Printer or screen? Run both in the same kitchen
A printed ticket and a screen each do something the other cannot. What we learned running Epson printers and kitchen displays side by side, and why the printer talks to our servers without a laptop in between.
Chefs are split on this. Some want paper on a rail, in order, that they can tear and spike. Some want a screen that sorts itself and never runs out. The answer that works is both, from the same order, and the venue chooses per station.
Paper
Tradeinit prints to Epson receipt printers using a feature Epson calls Server Direct Print. The printer itself polls our servers for its next job. There is no laptop, no print server, no app on a phone that has to stay open. Plug it in, give it the address, and it collects tickets on its own. If the venue's wifi drops, the printer catches up when it returns, and the dashboard shows a light for each printer so a dead one is noticed before the chef does.
Screen
A kitchen display is any tablet or TV with a browser, signed in with a station login that opens the board and nothing else. New tickets arrive with a sound. Priority tickets pin to the front with a red banner. If a waiter changes a round after it was sent, the board shows a changed ticket with only the moves, so the chef is not re-reading a whole order to find the one line that is different. Tickets older than three hours fold away. A bumped ticket can be recalled.
Both
The common setup at a restaurant is a printer at the pass and a screen at the bar, or the other way round. Nothing about the order changes; the station decides how it is shown. The owner switches between printer, screen or both from the dashboard, and the first ticket after the change proves it.