How I streamline kitchen workflows and cut prep time

1. I simplify the menu before I try to speed people up

I get more efficient kitchen workflows and shorter prep times by reducing complexity per service first, not by expecting everyone to move faster. When prep starts to sprawl in my place, the cause is usually too many components, unclear quantities or work that is badly distributed between stations. So I test every dish with one practical question: which action in prep costs the most time without adding noticeable value for the guest? A lunch plate with three separate garnishes is a good example. It may look nice, but if each garnish triggers its own washing, cutting, storage and plating routine, that is exactly where I start cutting back.

I do not remove choice blindly. I rebuild dishes so several items use the same prepared base component. Instead of one daily menu with roast vegetables for the fish dish, different vegetables for pasta and a third side for bowls, I would rather plan one solid base with two finishing variants. That saves washing time, knife work and storage space, and it also reduces mistakes in the walk-in. Fewer variants do not automatically mean lower quality. Guests care whether the plate, temperature and timing are right. The team also cares whether one station can finish prep in a realistic 45 minutes instead of a chaotic 90.

2. I separate base production from à la carte work

Prep gets shorter in my kitchen when I stop mixing advance production with service work. Anything that can be produced earlier at consistent quality gets its own time window and one responsible person. That includes stocks, sauce bases, cooked pulses, portioned proteins or dressings. Anything that only makes sense shortly before the pass stays deliberately in the à la carte phase. When both types of work are mixed together, the morning station suddenly blocks the stove with base work while the first orders are already arriving. That is usually not a staffing problem. It is a structural problem.

I therefore plan each component by its latest sensible production point and by the yield I actually need. With a tomato sauce, I do not just ask how much I cook. I ask how many dishes it really supports, which consistency the service line needs and how long reheating takes at the pass. That is where properly maintained base recipes with material cost, yield and waste become useful, exactly as Bonzumo supports them in inventory management. The kitchen can see what a base is intended for, and I can decide more reliably whether I should produce one large batch or two smaller ones. Understand what goes into every dish on your menu becomes very practical in that daily decision.

3. Recipes must support prep, not only costing

Many kitchens lose time because recipes are maintained for pricing but are not useful for actual work. A good recipe for me needs more than ingredients and quantities. I also need the form in which the ingredient should arrive at the station. “Onions 2 kg” does not help much if one part is meant as brunoise for a filling, another as julienne for topping and the rest as rough cuts for stock. Once those details are missing, every shift starts deciding again. That creates questions, uneven results and longer prep, even though everything may look documented on paper.

That is why I write recipes in a way that fits the work: cut specification, target weight after trimming, portion logic and handover status. A chicken lunch dish is a simple example. Instead of storing only the raw weight, I define whether it should be marinated, cooked, chilled down and already held in service portions. In Bonzumo I can assign ingredients and quantities to the product or to a base recipe and use costing as a side effect rather than the only purpose. The biggest practical gain is not just food cost. It is that the early and late shift are talking about the same level of preparation, and that saves the small daily decisions that quietly consume a lot of time.

4. I build prep lists by station and bottleneck, not alphabetically

The best list is worthless if it does not follow the path through the kitchen. I organise prep tasks by station, equipment use and bottleneck timing. First comes anything that needs cooling time, cooking time or the only combi oven. After that come tasks that different stations can run in parallel. An alphabetical master list may look tidy, but it creates waiting time. Someone trims herbs while the oven stands empty, and later the delayed potatoes slow down the whole sequence. Good prep planning is not control for its own sake. It is a calmer start to service and less frantic catch-up production between 12:15 and 12:45.

Bonzumo does not solve this with magic automation, and I would not pretend it does. What helps is reliable master data for products, base recipes, stock and purchasing context. If ingredients, units and typical usage quantities are maintained cleanly, I can derive prep lists from a stable data set instead of guessing the same volumes every week. That matters especially when several storage areas are involved and the early shift would otherwise spend too long searching. Inventory counting in Bonzumo is useful here as recorded and checked counted quantities, not as a miracle tool. It still shows me where my team regularly misjudges demand, for example when one station always preps too tightly and another keeps producing surplus.

5. During service, visibility matters more than shouting

Fast prep does not help much if service later overwhelms the kitchen with badly timed orders. For a smooth flow, every station needs to see what is due now, what is waiting and what has been deliberately released later. That is where I reduce friction: not every order should hit every station at the same moment. With menus or larger tables, it often makes more sense to control starter, main course and dessert separately so the kitchen does not block components that are only needed much later. That lowers pressure and also reduces pointless early firing and hot holding.

This is where Bonzumo is practically useful if production stations, kitchen screens and course release are set up to match the real operation. The order becomes the shared basis for service, kitchen and bar, while open and completed jobs are visible in each station context. On a hypothetical evening with six tables ordering almost at the same time, the grill station does not just see a pile of tickets. It sees the work that has actually been released. Service can send menu courses one by one instead of triggering everything at once. Give service, kitchen and bar a shared view of orders means something concrete to me here: fewer shouted updates, fewer duplicate questions and far fewer false starts at the wrong station.

6. I measure delays where they actually happen

When prep takes too long, I do not start by blaming pace. I look for the point where a task or order gets stuck: at fetching items from storage, portioning, the only chopping board, unclear notes or missing replenishment of a base component. A typical example is a salad station that seems slow but is really walking to three different places every service for herbs, bowls and dressing. In that case the person is not too slow. The workstation is badly set up. Making that distinction matters if I want to run a fair team and improve the process rather than just increasing pressure.

I discuss those bottlenecks directly with the stations involved and change only one lever at a time. Otherwise nobody knows what actually helped. Possible levers might be smaller pre-portions, different container sizes, one extra chilled insert at the pass or a different order of work in the early shift. In Bonzumo I can then also review which products and recipes carry especially many components and whether certain dishes create a disproportionate load in product flow and work flow. The software does not replace observation by the team, but it gives us a shared data framework so we do not blame the wrong dish or the wrong person based only on instinct.

7. Prep only stays short if responsibilities stay clear

One well-organised morning is worth little if, two weeks later, every shift is prepping differently again. That is why I assign clear responsibility for every recurring prep task: who checks quantities, who produces base components and who verifies that a station has been handed over ready for service. In a hypothetical bistro with lunch and evening business, for example, the early shift might take vegetables, sauce and dessert base, while the late shift tops up proteins and checks the handover. The important point is that responsibility should be attached to a role, not to personal preference. Only then does the process remain reliable during holidays, sickness or team changes.

The system becomes fair when I do not just demand efficiency but organise the conditions for it: clear recipes, sensible stock, suitable stations and a realistic menu. Efficiency does not mean trying to squeeze four people’s output out of three. To me it means removing unnecessary movements, search paths and duplicated thinking so good people can work calmly and precisely. So when someone asks me for quick tips, I do not say “just prep better.” I follow this order instead: simplify the menu, define base production, maintain recipes so they work in real prep, make bottlenecks visible and keep responsibilities clear. That is when kitchen workflows genuinely become calmer and prep times measurably shorter.