Glossary
Short-Order Cook Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential short-order cook terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key short-order cook vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in short-order cook training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- 86
- Out of an item.
- Cross-contamination
- Spreading germs between foods.
- FIFO
- First in, first out.
- Fire
- Start cooking.
- Food handler card
- Basic food safety certificate.
- Griddle
- Flat cooking surface.
- On the fly
- Rush order.
- Over easy
- Egg flipped, runny yolk.
- Rail
- Ticket holder.
- Sanitizer
- Chemical that kills germs.
- Sunny side up
- Egg not flipped.
- Temperature danger zone
- 41°F to 135°F.
- Ticket
- Order slip.
- Ticket time
- Time to complete an order.
- Window
- Pass to servers.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Short-Order Cook practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Short-Order Cook training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.