Running food

This is for runners, and for waiters who run their own food. It follows a plate from the moment the station says it's ready to the moment it's on the table, and shows what to tap on the way.

#The loop in short

1. The station taps Ready when the course is plated.
2. Your device chimes, and a Course ready alert lands in the bell.
3. You collect the plates and take them to the table.
4. You tap ✓ Delivered on that course on the table.
5. The station taps Bump to clear the ticket from its screen.

#When a course is ready

A course is ready when every station making part of it has tapped Ready. If the kitchen and the bar both make part of Course 2, it waits until both have.

Then:

• The bell. A Course ready alert arrives, for example "Course 2 for Table 4 is ready to run." Tap the row to clear it and jump straight to that table.
• A chime and a buzz. The device plays a chime and a phone vibrates. If several alerts arrive at once, you get one ping.
• A locked phone. If your phone is locked or the app is in the background, the alert arrives as a system notification. Tap it to open the table.
• The floor. The table's tile turns amber and reads Ready, with the station where the plates are waiting (for example Kitchen). A red dot pulses in its corner.

#Who gets the alert

The alert goes to every device that covers that table's section, whoever is signed in. A device with no sections covers the whole floor. A bar tab or a quick sale has no table, so its Course ready goes to every device's bell, without a chime - the guest is at the counter.

You don't pick a role to get these alerts. To change which tables your device hears about, change its Sections (see Device assignments). A bill request is different: it goes to the table's waiter, on whichever device they're signed in to.

The station display itself stays quiet, so a busy kitchen screen doesn't ring for every plate it marks Ready.

Clearing the alert only clears the alert. It doesn't tell anyone the food has gone. Clear it on one device and it goes from every device.

#At the station

The station works each ticket in two taps:

1. Ready when the plates are up. The ticket turns amber, then red if it's still waiting after 5 minutes.
2. Bump to clear the ticket off the screen. This also marks its plates delivered (see below).

If a ticket is going red at the pass, the plates are waiting for a runner.

A bump counts as delivered for that station's plates. When a station bumps a ticket, every line on that course the station was making - cooking, ready or being remade - is marked ✓ Delivered on the table. Plates another station is making for the same course aren't touched until that station bumps too.

If the station doesn't bump, tap ✓ Delivered on the table once the plates are down. If the course already shows ✓ Delivered, there's nothing more to do.

#Mark it delivered

#How to mark a course delivered

1. On the Floor, open the table (or tap its alert in the bell).
2. Find the course. Its lines show 🔔 Ready.
3. Tap ✓ Delivered on the course.

Every line on the course turns ✓ Delivered.

#How to mark one plate delivered

If only part of a course has gone out, tap ✓ Delivered on that line instead of on the course.

#What Delivered does

• It clears the Course ready alert and stops the Course overdue clock, on every device.
• Delivered is the last step. There's no "away" step after it.
• You can tap Delivered as soon as a course is fired. You don't have to wait for the station's Ready, so if the bartender hands you the drinks, deliver them and tap it.
• Delivering doesn't close the table. The table stays open until the bill is paid and the table is released - by someone tapping Release table, or by itself on a menu with Release table when last bill is paid (see Menus).
• If you close a table while something is still undelivered, the app warns you. Tap Continue and it marks those items delivered as it closes.

On a fire-and-forget menu (a bar or café menu), lines show Sent ✓ and there's no Delivered to tap. See Courses and firing.

#Course overdue

If a course still hasn't been marked Delivered 20 minutes after it was fired, the devices covering the table get a Course overdue alert. It's critical: it pulses red in the bell and plays the alert sound.

• A course sitting Ready at the pass still counts. The clock only stops at Delivered.
• It's the only overdue alert about food. (Table overdue is different: a table seated 15 minutes with no order yet.)
• Courses on a fire-and-forget menu never go overdue.

#What to do

1. Open the table from the alert.
2. If the food is at the pass, run it and tap ✓ Delivered.
3. If the food already went out and nobody tapped it, tap ✓ Delivered now.
4. If it's still cooking, check with the station.

Clearing the alert without delivering only snoozes it. If the course still isn't delivered, it can come back after about half an hour.

#When a plate comes back: Refire

Wrong dish, cold, undercooked or dropped? Don't order it again. Send it back with Refire. A refire doesn't add anything to the bill.

#How to refire

1. Open the table (or the bar tab) and tap ↻ Refire on the course. It's a small grey button: on a table it sits in the course's row, just left of ✓ Delivered; on a bar tab it's beside the course's status.
2. Under What needs remaking? tap Whole course, or tap each plate that needs remaking.
3. Pick a reason: Undercooked, Overcooked, Cold, Wrong item, Allergen, Quality or Other. Add a note for the kitchen if it helps.
4. Tap Send refire.

What happens next:

• The station gets the plate back with a red REFIRE banner and your reason, so they know it's a remake.
• On the floor, the table shows Refired until the remake is ready.
• When the remake is Ready, you get a new Course ready alert. Run it and tap ✓ Delivered again.

You can refire a course that was already delivered. That's what Refire is for.

#If the internet goes down

If the internet drops but the venue Wi-Fi stays up, everything above works as normal. The venue's till device (the Primary) raises the alerts itself, the stations still mark Ready and Bump, and Delivered and Refire still go through.

If your device can't reach the till device (you're out of Wi-Fi range, or the till device is off), the warning triangle says Till not reachable and your bell stops getting new alerts. Keep an eye on the pass yourself until you're back in range. What you tap meanwhile is saved on your device and sent when it reconnects.

See Working through an internet outage.