Counter Terminal Orders to Kitchen Terminal

[Basecamp]

Hi,

We are currently in the set up stage of a new cafe and are wondering what the best course of action would be for the below. We are somewhat familiar with Square as we use it on a catering trailer and another coffee cart.

What we would ideally like to be able to do is to take orders at the counter for both hotdrinks and food, with the hotdrink ordering being printed from the counter terminal. We would then ideally like for the food orders to be automatically printed out on the kitchen terminal for the kitchen team to make the food and run it to the tables.

Is this a possibility using two terminals or is there something else we should be looking at doing?

The ideal would be a ticket system rather than a Kitchen display system, so that we can group tickets with the plates ready to go out.

Appreciate any guidance.

Many thanks,

Jonah

[Breffni]

Hi @Basecamp thanks for your post and welcome to the Seller Community 🙂 

If you would like to send specific items to different printers you would need to do so using Square for Restaurants and from there assign items to specific categories. Those categories will then be sent to different printers/terminals as you assign them. 

For example, if an order has both drinks and starters, you can set up a bar printer to receive drinks and a kitchen printer to receive starters – just make sure you have created item categories.

I hope this is what you are looking for - if not please let me know!

[Basecamp]

Hi @Breffni 
Thanks for the quick response. I had wondered if it would mean using Square for Restaurants.

I'm just looking at costing this all up and seeing if the process would work. Does the below sound like it would work to you, and do you know if the kitchen printer could connect to the iPad KDS to print select tickets?

Counter:
Order taken using a Square Terminal. Terminal is plugged into a Hub for square terminal and then into a cash drawer to allow for cash payments to also be made.

Kitchen:
iPad on wall using Square KDS to display orders 
Bluetooth printer connected to iPad through Bluetooth or WiFi.

Kitchen can then use the screen to see current orders as well as manually select orders and send to the printer station, so that the ticket can then be grouped with the food needing to be run to the table.

Does that sound like the process would work or am I missing something? I've read both that tickets can and cannot be printed straight from the KDS so wondered if you knew the answer.

Thanks again.

Jonah

[Breffni]

To touch on some of your points here: 

• As of now, we don't really connect the KDS and printers, but you can definitely use them side by side. The big distinction to make here is that the printing wont be controlled by the KDS and it will only be controlled by the Point of Sale device.

You can set up a ticket printer station separately from the KDS, but it will print every order ticket or whatever item categories were chosen to print there.

• For the counter option: This can definitely work in terms of taking orders and cashing them off. When looking into purchasing cash drawers/printer, please always consult our hardware compatibility page first. 

I hope this helps @Basecamp

[Basecamp]

Hi Alegra,

That does clear up some confusion thank you.

This is now what I believe our process will be.

A square stand with iPad on the counter, attached to the till drawer and printer. This would use the Square for restaurants POS.

Then a Bluetooth printer in the kitchen, connected to the iPad in order for it to be a printer station for the food orders.

That should all work perfectly for what we need shouldn't it?

Thanks for all of your help again.

Jonah

[Breffni]

Sounds all good to me Jonah, @Basecamp 🙂 

When you are getting set up, if you do need someone to talk it through with, you can call our support team who will be happy to help!