Four slips per order. Now none.

Four slips of paper for every order

Before RestaurantOS, every order at Brew set off a small paper trail. The cashier wrote out separate receipts for a single order: one for the kitchen, one for dispatch, one for the records, and another for the coffee or bakery station. Keeping all of that straight during a rush was hard, and mistakes were easy.

Running out of an item created its own problem. Someone had to walk downstairs to tell the cashier, and until that happened the counter kept selling it. Waiters faced a version of the same thing on the floors, carrying finished orders around the café while they searched for the guest who placed them.

During rush hours the counter was buried in slips. Everyone was writing and running around instead of looking after guests.

Four stations, one screen each

Cowlar’s team divided Brew’s operation into four stations on the RestaurantOS kitchen display system: coffee, bakery, kitchen and dispatch. Each screen shows only the orders meant for that station the moment they are punched in, and staff update the status as an order moves along, so dispatch can always see what is ready and what is still being prepared.

The handwritten receipts are gone. Printers at the stations now produce KOTs with every item, modifier and special instruction written clearly, so nothing depends on memory or on reading someone’s handwriting.

When an item finishes, kitchen staff simply switch it off from their station and it immediately shows as unavailable on the POS. Nobody has to go downstairs to pass the message, and the counter never sells something that has run out.

The kitchen turns an item off and the cashier's screen already knows. That single change removed half the confusion in the café.

Waiters who walk straight to the table

Brew’s floors now run on floating tables. Each floor has its own tablets, and waiters can see where every table in their area sits. If guests settle somewhere new, the waiter reassigns the table from the tablet, and the cashier at the POS, the kitchen stations and the waiter dispatching the order all see the same location. Staff walk straight to the right table instead of roaming the café with a tray.

It has made things easier for the staff and for us in management. We can see who did what on which shift without asking anyone.

Tracking everything, down to the last item

Through the RestaurantOS inventory module, Brew’s management has full visibility of stock across the café. They can track what comes in, what gets consumed against orders, and where the numbers refuse to match, which is how leakages that stayed invisible in the paper days now get caught.

We used to run this café on slips of paper and memory. Now every station, every table and every item is on one system, and we have time to actually look after our guests.