Kitchen display routing for UK venues: map stations that actually work
A practical guide to station routing that holds at peak: which items go to which screens, and how to tell when the map needs changing.
A kitchen display is only as good as the routing behind it. Most of the setup work is deciding which station sees which items, and it's worth getting that right before your first busy service.
Start from stations, not the menu
Map your real stations first, then route each item to one of them. Servio keeps the source, table reference, timer and status on every ticket so each station only sees what it owns.
- Barista: all drinks
- Hot line: mains and sides
- Cold prep: salads and starters
- Desserts: plated sweets
- Expo / pass: the single source of truth
Use timers as a pace, not a panic
Colour bands (on pace / watch / needs action) let the expo see risk at a glance. The point is to spot the one ticket that's slipping before it becomes a cold plate.
Multi-station, multi-venue
If you run more than one site, the same map scales: each venue keeps its own stations while the group view rolls everything up.
“New to preparing to ready, in a tap. The pass finally has a single source of truth.”
Revisit the map after a few busy shifts and move anything that keeps ending up at the wrong station.
The three routing mistakes everyone makes once
Routing by menu category instead of by station. Nobody cooks “breakfast.” The grill cooks the eggs, cold prep builds the granola and the barista pulls the flat white, so a single breakfast order needs to reach three different screens. Route each item to the station that actually makes it.
Making the pass a station. The expo screen should show every order without owning any prep work. If the person running the pass is also cooking, nobody is actually coordinating the service.
No overflow plan. A busy Saturday needs a different map from a quiet Tuesday. Decide in advance where fries route when the fryer section is overloaded, and set the alternate map up beforehand so switching takes seconds.
A worked example: café brunch, six staff
Here’s a real-shaped map for a brunch café running two floor staff, two on the line, one barista and one on the pass. Barista: every drink, including the milkshake that feels like a dessert (it’s made at the milk station, so it routes there). Hot line: mains, sides, anything touching heat. Cold prep: salads, granola, toast assembly. Pass: the full order view, colour-banded by time. A four-item table lands as three station tickets plus one complete picture at the pass; when the barista taps her item done, the pass sees the order coming together without anyone calling out what’s still to come. Paper can’t show that view, which is a large part of why connected systems collapse error rates.
Reading the colours honestly
Timer bands only help if the thresholds are honest. Set “watch” at the time a dish should take on a busy day, not a quiet one, and “needs action” at the point you’d genuinely intervene: re-fire, re-sequence, or walk a warning to the table. If half the screen is red every Saturday the team will learn to ignore it, so recalibrate until red genuinely means a problem. Expect the map to settle after two or three busy shifts and one deliberate revision. Full setup details are on the kitchen display page, including what it costs (nothing extra, as it’s in every plan).
Screens, printers, or both
Routing isn’t only about screens. Plenty of good kitchens run a hybrid: screens at the stations that benefit from live status, such as the pass and the busiest line, and a printer where a physical ticket still earns its place, like a coffee bar that clips tickets to cups. Servio supports both, and the same routing rules apply whether a station gets a screen or a printer. The mistake to avoid is duplicating, sending the same items to a screen and a printer “to be safe.” The two will eventually disagree (say a voided item or an edited modifier, where the screen updates and the paper doesn’t), and then your team has to choose which one to believe mid-service. Route each item to exactly one owner, give the pass the complete view, and keep paper only where it has a genuine mechanical job.
One more habit worth stealing from strong kitchens: name your routes after stations, not people. “Sam’s section” stops making sense the day Sam is off, whereas “cold prep” survives any rota. Name routes after the kitchen itself and a new starter can learn the whole map in a single shift.
Common questions
What is kitchen display routing?
Routing sends each ticket item to the right prep station (grill, cold, drinks) instead of dumping every order on one screen. Good routing matches how your kitchen already cooks.
How many KDS stations does a small restaurant need?
Start with the stations you already shout across. Many independents run two or three screens. Extra stations only help if someone is assigned to them during service.
Should QR and till orders share the kitchen display?
Yes. One queue keeps timing honest. Separate printers recreate the handoff errors a kitchen display is meant to remove.