Translating the Buttons Was the Easy Part

Walk any line on a Saturday and count the languages. Immigrants make up close to a quarter of the restaurant workforce in the US and nearly half of all chefs. Most kitchens already run in two or three languages at once, and most of the time it works, because the words that matter on the line are short ones. Fire. Pick up. Behind. 86. A new cook learns those in a shift.

That's why translating the buttons was the easy part. We did it in August for the office screens and in October for the kitchen: the Pass, the station screens and the 86 board follow each device's language. But labels were never where things went wrong.

What actually gets lost

What goes wrong is what someone typed. The server's modifier. The host's table note. The line on the BEO that the event planner wrote three weeks ago and nobody has read out loud since:

• “No butter, dairy allergy.”
• “Sauce on the side for the bride.”
• “Hold the second course until the speeches end.”
• “Table 12 is celebrating, candle on the dessert.”

Those notes are written in whatever language the person typing them speaks, and read by whoever happens to be on the station. When the two don't match, the note gets translated by the nearest bilingual person, if they're free, and if they're not, it gets guessed.

Now the words travel too

DocketBEO translates the words your team types, not just the screen around them. Dish names, modifiers, table notes and BEO notes show up in the language each device is set to. It works in nine languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. The server types in English, the grill station reads it in Spanish, and nobody stops to ask.

A few rules we hold it to:

• Allergies keep the guest's own words. Any note or modifier that mentions an allergy shows the translation and the original side by side, so a cook can always check exactly what was said.
• Names are never translated. Guest names, server names and table names print exactly as typed. They never go through the translator at all.
• The original is one tap away. Any translated text can be flipped back to what was typed.
• Guest-facing paper stays in your language.The printed check and the “your table is ready” text go out the way you wrote them. This is for your staff.

To be honest about it: machine translation isn't perfect, especially on dish names. That's exactly why the original stays on the ticket for anything that could hurt someone.

It starts on day one

The language follows the person, starting before their first shift. When you add a new hire, they pick their language, and their welcome screen and first-shift checklist arrive in it. After that, every screen they use (the floor handheld, the host stand, the time clock, the Pass) is in the language they read.

See it for yourself

Open the demo, pick the kitchen, and flip the language switcher. The demo restaurant's tickets, notes and BEOs change with it. No signup.

And if your line reads a language that isn't on the list, tell us which one. The list started at three.