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Changing an order after it has been sent

The short version

Before you send, change anything freely. After you send, the kitchen may already be cooking, so removing something is a deliberate act with a record attached.

What you can do

Add more. Opening a running table again adds to it. A second round is a second kitchen ticket against the same order, which is normal and needs no special handling.

Cancel an item, or a whole ticket. Both exist, and both are recorded — the point is not to make it difficult, it is to make it visible. Food that was cooked and then cancelled has a cost, and a cancellation nobody can see is a cost nobody can explain.

Cancel a running table. For a table that ordered and then left, or was opened in error.

Before you cancel a sent item

Tell the kitchen. Cancelling in KJB removes it from the order; it does not stop a dish that is already in a pan. The kitchen display and the person at the pass are two different things.

Check whether it has already been made. If it has, that is a wastage conversation as well as an order one — see Record wastage.

Who can do it

Cancelling sent items is not open to everyone. Where your role does not allow it, you are either asked for a manager's approval or told it is not yours to do — see Who can do what.

That is deliberate. Cancellations are one of the ways money quietly leaves a restaurant, which is why they are supervised and recorded rather than convenient.