Kitchen Expo and Service Glossary
The terms you hear at the pass, on the line, and at the host stand, defined plainly, plus straight answers to the questions operators ask most about expo, routing, and pacing.
- 86
- A call meaning an item is no longer available, either because the kitchen ran out or because the chef pulled it. The expo relays it to the floor so servers stop selling it and the POS is updated so it cannot be rung in.
- All day
- The total count of a given item currently working across every open ticket, as in six chicken all day. Cooks use the all-day count to batch and sequence their station rather than reacting to tickets one at a time.
- Behind
- A spoken warning that someone is passing behind another person on the line, often with a hot pan or a tray. It prevents collisions in a narrow kitchen and is part of the verbal shorthand that keeps service safe.
- Bump
- On a kitchen display system, to clear a ticket or item from the screen once it is complete. Bump times are what most ticket-time reports are built on, so bumping early or late distorts the data.
- Chit
- The printed slip for a ticket, or for one station's portion of a ticket. Station chits show only that station's items; the pass copy shows the whole order.
- Course
- A group of dishes served together at a table, such as appetizers, entrees, or dessert. Coursing is the practice of firing and delivering these groups in sequence with a deliberate gap between them.
- Dying in the window
- Describes a plated dish sitting at the pass too long, losing temperature and quality while it waits for the rest of the table's plates or for a runner. It is the most visible symptom of a fire timing or runner problem.
- Expediter (expo)
- The person who runs the pass during service: reading tickets, calling fires, coordinating stations, checking plates against the order, and handing finished plates to runners. The expo is the only role that sees every open ticket at once.
- Fire
- The call to begin cooking a course or item now. Firing is distinct from ordering; a ticket may be ordered and held, then fired when the table is ready. Timing the fire is the expo's core skill.
- Garde manger
- The cold station, responsible for salads, cold appetizers, and often desserts. Because its items are quick, garde manger frequently waits on hotter stations and can be underused during a rush that hits the grill.
- Hands
- A call from the pass meaning plates are ready and someone is needed to run them. When hands are slow, food dies in the window even though the kitchen finished on time.
- Heard
- The standard verbal acknowledgment on the line that a cook received a call from the expo. Without a heard, the expo does not know whether the item was started.
- Hold
- An instruction to delay firing a course or item, usually because the table is not ready or a station needs to clear. Holds are how the expo smooths bursts on a constrained station.
- In the weeds
- Being overwhelmed with more tickets than a station or person can handle. A cook in the weeds needs help or a brief hold, and an expo in the weeds is a sign the pass needs a second set of eyes or a better system.
- Kitchen display system (KDS)
- Screens that replace or supplement printed tickets, showing each station its items with age timers and letting cooks bump items when complete. Routing rules determine which items appear on which screen.
- Lead item
- The item on a plate or course with the longest cook time. It sets the clock: the lead item is fired first and shorter items are layered in behind it so everything finishes together.
- Mise en place
- Everything a station needs prepped, portioned, and in place before service. Weak mise en place is a common hidden cause of a station becoming a bottleneck.
- Modifier
- A change to a menu item as rung in, such as no onions, sauce on the side, or well done. Modifiers must reach the station that cooks the item, and dropped modifiers are a frequent source of re-fires.
- On the fly
- A request to make an item immediately, ahead of the normal queue, usually to fix a mistake or a dropped plate. Too many on-the-fly calls signal a routing or checking problem upstream.
- Pass
- The counter or window where finished plates are placed, checked, garnished, and picked up by runners. It is the physical and organizational center of service, and the expo works from it.
- Pickup
- The call that a ticket or course is ready to be plated and taken, or in some kitchens, the call to begin cooking a course. Kitchens should define which meaning they use so cooks and the expo are not working from different definitions.
- Rail
- The metal strip at the pass where printed tickets are lined up in order. Reading the rail is the expo's way of seeing every open ticket in a paper kitchen.
- Re-fire
- Cooking an item again because the first version was wrong, dropped, or sent back. Re-fire counts are a useful quality metric because they capture errors that ticket times miss.
- Runner
- The person who carries finished plates from the pass to the table, ideally with the table and seat numbers so plates land in front of the right guest without auctioning.
- Seat number
- A position number assigned to each guest at a table, so a ticket can specify which plate goes to which seat. Consistent seat numbering lets runners deliver without asking who ordered what.
- Station
- A defined area of the line responsible for a set of items, such as grill, saute, fry, or garde manger. Ticket routing is the process of getting each item to the correct station.
- Ticket time
- The elapsed time from when an order is sent to the kitchen to when it is plated or bumped. It is the most common kitchen performance metric and the most often misread, because it ignores item cook times and table context.
- Turn
- One complete use of a table by a party, from seating to departure. Turn time is driven in part by course pacing, since gaps between courses lengthen the meal and delay the next seating.
- Walking
- A call that a plate or order is leaving the pass now, as in table twelve walking. It tells the line that the ticket is complete and lets the expo mentally clear it.
- Working
- A call meaning an item is currently being cooked, as in working two salmon. It answers the expo's question of where an item stands without the cook stopping to explain.
Questions people ask
What does an expediter actually do during service?
The expediter reads every incoming ticket, calls items to the stations, decides when each course is fired, checks finished plates against the order, wipes and garnishes, and hands plates to runners with table and seat numbers. They are the single point of coordination between the line and the floor. On a busy shift it is a full-time job that cannot be shared with cooking a station.
How is ticket routing different from a kitchen display system?
Routing is the set of rules that decides which station sees which item on a ticket. A kitchen display system is one way to implement routing with screens instead of printers. You can have routing without a KDS, using station printers or an expo calling items, and you can have a KDS with bad routing if the item-to-station map is wrong or out of date.
What is the difference between ordering a course and firing it?
Ordering sends the ticket to the kitchen so it knows what the table wants. Firing tells the kitchen to start cooking a specific course right now. Appetizers are often fired on order, while entrees are held and fired when the table is ready. Separating the two is what lets a kitchen pace a meal instead of cooking everything the moment it is rung in.
Why do tables not eat together even when the kitchen is caught up?
Usually because items on the same course were started at the same time instead of staggered by cook time, or because two stations working the same table were not coordinated. The fix is to identify the lead item on each course, fire it first, and layer the shorter items in behind it so every plate lands within a short window. Clear cross-station communication at the pass is the other half.
When should the expediter fire entrees for a large party?
On a signal from the table, not on a timer. The reliable signal is that the appetizer course is cleared or nearly cleared, confirmed by the server or busser. For a big party, the expo should also stagger the fire so the constrained station is not asked for a dozen proteins at once, and have garnishes and sauces pre-staged so plating does not become the bottleneck.
Which kitchen station is usually the bottleneck?
It depends on the menu mix, but in many American restaurants the grill or the fryer carries the most weekend volume and becomes the constraint. Single pieces of equipment like one salamander or one small flat top can also cap throughput. The most reliable way to find out is to note which station's items are consistently last to the window on tickets that ran long.
Are ticket times a fair way to judge a kitchen?
Only with context. A raw average mixes fast salads with slow proteins and hides a catastrophic twenty minutes inside a decent night. Ticket times become fair when they are segmented by station, item category, and day part, compared against realistic per-category targets, and read alongside what the dining room was doing, such as a seating wave that buried the line.
How does course pacing affect table turn times?
A table that eats together finishes together and leaves together. Long gaps between courses stretch the meal and delay the next seating, while courses that arrive too fast make guests feel rushed and reduce dessert and drink sales. Consistent pacing across tables tends to improve turns more than trying to shave minutes off any single course.
Who should own the expo pass, the chef or a dedicated expediter?
Either can work, but ownership must be explicit for every shift. In small kitchens the chef or sous chef often expedites while also cooking. In higher-volume rooms a dedicated expo on the busiest shifts is usually worth the labor, because the pass cannot be a part-time job when tickets are stacked. The failure mode is ownership floating during the rush so nobody is reading tickets.
What should be on a station chit or screen versus at the pass?
Each station should see only its own items, with modifiers attached and enough ticket context to know which table and course the item belongs to. The pass should see the whole ticket, every course, and the state of each item. Giving stations the full ticket forces cooks to filter under pressure, and giving the pass only station views makes the expo reassemble the order in their head.
Why does the pass fall apart during the dinner rush but not at lunch?
Volume crosses the point where one person can hold every open ticket in their head, and small routing or communication gaps that were harmless at low volume start compounding. Seating waves make it worse by delivering tickets in bursts. The fixes are structural: explicit pass ownership, a consistent calling cadence, sequencing tickets so the constrained station gets a steady flow, and a system that shows all open tickets at once.
How do I set up ticket routing after a menu change?
Treat the routing map as something someone owns. After every menu change, map each new or moved item to its station, decide how multi-station plates are handled, confirm modifiers display at the station, and ring in a few sample orders before service to see where they land. Most routing failures come from rules that were correct once and never updated.
Do I need special software to run a good expo pass?
No. Many excellent kitchens run on paper, a rail, and a skilled expediter. Software helps most when volume exceeds what one person can track, when several stations must coordinate on the same plate, or when you want segmented timing data to find bottlenecks. Fix ownership, coursing rules, and routing first; then decide whether screens or a dedicated tool would actually change anything.