Setting up a computer in a restaurant kitchen

I am looking into setting up a computer and lcd monitor in a restaurant kitchen in close proximity to a very greasy area of the kitchen for the purpose of the cooks being able to see food orders placed by customers.

I want to know if there are any inexpensive products available to protect the devices from grease build up.

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

well how much is your budget???

as for the pc u want it to be small as possible because space is money (l know as l kinda work in a kitchen) so may l suggest one of the itx form factor boards

Just get a sheet of clear plastic, and cut it to size to set up a screen. Replace as needed.

Do they need access to the computer? Or just need to be able to see the monitor.

If you just need the monitor you could make some sort of plexi glass box. Or possibly even just mount it up on the wall out of the way a bit.

when I was a restaurant manager we setup a computer where the tower was hidden under a counter so it didn't get dirty, and the monitor we just put plastic wrap around it and every few months replaced the plastic wrap.

I'm not sure why I didn't think of it initially, but instead of setting up a computer or monitor in the kitchen for cooks to receive food orders, a simple ticket printer connected to a computer or network to print out food orders would be most cost effective and efficient.

I'll look into what kind of products are available. Perhaps I can find something that connects to a wireless network (which may not be most cost effective, but would be better than having an ethernet cable to deal with).

Well you can get a decent 15" LCD for like $100.

A ticket printer costs how much? And then you have to pay for ink (or ribbons whatever it ends up using), paper etc. And you still have to keep it somewhat clean, still have to hook it up to the network (a monitor requires power and a vga cable, that wouldn't be hard).

I've helped set up a couple different restaurant POS systems, including one with full computers in the kitchen and one with just printers.

I can say from experience that having a full computer there let's you set up a much nicer work-flow, as if you have good software it can help automate communication between cooks and servers. Imaging the workstation in the server's area showing each server that status of their current tickets, without having to go bug the cooks about it. It saves time at both ends. You need good software though, and that I can't help you with.

On the other hand, full pc's are expensive and much more failure-prone than a simple printer.

That may be less money initially, but you'll have to keep buying ink and paper. Plus, won't the tickets simply be thrown away immediately afterward?

slickdeals.net/?pno=12453&lno=1&afsrc=1
$418 (after tax)
pc + 20" lcd + keyboard + mouse

A printer is less than 1/2 that, and a pc on the line is going to want a touch-screen display.

So buy a touch screen and rig it as a secondary monitor to some other computer?

In the long run a monitor will cost a lot less to run. Not only that but it should last longer, a printer your going to have to worry about stuff getting all over it as well, but you still have to have some of it exposed for the tickets to come out of. Then you have all the paper and stuff that needs to be thrown away as well.

A monitor would be much more integrated into the whole system. Well worth the small extra initial costs.