Multi-station routing
Send each item only where it’s prepped. Salad to cold line, mains to grill, desserts to pastry — all from a single ticket. Configurable per concept and per shift.
Native kitchen display system
Replace paper tickets. Cut ticket times by a quarter.
Katalyst’s kitchen display system is built into the POS — every order from front-of-house, online, kiosks, and catering hits the same screen, routed to the right station, paced for the right course.
20–30% faster ticket times
vs. paper or printer-based ticketing
Native to your POS
no integrations, no third-party adapters
Zero modifier mix-ups
every special, allergy, and rush flag visible at the line
What the KDS handles
Built for the way restaurant kitchens actually run
Course pacing for fine dining, ticket throughput for QSR, station routing for multi-concept kitchens — Katalyst’s KDS is the same software, configured per shift and per concept.
Real-time course pacing
Hold appetisers in the queue until mains are 4 minutes out. Automatic, server-driven, no shouting across the pass. Ideal for full-service and fine dining.
Front-of-house sync
Modifier changes from the floor — 86’d items, allergy callouts, comp tickets — show up on the line instantly. Servers and chefs work from one source of truth.
Bump-bar speed at the line
Tap-to-bump tickets, recall last 50, item-level void with reason codes. Touch screens, USB bump bars, and remote management — your line, your hardware mix.
Built into the POS
Tickets flow from any order source — POS terminals, handhelds, online ordering, kiosks, catering — into the same KDS. No middleware, no sync delays.
Prep-time analytics
Per-item, per-station, per-shift cook times feed directly into Katalyst reporting. Find the bottleneck on Friday dinner before it costs you Saturday.
Front of house ↔ kitchen
One source of truth from order to plate
Modifier changes, allergy callouts, course holds, item voids — every action on the floor reaches the line in real time. No paper-ticket re-runs, no shouting across the pass, no missed special instructions. The KDS shows servers exactly what the kitchen sees.
Live modifier sync
Allergies, sauce-on-the-side, no-cheese — surfaces with red callouts on the cook screen.
86’d items propagate everywhere
Mark an item out at the line; it disappears from POS, online ordering, kiosks, and catering instantly.
Voids and re-fires with audit trail
Reason codes captured per ticket. Manager dashboards roll up void rates by server and shift.
Quick-serve and café
Same KDS, tuned for fast turns
High-volume cafés and quick-serve concepts use Katalyst KDS for a different reason: ticket throughput. With sub-second order routing from the POS terminal to the make-line, your morning rush stays smooth even with a single barista on bar and one cook on the grill.
Compact single-screen mode
Optimised layouts for one display per station — perfect for café counters and tight prep areas.
Auto-bump on completion
Drinks and prepped items can auto-clear from the screen when scanned at handoff, freeing the line for the next ticket.
Online + walk-in unified
Mobile orders, kiosk orders, and walk-in tickets all land on the same screen, sorted by ready-time — no juggling tablets.
Why operators switch
The hidden cost of paper tickets
Paper-based ticketing looks free — until you count the printer paper, ribbon cartridges, replacement printers, the 30-second walk every time a server changes a modifier, and the near-misses on allergy tickets that don’t make it to the line. The actual cost runs $4,000–$8,000 per year per location, and that’s before you factor in slower service and re-fires.
The deeper cost is invisible: kitchen staff who don’t know what’s coming five tickets ahead can’t pace prep work, can’t pre-stage components, and end up reactive instead of proactive. Throughput suffers most on the busy nights that matter most.
Katalyst’s KDS gives the line a complete view of the queue — what’s coming, what’s holding, what’s ready to fire — and replaces guesswork with timestamps. Restaurants typically see ticket times drop 20–30% within the first two weeks of operation, with most of the gain coming from cleaner course pacing rather than faster cooking.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to replace my POS to use Katalyst KDS?
Yes — Katalyst KDS is native to the Katalyst POS, not a third-party integration. That’s the point: there’s no syncing, no middleware, no version-mismatch issues. If you’re already on a different POS, our team handles full menu and data migration during onboarding (typical timeline: 2–4 weeks for a single location).
How many KDS screens can I have per location?
As many as you need. Most full-service restaurants run 2–4 screens (cold line, hot line, expo, sometimes pastry). Quick-serve and fast-casual typically run 1–2 (make-line + expo). High-volume kitchens with multiple specialised stations regularly run 6+. Pricing scales by terminal, with volume discounts past 3 screens per location.
What hardware does Katalyst KDS run on?
Standard touchscreen displays with HDMI input, plus optional USB bump bars and printer drawers. We support Elo, Logic Controls, and most off-the-shelf restaurant-grade displays. No proprietary hardware required — if a screen has HDMI, our software runs on it.
Will it work with my current online ordering and catering?
Yes. Online ordering, catering management, mobile order and pay, and self-order kiosks are all native Katalyst modules — every order from every channel flows into the same KDS automatically. If you’re using a third-party online ordering tool (DoorDash, Uber Eats), tickets route through our integrations layer the same way.
Can I see prep-time data per cook or per station?
Yes. Every ticket carries a timestamp from order to bump, broken down by station. Katalyst’s analytics dashboards show median and 95th-percentile prep times per item, per station, per shift, and per server — exactly what you need to find Friday-night bottlenecks before they hit Saturday.
How long does it take to switch from paper or printer-based tickets?
For a single location, typically 1–2 days of setup (mount screens, route stations, train staff) plus a soft-launch shift where paper runs in parallel. Multi-location rollouts run 4–6 weeks per wave. Most operators report ticket times drop within the first full week of operation.
Ready to upgrade?
See the Katalyst KDS in action
A 30-minute walkthrough tuned to how your kitchen actually runs — multi-concept, fine dining, QSR, anything in between.