An order announcement app for the kitchen does one thing a dashboard on the front-desk laptop cannot: it tells the cook, where the cook is standing, that an order has arrived, and keeps telling them until somebody acts. For a restaurant whose kitchen is behind a wall, up a floor or across a courtyard from wherever the orders land, that is the gap where WhatsApp orders go cold. The staff app closes it with a spoken announcement that plays on every phone in the kitchen the moment an order comes in.
This explainer covers why a notification chime fails in a separate kitchen, what a spoken announcement does differently, who should have the app and what each role sees, how it looks on Tezzu, and the phone settings that most often leave a kitchen silent.
Why a chime fails in a separate kitchen
Picture the layout. Orders arrive on WhatsApp and the store page and show up on the dashboard, which is open on a laptop at the counter. The kitchen is behind a door, with an exhaust fan running and two burners going. A new-order chime on the counter laptop is heard by the cashier, who is taking a dine-in payment, and by nobody in the kitchen.
Even if the cook has the dashboard on a phone in their pocket, a single short notification sound is one noise among many. It plays once. If it is missed, the order waits until someone happens to look. Ten minutes later the customer messages "any update?", and the first the kitchen hears of the order is a complaint. The general problem, and the ways restaurants patch it with bells and shouting, is described in restaurant order notifications: never miss an order again.
What a spoken announcement does differently
A spoken announcement is a voice, at alarm volume, saying that a new order has arrived. Three properties make it work where a chime does not.
It repeats. The announcement plays again at intervals until someone opens the order and accepts it. A missed first play is no longer a missed order.
It is words. "New order on Tezzu" cuts through kitchen noise in a way a tone does not, because people are tuned to speech. The cook does not have to work out which app made which sound.
It stops everywhere at once. When one person accepts the order, the announcement stops on every phone. The kitchen is never left with three phones chanting about an order that is already on the stove.
The announcement is a signal to pick up the phone or look at the printed ticket; the order screen or the KOT is what tells the cook what to make. How the two work together in a rush is covered in thermal KOT printing for a 100-order lunch rush.
Who should have the app and what each role sees
The app goes on the phones of the people who act on orders, and roles decide what each of them sees and can do.
| Role | Sees | Does |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | New and in-progress orders with items, variants, add-ons and instructions | Accept, mark preparing, mark ready |
| Counter | All orders with payment status and table numbers | Accept, mark served, mark paid at the counter |
| Rider | Orders ready for delivery with address and cash to collect | Mark out for delivery, mark delivered |
| Owner or manager | Everything | Everything, plus the dashboard |
For a restaurant with a separate kitchen, the kitchen phone is the one that matters. Put the app on a phone that lives in the kitchen, plugged in, at the pass, with the kitchen role, rather than on the head cook's personal phone that goes home with them. The spoken announcement is switched on where it is needed, which in this layout is the kitchen phone and the counter phone. How to think about roles across a whole team, including who should never see revenue, is in restaurant staff management: roles, permissions and who sees what.
What this looks like on Tezzu
On Tezzu, the staff app is the phone app your kitchen, counter and riders use to receive orders. Each staff member gets a login with a role set from the dashboard, and the spoken announcement, in Hindi or English, is turned on for the phones where it is needed. In the separate-kitchen layout, that is the kitchen phone at the pass and the counter phone, so both hear every order and either can accept it.
Walk through one order. A customer places a WhatsApp order for two Butter Chicken, four Naan and a Dal Makhani at 8:12 pm. The order lands in the dashboard, the KOT prints, and the kitchen phone starts announcing a new order at alarm volume, repeating. The cook at the tandoor taps the phone, sees the items with the "less spicy" instruction, and taps accept. The announcement stops on the kitchen phone and the counter phone together, and the customer gets a WhatsApp message that the order is being prepared.
At 8:35 the cook marks it ready, the rider's phone shows it in the ready list with the address and the cash-on-delivery amount, and the rider marks it out for delivery. The customer gets that update too. The full sequence of statuses for delivery, pickup and dine-in is in order status workflow: pending to served.
The announcement works the same way for orders from the store page, scheduled pre-orders and QR table orders in the dining room, so the kitchen does not care which channel an order came from. Setup details, including the one phone setting that most often leaves a kitchen without alerts, are in the Tezzu staff app guide, and the app sits alongside the dashboard, KOT printing and roles on the features page.
Put a phone in the kitchen that announces every order
Install the staff app on a kitchen phone, set the role, switch on the spoken announcement and send yourself a test order. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, then ₹10 per order and no commission.
Start your free 7-day trialPhone settings that keep a kitchen silent
Most "the app did not ring" reports come down to the phone, and the fix is a few minutes of settings on the kitchen phone when it is set up.
- Battery optimisation. Android phones put apps to sleep to save battery. Exclude the staff app from battery optimisation so it can wake the phone for an order.
- Do not disturb and silent mode. A phone put on silent at 7 pm because someone was on a call stays silent through the dinner rush. Keep the kitchen phone on a fixed volume and out of DND.
- Notification permission. Check that the app is allowed to show notifications and play sound, especially after an operating system update.
- Power and data. The kitchen phone should be plugged in and on Wi-Fi or a reliable SIM. An order cannot be announced on a phone that died at 9 pm.
- A dedicated phone. A basic Android phone in the ₹7,000 to ₹10,000 range that never leaves the kitchen is cheaper than one missed order a week.
Test the setup with an order to yourself at the start of every shift. It takes thirty seconds and it is the only way to know the phone is awake before the first real order arrives.
Frequently asked questions
What is an order announcement app for a kitchen?
It is a staff app that receives orders from your WhatsApp, store page and dine-in channels and announces each new one aloud on the kitchen's phone, repeating until someone accepts it. The cook taps to accept, sees the items and instructions, and moves the order through preparing and ready. It replaces counter staff walking to the kitchen or shouting orders through a door.
Why does my kitchen miss new order notifications?
Usually because a single chime is lost in kitchen noise, or because the phone's battery optimisation, silent mode or notification settings blocked it. A spoken announcement that repeats until the order is accepted fixes the first problem; a dedicated kitchen phone with battery optimisation off and a fixed volume fixes the second.
Can the kitchen and the counter both get the alert?
Yes. The announcement plays on every phone that has it switched on, and stops on all of them when any one person accepts the order. Each person sees only what their role allows, so the kitchen sees items and instructions while the counter also sees payment status and table numbers.
Does the announcement work for dine-in and pickup orders too?
Yes. Orders from a QR table, a pickup booking, a scheduled pre-order or a WhatsApp chat all trigger the same announcement, and the order shows its type and table number or collection time so the kitchen can sequence it correctly.