The Kitchen page measures how fast your kitchen moves: how long orders wait to be accepted, how long they take to prepare, how many run late, and which products are the slowest to make. Use it to find bottlenecks and to set realistic prep times.
Analytics is open to owners and managers only.
How the timings are worked out
Every figure on this page comes from the timestamps an order picks up as staff move it through the live order flow: when it was received, when someone started preparing it, when it was marked ready, and when it was delivered. Those stamps are written as the order changes status on the mobile app (or in the web admin).
This has one important consequence: only orders that were actually processed through the live flow have kitchen data. Orders from before this feature was switched on, or any order that skipped the status steps, won't appear in the averages. If you've only just started using the status flow properly, expect this page to look thin until enough orders have passed through it.
Open the Kitchen page
- In the admin sidebar, open Analytics.
- Select Kitchen.
The date range picker and Compare toggle apply, and multi-branch tenants can scope to one branch or All locations. If there's no lifecycle data in the range, you'll see "No kitchen data yet" with a note about how the timestamps get populated.
The KPI cards
For the three timing cards, shorter is better, so a faster time shows as a positive change.
| Card | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Avg. acceptance time | From received to preparing, i.e. how long orders sit before someone starts them. |
| Avg. prep time | From preparing to ready. |
| Avg. fulfilment | From received to delivered, the whole journey, for orders that completed. |
| Late orders | Orders whose prep time went past your late-order threshold. |
| On-time rate | The share of prepared orders that came in under the threshold. |
The late-order threshold
A banner at the top shows your current late-order threshold in minutes ("Late order threshold: 25 minutes", for example). An order counts as late when its prep time (preparing to ready) exceeds that number. The threshold is set per branch under Settings → Ordering, and the banner links straight there so you can change it without leaving Analytics. When you're viewing All locations, the threshold shown is your default branch's.
Busy hours
The Busy days × hours heatmap and the Kitchen load by hour chart show when the kitchen is under most pressure, by weekday-and-hour and by hour respectively. Read them alongside your prep times to see whether you slow down specifically during the rush.
Slowest products to prepare
This table ranks products by average prep time, slowest first. Because MenuDock doesn't track per-item start and finish times, each order's prep time is attributed to every product in that order, so treat it as a guide rather than a stopwatch. A product needs at least 3 samples before it appears, so a one-off slow night won't put an item on the list.
Export to CSV
The Kitchen page has no CSV export. For exportable data, use the Sales, Orders, Products or Customers pages, or set up a scheduled report. See Reports and CSV export.
When to change this
The one setting that touches this page is the late-order threshold under Settings → Ordering. Set it to a prep time you can realistically hit, then watch the on-time rate. If everything reads as late, the threshold is probably too tight rather than the kitchen being too slow.
Related articles
Need a hand?
If this page stays empty even though you're processing orders, check that staff are moving orders through Preparing → Ready → Delivered rather than leaving them on one status, since the timings depend on those transitions. Email support@menudock.co.uk with your store name if it still won't populate.