🔥 rest-order

Kitchen Stations

Kitchen Stations lets you define the physical prep sections of your kitchen (Grill, Tandoor, Bar, Desserts, etc.), each with its own colour, printer configuration and the menu categories that should route to it, so a KOT automatically splits and prints at the right station when it's fired.

📍 Menu path: Order & Kitchen → Kitchen Stations

👤 Who uses it: All roles with the Billing feature enabled

Overview

Six built-in quick-presets (Grill & Tandoor, Cold Section, Bar & Beverages, Hot Prep, Bakery & Desserts, Wok / Chinese) pre-fill a new station's name, colour and typical categories in one click; presets are only offered when creating a station, not when editing one.

The category picker warns (in red, "already assigned to another station") if a category is already routed elsewhere, but nothing stops you from assigning it to a second station anyway.

Categories left completely unassigned are shown in a red "not routed to any station" banner and, per the in-app explanation, print at the default/main kitchen printer instead.

A KPI strip summarises Total Stations, Active, No Printer Set and Unrouted Categories at a glance.

Move Up/Down arrows reorder stations (persisted as sortOrder); the toggle switch activates or deactivates a station without deleting it; Test Print sends a one-off print job to confirm the printer connection.

Before You Start

You must have the Billing feature enabled on your plan.

Step-by-Step Guide

1 Set up a new station

Open Kitchen Stations and click "New Station."
Pick a Quick Preset to prefill a common setup, or start from blank and enter a Station Name and colour.
Fill in Printer Name, Printer IP and Port (leave IP blank to use the system default printer for this station).
Search and tap menu categories to route to this station — categories already used elsewhere are flagged in red.
Click "Create Station."

2 Reorder, toggle or test a station

Use the up/down chevrons on a station card to change its display order.
Use the toggle icon to activate/deactivate a station without losing its configuration.
Click "Test" next to a configured printer to send a test print job.

3 Clear the unrouted-categories warning

Check the red "categories not routed to any station" banner at the top of the page.
Edit an existing station (or create a new one) and add the missing categories to it.

Every Field & Button, Explained

Field / Button	What it does
`Station Name / Colour`	Name is required; colour is chosen from a fixed 10-swatch palette and used throughout the app (including KDS-adjacent screens) to visually identify the station.
`Printer Name / IP / Port`	Port defaults to 9100; leaving Printer IP blank falls back to the system default printer for that station.
`Categories`	A JSON list of menu category names routed to this station — a station with zero categories shows an inline warning that its KOT items won't route there.
`Active toggle / Sort Order`	Deactivating a station keeps its configuration but presumably stops it receiving new routed tickets; Sort Order only affects the display order in this list.

Tips & Best Practices

Check the "Unrouted Categories" KPI regularly as your menu grows — new categories are not automatically assigned to any station.
Run Test Print before service starts rather than during a rush, since a misconfigured printer fails silently into the default/main kitchen printer instead of raising an alarm mid-service.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

I deleted a station by mistake.

Its categories become unassigned (falling back to the default printer) but nothing else is affected — recreate the station and re-add its categories.

The same category is assigned to two stations and I'm not sure which one prints it.

The UI allows a category to be assigned to more than one station without blocking you, but only intends for one station to actually receive that ticket in practice — remove the category from whichever station you don't want it on.

Test Print shows "Test print sent (demo)" instead of actually printing.

The test-print request failed (e.g. no reachable printer at the configured IP/port); the toast falls back to a demo message so the UI doesn't block, but nothing was physically printed — check the printer's network connection.