What a course is, and why it is not the same as an order
The order is what the table asked for. The course is how that order is organised to leave. A table ordering starters, mains and dessert generates one order and three courses.
Confusing the two is behind half the coordination problems: if the kitchen treats the whole order as one unit, all three courses go out together and the table finds the ice cream melting next to the croquettes.
Who fires the course: the floor, always
Firing means giving the order to start cooking a course. And that call comes from the floor, because the floor can see the table: how far through they are, whether they are still talking, whether they have ordered another round of wine.
The kitchen cannot know that from inside. If the kitchen fires on its own account as work comes in, the pace of service is set by kitchen load rather than by the table, which is exactly backwards.
- The floor fires the next course when the table is ready for it.
- The kitchen cooks the whole course and sends it out together.
- Each dish's clock starts on firing, not on receiving the order.
- A long-cook dish may need firing early: that gets agreed before service, not shouted across the pass.
Why the clock has to start at the right moment
This is the technical detail most systems get wrong. If a dish's timer starts when the order arrives, the dessert for a table that has been eating for an hour and a half shows red from the first minute and the screen fills with alarms nobody reads.
And a screen full of red is worse than no screen: the team learns to ignore the colour, which was the one signal that meant anything.
21:04 Full order arrives · 3 courses 21:05 Floor fires the first course → starters clock ON 21:13 Starters go out (8 min · green) 21:31 Floor fires the second course → mains clock ON 21:44 Mains go out (13 min · green) 22:10 Floor fires the desserts → desserts clock ON The dessert was not sitting "in the red" for an hour: it had not started counting.
Split by section, not only by table
Within a course, each section sees its own. The grill does not need to see the desserts and the bar does not need to see anything from the kitchen. Showing everyone the whole order forces mental filtering at the worst possible moment.
That filtering is invisible work paid for in seconds per dish, and at peak service seconds per dish are the whole service.
The three failures that wreck a service
They belong neither to the kitchen nor to the floor: they are coordination between the two. They get fixed by talking before service, not during it.
- Firing the next course without checking the table. Food arrives before they have finished the previous plate.
- Never firing and waiting for the kitchen to ask. The table waits twenty minutes between courses and nobody knows why.
- Mixing the set lunch menu into the same flow as the a la carte. The set menu has its own timings and drags everything else along if it is not kept separate.
When a screen genuinely helps
A kitchen screen does not cook faster. What it does is stop the running order depending on the memory of whoever is on the pass that day, and let floor and kitchen see the same thing without shouting at each other.
If your kitchen runs well on paper with a section chef who holds it all in his head, the screen adds little until the day that person has off. That is where it shows.
Frequently asked questions
How many courses does a normal service have?
Two or three is usual: starters, mains and desserts. A tasting menu can have eight or ten, and there coordinating by course stops being advisable and becomes essential.
Who should fire, the waiter on the table or the head waiter?
Whoever can see the table. In small venues it is the waiter looking after it; in large rooms it is usually centralised on the head waiter so there are never two different judgements running at once.
What about long-cook dishes?
They need firing early, and that gets agreed before service: the kitchen says which ones they are and the floor knows that dish is fired with the previous course. Improvising it mid-service does not work.
Is the set lunch menu run the same way?
It has its own timings and is best treated as a separate flow. Mixing it into the same course as the a la carte drags out the timings for every table.
How do you handle a table that is late for its second course?
You fire its course when it is ready, not when its turn would have come. That is exactly what working by course allows: every table keeps its own pace without dragging the others.
What do I do if the kitchen is swamped and the floor keeps firing?
Firing is not asking: it is telling them the table is ready. If the kitchen is drowning, what has failed is the communication back, and a shared screen helps there more than shouting across the pass.