Last updated: Jun 25, 2026, 4:24 PM
Applies to: Toast Web, Toast POS, Toast Kitchen Display System (KDS)
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What you'll accomplish: Your prep stations will receive only the tickets they should — separated by dining option, service area, or the KDS device's filter — instead of every ticket from the kitchen.
Item routing rules sit on top of your prep station assignments. They do not replace where a menu item is normally routed — they redirect or duplicate its ticket when a specific dining option or service area applies.
Many restaurants have dedicated prep stations for specific dining options (for example, takeout or delivery) or for specific service areas (for example, an outdoor patio bar). Item routing controls where those tickets go.
If your printers are printing more tickets than they should — for example, your expediter (also called your "expo") is printing every ticket when you only want takeout tickets to appear — your item routing rules are usually where to start.
To learn how prep stations and the expediter work in the first place, see Configure and Assign Prep Stations. If you use Toast Mobile Order & Pay®, see Configure Toast Mobile Order & Pay® Printer Routing for the same workflow framed for QR-menu orders. If your restaurant group uses shared prep stations, see Apply Shared Prep Stations to Shared Menus, KDS, and Item Routing.
Note: Item routing rules apply system-wide. Routing by individual POS terminal, by job, or by floor plan is not supported.
Use a Dining Option rule when tickets for takeout, delivery, online orders, or another dining option should print or display at a different prep station than your dine-in tickets. For example, you may want your expediter KDS device to show only your online orders. You can also route a ticket to both the usual prep station and a second station, so a packaging station and a prep station receive the same ticket.
To set up dining option routing, first confirm that the menu items are already assigned to a prep station in Toast Web > Menus > Menu management > Advanced properties. The item routing rule overrides that assignment when the dining option is selected on the order. To learn more about creating custom dining options, see Get Started With Custom Dining Options.
Expected outcome: New orders placed with the selected dining option route to the Reroute To prep station the next time a ticket is sent to the kitchen.
Note: Each prep station needs its own rule. If you have separate Grill, Desserts, and Drinks prep stations and you want all three to reroute for online orders, create three rules — for example, Online Orders — Grill, Online Orders — Desserts, and Online Orders — Drinks. The same applies if you want all takeout and delivery dining options to route to one printer: create a separate rule for each takeout or delivery dining option.
Use a Service Area rule when tickets should route based on where the order was placed in the restaurant rather than the dining option used. This is helpful when you want to send tickets to the closest prep station, manage a complicated floor layout, or run a satellite station for one part of the restaurant. For example, you may want drink orders taken on your outside patio to route to a patio bar, while drink orders from your dining room route to a bar inside.
To set up service area routing, first confirm that the relevant service areas exist in Toast Web. To learn how, see Create Service Areas and Table Setup.
Expected outcome: New orders placed in the selected service area route to the Reroute To prep station the next time a ticket is sent to the kitchen.
Note: As with dining option rules, you need a separate Service Area rule for each prep station you want to reroute.
This is the most common item routing scenario. Use these steps to send drink orders from one service area or dining option to a bar prep station with its own printer or KDS device.
Expected outcome: Drink orders matching your condition now route to the Bar prep station and appear on the bar printer or bar KDS device.
Item routing rules send tickets to prep stations. KDS device filters control which tickets a specific KDS device shows once they arrive at a prep station the device is assigned to. Use a device filter when one KDS in the kitchen is designated for takeout and another for delivery, or when one screen shows entrees and another shows desserts.
This filter is configured on each KDS device individually. You must repeat the steps on every KDS that needs the filter.
Expected outcome: Only tickets matching the selected dining options or courses appear on this KDS device. New tickets matching the filter appear within a few seconds.
Note: If no dining options are selected, every dining option will display on the device. Likewise, if a course filter is selected and an order is sent with no course assigned, the order will not display on this device.
If a Kitchen Display device should not be filtering tickets but is, or if tickets aren't appearing as expected, see Get Help With KDS Tickets.
Yes — you can send a ticket to two prep stations by selecting multiple stations in the Reroute To drop-down when you build the item routing rule. To keep the original prep station and add a second one, select both the original station and the new station in Reroute To. The ticket prints or displays at both.
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To temporarily reroute tickets if a printer is down, the fastest options are to update the prep station's printer assignment to a working printer, or to create a temporary item routing rule that redirects tickets from the affected prep station to a working prep station. To update the printer for a prep station, navigate to Toast Web > Kitchen > Kitchen stations > Prep stations, select the affected prep station, change the Ticket Printer to a working printer, and select Save and Publish. When the original printer is back up, revert the change.
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Item routing rules apply system-wide, so a single POS terminal cannot follow a different rule than the rest of the restaurant. If only one terminal seems to be routing differently, the most common cause is that the terminal has a default dining option or service area set that matches an item routing rule, while other terminals do not. Confirm the default dining option and the default service area assigned to the affected terminal in Toast Web, and compare them against your other terminals.
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Item routing rules only support Dining Option and Service Area as conditions, so routing by floor plan, by job role, or by individual device is not currently supported. To route differently for a specific area, create a service area that covers that area and a routing rule for that service area. To route differently for a different order channel, use a dining option that is tied to that channel.
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A new printer does not appear in the Reroute From or Reroute To drop-downs because the drop-downs list prep stations, not printers. To add the new printer as a routing destination, first create a prep station for it in Toast Web > Kitchen > Kitchen stations > Prep stations and assign the new printer to that prep station. The new prep station then appears in the routing drop-downs.
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Archived item routing rules are not visible from the standard Kitchen > Kitchen stations > Item routing page, and the page does not provide a built-in option to restore them. The rule could be recreated as a new rule, or if you wish to restore the archived rule contact Toast Customer Care.
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