When food takes too long, people usually blame the staff: too slow, too few, too inexperienced. In practice, the cause is more often the system than the team — routes, stations and preparation.
Distance is time
Every metre a cook walks per dish adds up to kilometres over an evening. Fridge on one side, prep surface on the other, the pass across the room: such layouts cost only seconds per order — but on a packed night those seconds decide whether waits grow by twenty minutes.
Mise en place is not a suggestion
The strongest kitchen is the one that has already cooked before service: sauces, cut goods, portioned components. Whoever still preps during the rush produces waiting time and errors. A written mise en place plan per station — on paper, not in someone's head — is one of the cheapest optimisations there is.
The menu must fit the kitchen
Many workflow problems are really menu problems: too many dishes, too many components, too many special routes. Every dish that needs its own pan, its own ingredient and its own extra step slows down all the others. A focused menu isn't a sacrifice — it's speed, quality and margin at once.