Second lunch wave. The needle printer on the hot pass only clacks — no paper. Floor keeps sending; the screen says fired. Cook asks: where is the ticket? Runner asks: which table? Nobody can say where the next ticket comes from. Spare paper sits in an office drawer; nobody has drilled who fetches it or what format to write.
Kitchen print down is not “stop selling.” It is: how tickets reach the pass, who may reprint, and how a handwritten backup is written so it still matches the system ticket later. Lost tickets hurt more than slow ones — one table missed, one remade, both sides shout.
Stop the scramble first, then decide where tickets go
When tickets will not print, have the shift lead confirm first: one printer, one line, or the whole kitchen path. Do not let every server invent their own runner method.
Write this shop’s backup path ahead of time; pin it where the pass can see it. For example: which machine to redirect to; who may hit reprint; after reprint fails, the fixed handwritten format (table, dish, size, allergies, order time, server name); where handwritten tickets sit, who collects them, when they enter the system. Check with the vendor under review: can this model reprint, what the screen shows on fail, whether you have tested a spare outlet in this shop — written notes and a live test, not a verbal “we can reprint” as the procedure.
Scene: a server holds a phone memo to the cook. Cook fires it; the system later prints one too; kitchen fires again. If the backup path never said “handwritten tickets need a unique mark and cancel on backfill,” doubles hit the pan.
Floor keeps selling only if every kitchen need has a traceable ticket (print or hand) — not by shouting. The minutes you can shout are often the minutes tickets go missing.
Reprint, replacement print, handwritten: do not mix the three
Reprint: the ticket already exists in the system; another sheet comes out. Log who approved, how many times, whether kitchen is already working the first sheet. Avoid two sheets becoming two portions.
Replacement print: original lost or ruined; another sheet stands in. Still match the portion in progress — do not treat it as a new order.
Handwritten: only when print is fully dead. Fixed format; place it at the agreed spot at once. Whoever backfills later enters by the mark on the ticket and ticks “entered” on the paper. What will not enter stays open for the shift lead — do not stuff it into “we probably did it.”
Scene: bar printer still works; hot pass does not. If the backup note says “whole shop goes handwritten,” the bar slows too. Write the scope: which passes redirect, which stay on the original machine.
Drill once off-peak: unplug or stop the usual kitchen printer, follow the paper order — stop the scramble, enable spare or hand, fire three tickets for different tables, restore, check for doubles. Note which step stuck and for how long. An unrehearsed “we have a backup” is only a sentence.
Match tickets before handoff; check opens before open
Before this shift ends, match once: system kitchen sends this shift, printed count, handwritten count, backfilled count. Mismatches — chase by table. Do not wait for a guest complaint.
Before open, glance: last night’s unentered handwritten tickets and unconfirmed reprints still in front of the shift lead. If hardware is still bad, confirm today’s backup path before the first table.
Hardware sheet needs kitchen printer model, place, cable, owner, who to call on fault. A spare in the store with no cable, no paper and nobody who can fit it is not a spare. When these go on the comparison or walk-through sheet, check responsibility lines with device and software parties separately — when the cause is unclear, who for software, printer, network.
Back to Stay or switch? Restaurant POS Hungary checklist.