Ticket time

Ticket time is the clock on a single order: it starts when the ticket fires to the line and stops when the last item is up and ready to run. Averaged across a service and split by daypart and station, it is the clearest read on kitchen speed and where the line backs up. Operators watch both the average and the outliers, because one twenty-five-minute ticket in the middle of a rush stalls every table sitting behind it.

Ticket time sits directly under two numbers that pay the rent: Table turn time, because a table cannot turn faster than the kitchen feeds it, and guest satisfaction, because slow food is the complaint that ends up in reviews. Speed is not a nicety to guests either: 94% of consumers say it is critical to their off-premises experience, and dine-in patience is no more forgiving. The Expeditor (expo) manages ticket time live, but the root causes are upstream, in thin Mise en place, an under-staffed line, or a menu that fires too many long-cook items at once.

A kitchen display system measures ticket time automatically, routes items to stations, and shows which tickets are aging, replacing the guesswork of a paper rail. POS analytics (Toast, Square for Restaurants, Restaurant365) trend ticket times by daypart so you can tell a staffing problem from a prep problem, and demand forecasting staffs the line to the covers you will actually do. See demand forecasting.