it would be plain when examining the reports
