Restrofi Glossary

Restaurant Technology Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms every Indian restaurant owner needs to know, from KOTs and kitchen displays to QR ordering and GST invoicing.

What Is a KOT? (Kitchen Order Ticket) — Explained for Indian Restaurants

A KOT (Kitchen Order Ticket) is a document — paper or digital — that records a customer's order and routes it to the correct kitchen station. Every Indian restaurant uses KOTs; the question is whether they're paper slips, printed tickets, or live digital displays.

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What Is a KDS? (Kitchen Display System) — Restaurant Guide

A KDS (Kitchen Display System) is a digital screen mounted in the kitchen that displays incoming orders in real time, replacing paper KOTs. Orders arrive the moment a customer places them, colour-coded by wait time, so kitchen staff can prioritise without leaving the line.

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What Is QR Ordering? How QR Code Menus Work in Restaurants

QR ordering is a system where a customer scans a QR code at their table, browses a digital menu in their phone's browser (no app required), and places their order directly — which appears live on the restaurant's kitchen display and order dashboard.

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GST Invoicing for Restaurants in India — Complete 2026 Guide

Indian restaurants registered under GST must issue a tax invoice for every sale above ₹200, showing the restaurant's GSTIN, itemised CGST and SGST, HSN/SAC codes, and a sequential invoice number. Restaurants with turnover above ₹1.5 crore must print the GSTIN; those below may issue a consolidated receipt.

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What Is a POS System? (Point of Sale) — Guide for Indian Restaurants

A POS (point-of-sale) system is the software and hardware a restaurant uses to take orders, print or share GST-compliant bills, accept payments, and record every sale. Modern cloud POS runs in a browser and syncs live, while legacy POS runs on one locked-down machine. Every billing restaurant in India uses some form of POS.

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What Is a Cloud Kitchen? (Dark Kitchen) — Guide for India

A cloud kitchen — also called a dark kitchen or ghost kitchen — is a food business that prepares meals for delivery only, with no dine-in seating and no customer-facing storefront. Orders come almost entirely through delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato, which lets owners run one or several brands from a single low-rent kitchen.

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What Is a QSR? (Quick Service Restaurant) — India Guide

A QSR (quick service restaurant) is a fast-food-style outlet built around speed and volume — a limited, standardised menu ordered at a counter and often collected against a token number, with little or no table service. Think of a busy vada pav counter, a burger chain, or a food-court stall.

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What Is a Captain Ordering App? (Steward KOT App) — India Guide

A captain ordering app is a handheld app used by a waiter, captain, or steward to take a table's order on a phone or tablet, which sends the order instantly to the kitchen display (KDS) and the billing system. It replaces the paper KOT and the trip to the kitchen, so the waiter can take the next table's order immediately.

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What Is Food Cost Percentage? Formula & How to Reduce It (India)

Food cost percentage is the portion of sales spent on ingredients, calculated as (cost of ingredients ÷ food sales) × 100. For example, if a dish sells for ₹200 and its ingredients cost ₹60, the food cost is 30%. Most Indian restaurants target a healthy range of roughly 28–35%, depending on cuisine and format.

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What Is Table Turnover Rate? Formula & How to Improve It

Table turnover rate is the number of times a table is seated with a new party during a service period. It is calculated as parties served ÷ number of tables (or total covers ÷ number of seats) over that period. For example, 90 parties served across 30 tables in an evening gives a turnover rate of 3.0 — each table was used three times.

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What Is Average Order Value (AOV)? Formula & How to Increase It

Average order value (AOV), also called average ticket size or average bill value, is the average amount spent per order. It is calculated as total revenue ÷ number of orders. For example, ₹1,50,000 in sales across 300 orders gives an AOV of ₹500. Raising AOV increases revenue without needing more customers.

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What Is Menu Engineering? The 4 Quadrants Explained (Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles, Dogs)

Menu engineering is the practice of analysing every menu item by two dimensions — popularity (how often it sells) and profitability (contribution margin per dish) — and sorting them into four quadrants: Stars (popular and profitable), Plowhorses (popular but low margin), Puzzles (profitable but low sellers), and Dogs (neither). You then promote, re-price, or remove items accordingly.

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What Is an FSSAI License for Restaurants? Tiers, 14-Digit Number & Rules

An FSSAI license is the food-safety registration or licence issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India that every food business — including restaurants — must hold to operate legally. It comes in three tiers based on annual turnover, carries a unique 14-digit number, and must be displayed at the premises. Thresholds change, so confirm current limits at fssai.gov.in.

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What Is Swiggy & Zomato Commission? How Aggregator Fees Erode Restaurant Margins

Swiggy and Zomato commission is the fee food-delivery aggregators charge a restaurant on each order routed through their platform — typically a percentage of the order value (commonly quoted in the ~18–30% range) plus applicable GST and other charges. The exact rate varies by city, cuisine, negotiated contract, and plan, and it changes over time, so confirm your current rate with the aggregator.

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What Is a BOT (Bar Order Ticket)? The Bar's Version of a KOT

A BOT (Bar Order Ticket) is a document — paper or digital — that records a guest's drinks order and routes it to the bar station, exactly the way a KOT (Kitchen Order Ticket) routes food to the kitchen. In a restaurant with a bar, a table's order is split into a KOT for food and a BOT for beverages so each station gets only its own items.

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What Is UPI Payment for Restaurants? Dynamic vs Static QR, Settlement & Reconciliation

UPI (Unified Payments Interface) is India's real-time bank-to-bank payment system that lets a restaurant guest pay instantly by scanning a QR code or entering a UPI ID from any UPI app. For restaurants it is the dominant payment mode: it settles funds quickly to the merchant's bank account, needs no card machine, and works from a static or a dynamic QR code.

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What Is a Thermal Printer? Receipt & KOT Printing for Restaurants

A thermal printer is a printer that produces receipts and kitchen tickets by heating specially coated paper, so it never uses ink, toner, or ribbons. Restaurants use them to print customer bills and KOTs. In India they are the standard receipt printer at the billing counter — fast, cheap to run, and low-maintenance.

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What Is Offline Billing? Restaurant POS That Works Without Internet

Offline billing is a POS feature that lets a restaurant keep taking orders and issuing receipts when the internet connection drops. The POS stores each bill in a local queue on the device and automatically syncs everything to the cloud once the connection returns — so a network outage never stops billing.

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What Is a Menu Modifier? Add-Ons, Variants & Options Explained

A menu modifier is an option a guest selects to customise a dish — such as spice level, portion size, extra toppings, or 'no onion'. Modifiers can be free or add to the price, and they attach to the item so the kitchen makes it exactly right. They improve order accuracy and lift average order value.

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What Is a Z-Report? Day-End Sales & Settlement Report Explained

A Z-report is an end-of-day (day-end) settlement report that summarises a restaurant's total sales, taxes collected, discounts, and the split across payment modes for the trading day, then closes that day's totals. It is the report an owner or cashier runs at closing to reconcile cash and cards and to feed accounting and GST filing.

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What Is Inventory Management for Restaurants? Stock, Reorder Levels & Wastage

Restaurant inventory management is the practice of tracking every ingredient a kitchen holds — how much is in stock, how fast it depletes, when to reorder, and how much is lost to wastage. Done well, it keeps the kitchen from running out of key items mid-service and controls food cost by linking what you sell to what you actually consume.

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What Is Direct Ordering? First-Party Ordering vs Swiggy & Zomato Explained

Direct ordering — also called first-party ordering — is when a restaurant takes orders through its own channels (a table QR menu, its own website, or WhatsApp) rather than through a delivery aggregator like Swiggy or Zomato. Because no marketplace sits in the middle, the restaurant pays no per-order commission and owns the customer relationship and data.

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What Is a Dynamic QR Code? Dynamic vs Static QR for Restaurant Ordering

A dynamic QR code is a QR code whose destination can be changed after it is printed, because it points to a short redirect URL rather than encoding the final address directly. Restaurants use dynamic QR codes for table ordering so one printed sticker can be re-pointed, updated, or tracked per table without ever reprinting the code.

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What Are Covers in a Restaurant? Definition, Forecasting & Revenue Per Cover

In restaurant terminology, a 'cover' is one guest served — so a table of four guests is four covers. Covers are the standard unit for counting how many people a restaurant serves in a service period, and they underpin forecasting, staff rostering, and per-cover metrics like revenue per cover (average spend per guest).

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What Is a Running Order? (Open Order) — Guide for Indian Restaurants

A running order (or open order) is a table's live, unsettled order that stays open while the guests keep ordering in rounds — a second round of rotis, another drink, a dessert — until they ask for the bill. Every new item is added to the same open order, and at the end all rounds are consolidated into one final GST bill.

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What Is a Void in a POS? (Void, Cancel, NC) — India Guide

A void in a POS is the removal of an item or order that was entered but should not be charged — a mis-punch, a dish sent back, or a cancelled round. Related terms are 'cancel' (dropping an item before it is made) and 'NC' or no-charge (a complimentary item given free). Because voids remove money from the bill, they are a common route for theft and are normally logged and manager-authorised.

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What Is Recipe Management? (Recipe BOM) — Guide for Indian Restaurants

Recipe management is the practice of mapping every menu item to the exact quantities of the ingredients it uses — its recipe, or bill of materials (BOM). Once each dish has a recipe, every sale automatically depletes the matching stock, which lets a restaurant calculate true food cost per dish and track ingredient inventory without counting by hand after every service.

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What Is a Table Management System? — Guide for Indian Restaurants

A table management system is the software a restaurant uses to see and control the live status of every table — which are vacant, occupied, or awaiting the bill — on a digital floor plan. It handles seating and reservations, links each table to its running order, and helps the front-of-house team turn tables faster without rushing guests.

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