FSR March 2023

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I NNO V A T E

Whi le such systems have been around for years, operators have increasingly adopted KDS to allevi ate growing labor pressure, speed up kitchens, and streamline the operations between the front of the house, kitch ens, and online and delivery platforms. At First Watch, where the average cook touts seven years with the brand, some initially balked at the change. But it didn’t take long for crews to embrace the technology—particularly true for cooks who had already worked in KDS kitchens. “Change is hard,” Jones says. “[But] I think that everyone likes the new system better after they’ve used it—for some, it’s only a shift, for some it’s a week— they understand the benef its of it.” Since coming to the brand in the fall of 2021, Jones says he’s been to nearly 300 First Watch stores, most of which have implemented KDS. Not once has anyone requested reverting back to the old call system. While the brand is still measuring the overall impact of the new system on ticket times, Jones says early data show important gains that should help with both customer satis faction and staff retention. “We’re still evaluating and learn ing how to use that,” he says. “I would say early read is it makes it easier for our kitchens to execute. So, we know that’s a win for us. And that’s going to pay off long term.” KDS is a key part of Empower Delivery’s value proposition. A spin-off of ClusterTruck, the vertically inte grated virtual restaurant, Empower Delivery is a software company that powers delivery-centric restaurants. “KDS is critical to making the sys tem work,” CEO Meredith Sandland says. “And that’s because it’s the KDS that is communicating to the different workers at the different stations when to do what.” Sandland descr ibes Empower Delivery’s software as holistic. While taking orders from customers, man aging kitchen stations and routing drivers, the software remains constantly

Innovation on Display

FIRST WATCH RECENTLY BEGAN ROLLING KDS ACROSS ITS FLEET.

The KDS, while hardly new to the industry, has reemerged into the operational spotlight. BY KEVIN HARDY

to make that happen,” says Dan Jones, chief operations officer at First Watch, which boasts nearly 500 stores. But with a kitchen display system, or KDS, the pressure is off the employee helming the kitchen. Instead, the tech nology tells each station what and when to f ire—automatically synchronizing various cooking times to ensure an entire order is ready at the same time. After testing KDS in five restaurants in late 2021, the breakfast and lunch chain began implementing the tech nology across all its company-owned stores last year. “KDS is part of a larger focus for First Watch to support our operators, to make their jobs easier,” Jones says. “And this was one of those things that allows us to train a little more effec tively, bring new team members up to speed faster, and provide a little more consistency in the kitchen.”

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For most of its 40-year history, First Watch relied on paper checks to move orders in and out of kitchens. Up until a few years ago, servers wrote out orders on green tickets. In the back of house, the most senior person would often manage those tickets, calling orders to various stations. It required care ful orchestration as the person at the helmmeasured the various cook times for eggs, meats, and pancakes. In the best cases, all items hit the plating station at the same time. “It took a lot of skill, and a very skillful helmer

FIRST WATCH

110 INDUSTRY-WIDE ISSUE

MARCH 2023