Eli5 how on earth to restaurants get the orders out for each table at the same time despite the dishes taking different amounts of time to cook?

Question

Like, so many different tables, they can’t do each table at a time, so confusing

In: 327

Answer 1

They stagger starting on food: if one part takes 8 minutes to cook and another 5 minutes, they’ll start the one that takes longer 3 minutes before the next. Extend that to all the parts of all the meals. Sounds hard, eh? There are also heat lamps to smooth the timing out too