Kitchen display system vs printed tickets

The real question is not “screen or printer” in the abstract. It is: how does your team actually cook, pack, and hand off orders during a rush?

Use this quick check:

• Pick a kitchen screen if you want live order status, fewer paper piles, and one place to see new, preparing, and ready tickets.
• Pick printed tickets if your cooks already work best with paper at each station and do not want to look up at a screen.
• Pick the system that is easiest to read from 5 feet away during a Friday night rush.

Example: if your expo person is calling out 12 pickup orders an hour, a screen can help them sort what is new, what is in progress, and what is ready. If your grill and fry stations are separate and each station likes its own slip, paper may feel familiar. The best setup is the one your team will follow every day, not just on a slow Tuesday.

Phone orders are different from walk-ins because they need to be captured, confirmed, and sent fast. ROAL takes the call, repeats the order back, quotes a ready time, and sends a clean ticket to the kitchen screen.

That matters because mistakes usually happen in the handoff. A messy handwritten ticket can lead to missing modifiers, wrong sizes, or a name that is hard to read. A screen can reduce that friction by keeping the ticket clean and in order.

A simple call flow looks like this:

1. Caller says what they want.
2. The host confirms items, sizes, modifiers, and notes.
3. The host collects the name and phone number.
4. The host quotes a ready time.
5. The ticket lands in the kitchen screen.

If you prefer paper, you can still use a printer for parts of the line. But if you want the cleanest path from phone to prep, screen-based ticketing usually makes the handoff easier.

Printed tickets are not outdated. They are still practical in many restaurants, especially smaller shops and kitchens that are built around paper.

Printed tickets can be a good fit when:

• Your kitchen is small and everyone can grab slips quickly.
• You have stations that want their own paper copy.
• Your staff is used to paper and does not want a screen in the way.
• You want a backup format for times when screens are being serviced.

A simple paper workflow can look like this:

• Front counter prints the order.
• Expo sorts by station.
• Each cook keeps the slip at the station.
• Finished tickets go in a completed stack.

If your team already works smoothly that way, there is no reason to force a change. The point is not to be modern for its own sake. The point is to make the order easy to cook correctly and fast.

The hardware and labor picture is where many owners make the decision. Screens can cost more up front, while printers can seem cheaper at first but use paper and need upkeep. The bigger cost is usually mistakes, re-fires, and time spent sorting tickets.

Use this simple example and plug in your own numbers:

• Say your average phone order is $28.
• Say you get 20 confirmed phone orders a day.
• That is $560 in daily phone sales.

Now ask which system helps your staff keep those orders clean and moving. A screen can reduce the time spent reading and re-reading slips. A printer can be fine if paper flow is already part of your kitchen routine.

ROAL bills $0.90 per completed phone order, meaning a confirmed order whose ticket reached the kitchen screen. There is no monthly fee, no setup fee, no per-minute fee, and no contract. If you want to compare costs side by side, you can also use the AI phone host cost calculator and the monthly AI phone plans comparison.

If you are moving phone orders to an AI phone host, forwarding matters. The setup should be simple: the restaurant keeps its existing number, and calls route to the host when you want them to.

A practical setup checklist:

• Decide whether to forward all calls, only busy calls, or only unanswered calls.
• Confirm the code with your carrier or phone system.
• Test with one real call before you turn it on for the day.
• Make sure staff knows how to turn forwarding off if needed.

Codes vary by carrier and plan. On many landlines and some carriers, 72 followed by the forwarding number forwards all calls and 73 turns it off. On many GSM mobile carriers, *21number# forwards all calls and ##21# turns it off; *61number# forwards unanswered calls and *67number# forwards busy calls. Verizon Wireless often uses 72, 73, and *71 for busy/no-answer forwarding. Business VoIP systems usually set this in the web portal. Always confirm with your carrier and test with a call.

You do not have to force one answer for every restaurant. Some owners use a screen for live order tracking and still keep a printer nearby for certain stations or backups.

A simple decision table can help:

If you want to compare the phone side too, the phone orders and your POS post is a good companion read. And if your team is short-staffed, ROAL can answer the phone, take pickup and delivery orders, and send the ticket to the kitchen screen while staff stays on food and service.

Do not start with a full change. Start with one shift, one menu, and one clear rule: does the kitchen prefer to read a screen or paper when the phone is ringing?

Try this 3-step test:

1. Run the same type of order through both setups.
2. Time how long it takes from order taken to kitchen action.
3. Ask the cook which version was easier to read and less likely to be missed.

Use a real example like: one plain pizza, one modifier-heavy sandwich, and one pickup order with a note. Compare how each ticket looks on screen and on paper.

If you want to see how a live phone host fits this flow, build a free test host from your website or menu. ROAL reads your public menu and hours, lets you test-call it in the browser, and sends the confirmed order to the kitchen screen.