Kitchen and Bar Video (K BV)

In 2000, ViewTouch pioneered the first Point of Sale solution featuring Interactive Kitchen Video and Bar Video, a greatly enhanced alternative to sending 'orders' (transaction or 'guest check' detail) to food and beverage preparation sites via printers. Interactive K/BV (Kitchen/Bar Video) displays bring the 'Prep' staff into the Point of Sale 'loop' by giving a 'voice' to Prep staff, the people who prepare food and beverage 'orders' for customers.

Kitchen and Bar video (K/BV) pages feature buttons of the ButtonType: 'Report', and Report Type 'Check' . The popular name for this button is the 'Guest Check' button. Prep staffs receive their instructions on ViewTouch pages created to enable them to see and to interact with graphical touchscreen representations of Guest Checks.

Guest Check buttons show the same information that has long been sent to Kitchen and Bar printers - ViewTouch Guest Check buttons are a visual representation of an 'order' (the transaction data) required by the food and beverage preparation staff to fulfill each customer's .

Guest Check buttons offer many advantages over printed 'requisition tickets'. A Guest Check button can be updated and alerts the entire hospitality workgroup when orders are 'plated' (ready for the service staff to present to customers).

Tablets displaying ViewTouch orders in kitchens and bars establishes two-way communication between the customer front and the remote preparation sites. The kitchen and bar prep staff have an enhanced view of customer orders and can alert the service staff when orders are ready for service !

The implementation of ViewTouch Kitchen/Bar Video and K/BV is astonishingly simple ViewTouch K/BV is completely software based - no special hardware is needed other than an Android tablet or a touchscreen monitor !

A collection of ViewTouch buttons show the order detail which would have otherwise been sent to a printer at a prep site. Interacting with K/BV displays enables the Prep staff to inform the service staff when orders are ready for service, increasing the the efficiency of Point of Sale.

When an order is prepared, the prep staff touches the button which shows the fully prepared, completed order. This highlights the button, informing staff on all ViewTouch displays that the food/beverage is ready for service to the customer. When the service staff transports the food/beverage from the preparation site to the customer a touch of the highlighted button removes the order detail from the K/BV display.

K/BV pages are designed to give the prep staff the ability to adjust the presentation of order details in various format layouts and font sizes.

No special hardware is needed to implement Kitchen/Bar Video in a hospitality site. Any Android tablet or touchscreen monitor and $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W is all that anyone needs.

A simple, easy and economical way to implement Kitchen/Bar Video displays is to use Android Tablets and download the ViewTouch XServer .apk to them. The QR code which does this automatically is located on the ViewTouch Point of Sale desktop page or at the ViewTouch web site's download page or use a Raspberry Pi Zero W to drive a touchscreen monitor. There are many options for mounting tablets and/or touchscreen monitors in a prep site. This is exactly the same way in which ViewTouch POS ordering displays can be added to any hospitality site.

K/BV displays can either be used to replace prep site printers or to supplement them. Hospitality operators can choose printers, video displays or both solutions for prep sites.

A final note: ViewTouch mirroring makes it possible for there to be two K/BV displays in a kitchen or bar, to be driven by a single Raspberry Pi with two HDMI interfaces. Each will show exactly the same view of the current state of order fulfillment. If independent or different views are desired, simply add another tablet or touchscreen. The ViewTouch XServer software is free, of course !!