Grill, bar, pass: route kitchen tickets by category

What does kitchen printer routing by category control?

A bar printer should receive the drinks that its team prepares. In Nexara, you enable drinks categories on that printer and grilled mains on the grill printer. Start by deciding which team owns each category, rather than sending the complete order to every preparation station.

Printer selection also takes account of the branch, printer group and location. Category selections are separate from the printer's USB or network connection. Connecting the bar printer makes it reachable; enabling the drinks categories determines which items it receives.

```mermaid flowchart LR A["Mixed restaurant order"] --> B["Per-printer category selection"] B --> C["Grill station printer"] B --> D["Bar station printer"] B --> E["Cold preparation printer"] B --> F["Pass printer"] C --> G["Selected category ticket"] D --> G E --> G F --> H["Complete handoff ticket"] ```

Preparation tickets follow station responsibilities, while the pass ticket brings the order together for handoff.

Nexara sits beside the till as the order and operations layer and connects to supported printers through the Windows print agent. The Nexara features overview places printing alongside the order board and menu controls.

How should you map categories to kitchen stations?

Start with preparation responsibility, then compare it with your menu categories. Nexara supports products, categories and modifiers. A broad category such as “Specials” needs attention if it contains both grilled dishes and cold drinks, because the printer selection applies to the category. Identify these mixed categories before configuring destinations.

Nexara also supports per-branch availability and menu channels, which control which channel sees which menu. Review these alongside the station map when branches share a catalogue but prepare food differently. Check that every available category has a preparation destination in that branch, including categories used only by a particular ordering channel.

The station map and test orders below are illustrative examples, not a customer's configuration or actual orders. The table describes what staff should inspect on the resulting paper.

Treat a new category as a routing change. After adding seasonal drinks, review the affected printer selections. A category visible on the ordering menu still needs to be enabled on the printers responsible for its items.

Can you select individual items and set ticket copies?

Configure destinations by menu category. Nexara does not offer individual-item routing overrides or automatic copy counts per station; use category selections for destinations and manual reprints for additional paper.

For a product that belongs at a different station, review its categorisation with the person maintaining the menu. Moving it to another category changes its menu organisation as well as which printer selections apply to it. The category should still make sense to the customer browsing the menu.

If a category mixes preparation responsibilities, write down which products belong together before changing it. Then check the revised menu from the customer's side and run the affected station tests again. Keep the menu maintainer involved so a printing correction does not leave customers searching for an item under an unexpected heading.

Manually reprint when replacement paper is needed, such as a damaged or missing ticket. Define who requests a reprint and how staff identify it as existing work, especially when the original may still be beside the grill. Otherwise, recovering a ticket can lead to preparing the same order again.

What should the pass ticket contain?

The pass printer needs every category required for the complete handoff, including drinks when the packer is responsible for sending them out. Compare its ticket with the original mixed order: every ordered item and preparation modifier should be accounted for, including items made away from the main kitchen.

Nexara has a visual template builder for kitchen tickets and receipts, with templates assigned per printer. Check the pass template separately from the preparation templates. For QR dine-in orders, confirm that the printed table number matches the table used for the test.

Arabic and English can appear on the same thermal ticket. Use the languages your staff read when preparing and checking orders. The Nexara kitchen printing engine covers bilingual printing and ticket handling in more detail.

Agree who accounts for sides and drinks before closing the bag. The bar may finish its work before the grill, but the person at the pass still needs to match both portions to the complete order.

How do you test the routing before service?

Use controlled test orders and inspect every destination. Tell the kitchen they are tests so nobody starts preparing them. Accept the setup when each item reaches its assigned preparation station, modifiers stay with the correct item, and the pass paper matches the full order. Unexpected output at another station needs investigation.

Before ordering, confirm each printer's connection and write down its intended categories. Nexara supports standard ESC/POS thermal printers over USB or network through its Windows print agent. Put the station map beside the printers so staff can check the paper without returning to the setup screen.

Keep the accepted tickets beside the station map for the next shift. Record any correction, then repeat the affected test after changing categories or templates. Have the person who will read the ticket during service approve its readability from their normal working position.

Record the printer model and connection type with your setup notes. Brand alone is insufficient when selecting hardware. The guide to thermal printers that work with Nexara covers model and connection considerations.

What happens when a station printer stops working?

The order stays on the board and the ticket waits in the print queue. Re-route categories from the dashboard, or use automatic failover to a backup printer where one is configured.

Choose a backup printer staff can reach during service. If bar categories move to a kitchen printer, tell the bar team where to collect those tickets. Practise this handoff so the receiving station understands that some of its paper belongs to another team.

Connection failure is different from printer failure. Orders keep arriving in the cloud while the branch is offline, and printing catches up after reconnection. The order board itself needs a connection. Keep a phone hotspot beside the printer computer as a backup.

The printer failover guide explains backup routing and recovery. Include manual reprinting in your rehearsal, with someone responsible for matching recovered paper to work the kitchen has already prepared.

Send your printer models and category list through the WhatsApp button below for a setup review. Issa Al-Dalu, founder of Nexara at nexaratech.io, responds in Arabic and English on Amman hours.