Beginner's guide: your first day with KitchenOS

This guide takes about fifteen minutes and covers everything you need for your first day: installing, setting up, and entering your kitchen's basics.

What KitchenOS does

KitchenOS is a kitchen-management program for independent restaurants. It keeps your recipes, ingredient stock, suppliers, prep lists, and costs in one place — and it works offline, on your own computer. Your data stays on your machine unless you choose to sync it with the Premium service.

Step 1 — Install and open

Download the installer for your computer — .deb for Linux or .exe for Windows — from the download section. Install it like any other program and open it. On first launch, create a local user with a password of your choice. No online account is needed.

Step 2 — Add your first recipe

Open the Recipes section and press New recipe. Give it a name (for example "House Tomato Sauce"), add its ingredients and steps, and save. You can speak the steps with the microphone button — dictation runs on your device, not in the cloud.

Step 3 — Record your stock

In Inventory, add the ingredients you keep in stock. The app tracks batches (useful for dated deliveries) and locations (a walk-in, a dry store). When you use an ingredient in a recipe, KitchenOS can deduct it automatically — that's the "food cost" feature, and it pays for itself fast.

Step 4 — Add your suppliers

In Procurement, add the suppliers you order from and their usual items. Purchase orders then take seconds instead of a phone call and a notepad.

Step 5 — Run your day

Use Prep lists for the morning mise-en-place, Cleaning schedules for closing duties, and Temperature logs for fridge checks. Every screen works the same way: open, fill in, save.

Premium, when you're ready

When you want your data on more than one device or kitchen, the Premium web app ($50/month per kitchen) adds sync, supplier ordering, and cross-kitchen reports. You can start Premium any time from the Billing page — your free data comes with you.

Common questions

Is my data safe if the internet goes down?

Yes — the app works fully offline. Your data is in a local file on your machine.

Can I back it up?

Yes — copy the app's data folder, or use the export option, to keep a backup.

Do my staff need accounts?

Not for the free desktop app — a local user is created on first run, and you can add staff users from the app.

Where to get help

Write to rhls.softdev@gmail.com — we answer every message, usually within a day.