Service & kitchen
Course sequences
Every venue defines its own meal flow — turn the course steps you use on, hide the ones you don't, and rename them to your language.
Updated Jul 23, 2026
Not every restaurant runs the same meal. A tasting-menu room and a neighbourhood bistro move parties through service differently, so TableStack lets each venue define its own course sequence — the steps staff tap through during a meal. This article explains how it works.
The default flow
Out of the box, a venue runs a two-course flow. The full meal progression staff can move a party through is:
Seated → Order taken → Drinks served → First course → Second course → Third course → Food delivered → Cheque requested → Cheque dropped → Paid → Departed.
By default the third course is switched off, which is what gives new venues their two-course default. See the visit lifecycle for what each stage means in service.
Turn steps on and off
In venue settings under service flow, you can switch off any step your venue doesn't use and turn on ones you do — for example, enabling the third course for a three-course prix-fixe, or hiding "Drinks served" if it's not a step your team tracks.
Two anchors are always present and can't be removed: Seated (where every visit begins) and Departed (where it ends). Everything in between is yours to configure. The order is fixed — you're choosing which steps appear, not resequencing the meal.
Rename steps to your language
You can also rename the steps to match how your team actually talks — "Cheque" versus "Check", "Mains" versus "Second course". The stage does the same thing; it just reads in your words on the floor and kitchen display.
How it's enforced
When a server advances a party, TableStack only offers the next enabled step in your venue's flow, and skipping ahead over enabled steps is allowed. Steps you've hidden simply don't appear as options. If you turn a step off after a party is already sitting on it, they can still advance — the flow adapts around them rather than getting stuck.
What this affects
- The visit lifecycle — your sequence is the exact set of steps a party moves through.
- The kitchen display — course steps you enable are the ones that drive kitchen firing.
- Reports — the service-pacing report measures time in each course stage your venue uses.
What affects this
- Your venue settings — the sequence and step names are configured per venue.
- A connected POS — an external POS can drive these course steps via webhooks.