The fish did not come: off the menu for today

Half an hour before lunch, a supplier rings to say the sea bass will not arrive. In most restaurants that news travels by shouting: the chef tells whoever is nearest, someone scribbles on the whiteboard, and at 12:40 a server still sells two sea bass to a table that has been waiting twenty minutes. This tour shows the other way. The head chef of a sample restaurant opens the Menu screen, takes the dish off for today in one tap, and the till simply stops offering it.

The tour has three stops, all on the Menu screen. Below, each one is expanded into what you tap, what you see and why it matters, followed by tips, mistakes we see often and where to go next.

What does the Menu screen show before lunch?

It shows every dish you sell, grouped by category, with the choices guests can make on each one and a count of how many are available today. In the sample restaurant that is eight dishes across five categories: starters, mains, sides, desserts and drinks.

The useful part is the count in the header. "8 of 8 available" before service means the kitchen can cook everything on the menu. Once a dish comes off, the number drops and a second line counts the dishes that are off today, so anyone opening the screen sees the state of the kitchen without asking.

Step by step

1. Open Menu from the side bar. At 11:30 the head chef opens Menu. The header shows the dishes available today, and the left side lists the categories. Checking this before every service takes ten seconds and catches anything left switched off from yesterday.
2. Look at the choices on each dish. Each dish card carries the choices guests make on it, such as "Cooked how?" (medium or well done), "Add a side" and "Leave out". You are not changing these today, but it is worth knowing they belong to the dish, so they travel with it when it comes off and goes back on.
3. Find the dish that cannot be cooked. The sea bass sits under Mains at £18.50. Scroll or pick the Mains category so you are looking at the right card. Restaurants with two similar dishes (a fillet and a whole fish, say) should read the name twice before tapping.
4. Tap 86 Item on the card. The card is now marked 86'd. The header changes from eight available to seven, and it counts one dish off today. Nothing is deleted: the price, the description and the choices are all still there.
5. Tell the floor, briefly. The till will stop the dish being rung up, but servers still talk to guests. A one-line message at the pre-service briefing, "no sea bass today", stops anyone recommending it from memory.
6. Check the till. Open the till and look at Mains. The sea bass is not there. This is the step that matters most: a dish the kitchen cannot make can no longer be sold by accident, however busy the floor gets.
7. Bring it back when the fish arrives. If the delivery turns up at 15:00 for the evening, open Menu, find the card marked 86'd and tap Make Available. The count goes back to eight of eight and the dish returns to the till straight away.
8. Start tomorrow clean. Before the next service, glance at the header again. If a dish is still off and the ingredient is in, switch it back on so you are not turning away orders for no reason.

What changes when a dish is switched off?

Very little on the screen, which is the point. Here is what moves and what stays the same.

Because the record itself is never touched, your sales history for the sea bass stays intact. Reports for the week still show how many were sold on the days it was available.

Why does this matter more than it looks?

Selling a dish the kitchen cannot make costs you twice. First the table waits while someone works out the problem, then a server goes back to apologise and take a new order, often with a free drink to smooth it over. At £18.50 a main, two or three of those in a lunch is a real amount of money and a lot of goodwill.

There is a stock side too. If you track kitchen stock, a dish that sells while its main ingredient is at zero makes the numbers look wrong for days afterwards. Switching it off at the source keeps sales and stock telling the same story. Our guide on stock control explains why that link matters.

Tips from busy kitchens

• Decide who owns the button. One person per shift, usually the head chef or the person running the pass. If three people can switch dishes on and off, nobody trusts the screen.
• 86 early rather than late. If you have six portions of something left and twelve covers booked who love it, switch it off when the sixth goes, not when the seventh ticket arrives.
• Use it for the specials board too. A daily special you have run out of is still a dish that cannot be sold. Treat it the same way.
• Pair it with a menu check at close. At the end of the night, look at what is 86'd and whether it is a supplier problem or a prep problem. Repeated 86s on the same dish are worth a conversation about ordering, which ties into how you cost each plate.
• Keep the language consistent. Everyone in UK kitchens knows "86". Use the word on the briefing too, so the screen and the people say the same thing.

Common mistakes

• Deleting the dish instead of switching it off. Deleting loses the price, the choices and the link to past sales. 86 Item exists so you never need to.
• Forgetting to switch it back on. The fish arrives, goes in the fridge, and the dish stays off all evening. Make it part of whoever takes the delivery: put it away, then tap Make Available.
• Relying only on the whiteboard. Boards get missed in a rush. The till is the one place every order passes through, so that is where the block has to be.
• Switching off a whole dish for one missing garnish. If only a side or a garnish is short, the dish can usually still go out. Tell the floor and use the order notes rather than losing every sale of the main.
• Not checking the guest-facing menu. If you also take orders from table QR codes, look at the guest menu once after a change so you know exactly what diners see.

What should you do next?

Once the menu is right for the day, the next stop is the service itself. The lunch service tour follows a table from the QR code to a split bill with a tip, and the evening orders tour shows how the Orders screen keeps food moving off the pass. At the end of the night, how the day went shows the best sellers, which is the quickest way to spot a dish that keeps running out because it is more popular than you thought.

If you are setting up a new restaurant, our guide on how to run a restaurant covers the wider routine, from bookings to cashing up, and puts the menu check in its place in the day.

How EasyTaskr helps

EasyTaskr gives restaurants a menu, a till, a kitchen display screen, tables and QR ordering in one system. A dish switched off on the Menu screen leaves the till at once, so the kitchen and the floor work from the same list. The sample restaurant and prices in this tour are examples only.