What’s the Difference Between Coursing and Delay Routing?
Every day, our teams are fortunate enough to field guest questions about our products suite. Why do we think it’s lucky? Well, there are a few reasons. First, we get to learn a little more about our customers, and beyond that, we’re able to keep on our toes to innovate not just for tomorrow, but for the immediate future as well. Today’s question pertains to the kind of features you might see in a robust restaurant technology platform. Join us as we explore the difference between the meal coursing and delay routing features that are part of ConnectSmart® Kitchen.
Getting Started With Delay Routing or Meal Coursing
Before we get too far into this question, understand that delay routing is part of our table service package. So what’s that you might ask? Read on.
The ConnectSmart® Platform provides benefits designed to help both table service and fast-casual locations. Our table service package is a tier of our technology designed to satisfy the needs of a table service establishment. Keep in mind that there are overlaps between all restaurant segments and benefits that would enhance the customer experience available in all. So whether you operate a fast-casual or fine dining restaurant, there are reasons why you might want to provide the most streamlined service possible to your guests.
So What’s The Difference?
That’s a great question! This is really the heart of the matter. As an add-on to the ConnectSmart Platform, these features allow restaurants to utilize line-item prep views in the kitchen. When you have a complex menu or a large kitchen it can be very beneficial to spread out the menu items across stations where they are prepped, which allows your cooks to focus on only what they need for customers right now. Likewise, the expo team will see the whole picture at all times. Let’s break down each below to help explain.
Delay Routing
First off, Delay Routing is based on menu item cook times. As we mentioned above, to access delay routing, make sure you have the table service package. Once that’s the case, an operation gains the ability to send cook times for each menu item. As you might guess, the “cook time” is as advertised, the exact length of time that it takes to cook an item.
Cook times are often sent by the point of sale but can be built into the ConnectSmart Platform if necessary. Knowing cook times allows ConnectSmart to read and process an order, which then sends the menu item with the longest cook time through to be processed first. Subsequent items are routed accordingly behind the first item. This allows all menu items within an order to hit the expo window at the same time. No more worries about a salad wilting or a beautiful piece of fish turning to leather while a well-done burger finishes cooking.
Meal Coursing
In contrast to Delay Routing, Meal Coursing allows restaurants to preconfigure appetizers, drinks, entrees, soup & salad, and desserts into their own timed part of the meal experience. With paper tickets, servers would have to personally ensure that each order was fired and ready to go as needed for the guests. Now, servers can ring in the entire meal at one time then focus on taking care of the guest, rather than running back to the register to fire the next course. Think of this as a global view, and not just something that happens in the back-of-house (BOH): meals are automatically paced and can be sped up or slowed down by meal period if desired.
Coursing and Delay Routing Conclusion
Clear as mud or did that field the question? We’re in the business of ensuring that each and every customer is prepared for today and for what the future holds. We want our restaurateurs to have all the tools at their fingertips. Did this help? If you have additional questions, feel free to add them in the comments below and we will add them to the list to be answered.
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