Abstract: A method of controlling ordering and production of food products in a restaurant, constructing a composite queue from time slots associated with customers standing physical lines to place their orders at manual registers, and time slots associated with customers placing their orders electronically over a communications network, determining, in regard to a current order load states of at least some cooking areas in a kitchen, determining whether one of the load states varies from a pre-determined load state by a first threshold amount, and if so determining an increment to the service delay for the current order, and communicating information about the increment to the customer being served.