Guides

Running several counters at once

Short, practical pieces for the people who keep bars and kitchens moving when everything is busy at the same moment.

• Kitchen ticket system for a bar or restaurant: what to look forHow to judge a system that turns an order rung in at the register into a ticket at the station that makes it.October 23, 2026
• POS for festival food and drink booths that prints tickets to the bar and kitchenWhat a booth needs from a register: an order rung in at the front, and a ticket at the bar or kitchen inside that makes it.October 23, 2026
• How to route orders to different stations (bar, grill, kitchen)Routing belongs in the menu: every item names the station that makes it, and a mixed order splits itself into one ticket per station.October 23, 2026
• How to print online orders automatically in the kitchenWhat has to be in place for a paid online order to become a ticket at the right counter without anybody noticing it arrived.October 22, 2026
• Mobile ordering for stadiums and arenas: what the counter needsA concourse stand has to work differently from a bar a guest is standing at. What each counter needs printed, plugged in and decided before doors.October 21, 2026
• QR code ordering for a bar: how it works end to endWhat the code on the bar actually does, what the guest sees from scan to collection, where the paid order goes, and what to test before doors.October 20, 2026
• How to set up a kitchen ticket printerFrom the box to a live order: where the printer stands, what it needs plugged into it, how it learns which counter it is, and what to test before doors.October 19, 2026
• Kitchen order printer vs kitchen display screen: which to useThe two ways a paid order reaches the people making it, what each is genuinely better at, and why the answer is per counter rather than per venue.October 18, 2026
• What a venue should ask before buying anything for its barsThe questions that tell you how a thing behaves on a busy night, and what to settle about your own site before you talk to anyone selling.October 15, 2026
• Training a counter in ten minutesStaff and volunteers arrive on the day with no time to spare. Here is the short version of the job, and the card you leave behind at the counter.October 14, 2026
• Allergy notes and special requests on a printed ticketA request is only worth taking if it reaches the person making the item. Here is how to carry notes and allergy information from the guest to the counter.October 13, 2026
• Peak minutes: what happens to orders when an act comes off stageA surge is a timing problem, not a volume problem. Here is what happens to a paid order during one, and the handful of decisions that make those minutes dull.October 12, 2026
• Why a screen at the pass is not the same as a ticketA display and a printed ticket carry the same words. One is a list the counter has to remember from; the other is an object it can hold.October 11, 2026
• Opening a second bar for one weekend without a second systemA bar that only exists when the site is full does not need its own till, its own list or its own procedure. What it needs instead, and how to take it down.October 10, 2026
• Closing the night: counting tickets against sales per stationThe number worth having at the end of an event is per counter, not per site. What to count, where it comes from, and what a mismatch means.October 9, 2026
• Paper, power and signal: the three things that stop a counterAlmost every counter that goes quiet has lost one of three things. Each one looks the same from the front, and each one has a different fix.October 8, 2026
• Volunteer-run counters: what to set up before they arriveA volunteer gets one shift and no run-up, so everything they need has to be decided, labelled and printed before they walk up to the counter.October 7, 2026
• Running food and drink across a multi-day fairgroundA ground that has to work several days running does not reset overnight. What breaks on the last day is drift, and drift is fixed by writing the ground down.October 6, 2026
• Cash, card and the counter: keeping one queue honestA venue that takes cash at the counter and orders from a menu has two ways in and one counter. The printed ticket is what keeps them a single queue.October 5, 2026
• Who owns an item when two counters both sell itAssigning a menu is one decision per item, and the only hard ones are the items two counters have always both been able to make.October 4, 2026
• What to do when a station stops printing mid-serviceA counter has gone quiet with paid orders still arriving. Here is the order to check things in, and why nothing is lost while you do it.October 3, 2026
• How many stations a venue actually needs on its busiest nightSizing by floor space or by habit gets it wrong. Size against the busiest ten minutes, and against who is really standing behind each counter.October 2, 2026
• Naming your counters so staff and software agreeA counter collects three or four names - on the plan, on the menu, on the headset, in the system. Here is how to settle on one and make it stick.October 2, 2026
• What to check before a multi-day eventA short list for the week before gates open, written for whoever is responsible when a counter goes quiet.October 1, 2026
• One menu, many countersA guest should not have to know which bar sells which thing. Routing is the venue's problem, not theirs.September 30, 2026
• Where an order gets lost between the counter and the kitchenSix places a paid order can go missing inside a venue, and which of them a ticket at the right station fixes.September 29, 2026