45-second tickets for charcoal-grilled yakitori

Charcoal, skewers and a counter that never stops

Yakitori Lab brings Tokyo's charcoal-grill counter culture to BKK1: a compact room in Phnom Penh where more than 90 skewer items — chicken, pork, seafood and vegetables — are grilled to order over real charcoal. The format is intimate and fast, which makes the kitchen's timing the whole business.

The challenge: pacing a charcoal grill

Charcoal does not hurry. Each skewer needs its own turn over the coals, tables order in bursts, and a packed Friday night can stack dozens of tickets against a single grill line. When orders travelled by word of mouth from counter to grill, the sequence always broke: items fired out of order, tables waited unevenly, and the team had no honest numbers on what had sold out and when.

How T.O keeps the flow moving

Orders taken at the counter now run on T.O Restaurant POS and land instantly on T.O Kitchen Display at the grill, numbered and sequenced, so the chef works the coals in ticket order, not in shout order. Salt-only or sauce glazes are one-tap modifiers that reach the pass exactly as the guest said them. Sold-out items are flagged the moment the last skewer leaves the grill, so servers stop promising dishes the kitchen can no longer serve.

The results on the floor

Counter-to-kitchen ticket time averages about 45 seconds, tables turn faster on full nights, and the end-of-day report shows exactly which of the 90+ skewer items earned their place on tomorrow's order sheet. The grill sets the pace — the paperwork now follows it.

What comes next

Yakitori Lab is refining its menu around what the numbers prove, and testing weekend specials that load straight onto the same screens — no reprinting, no retraining, no drift from the coals to the counter.