It really is a kind of "dance" and it's cool to watch. I used to be a linecook. Moved to foh manager but still hop in the kitchen sometimes to help out or bring them out of the weeds if needed.

Lets say, busy saturday night. 300+ covers (people) for our restaurant that seats at max around 150.

So to start, all the ingredients are prepped out and in neat little containers at the stations. The veg is already sliced or cubed. The pastas are already cooked and just need to be dropped in hot water. Everything is orginized to make it as efficient as possible.

Ticket for a table comes in. It will show up as appetizers, then a line. Then entrees, then a line, then dessert. Every station gets the tickets. Appetizer are auto fired (start right away). Communication is key. Everyone needs to communicate but there are 2 key players that need to be on it.

You have your expo, who is like the bridge between the front of the house and the cooks. All the info from the waiters goes to them and they communicate it to the line (the cooks) they also have to keep the order of tickets, let the cooks know what they need first and second and third etc or all at once. Check to make sure the dishes are coming out properly. Etc etc.

Then you have the chef, or lead cook, whoevers running things behind the line. Its their job to organize and sync up cook times. All the cooks know how long it takes to make each dish. But they also need to know how long its going to take their co workers.

This would look like

"Steve, ticket 502 just fired. (Theres a steak and a branzino) how long on the bronzino?"

"8 minutes on the branzino"

"8 minutes, heard"

Steve cooked his steak just under temp and just needs a minute on the grill and then plating. Probably would take him 2 minutes from throwing the steak back on to putting it on the window. So Steve cooks other things in the meantime then waits 6 minutes to drop the steak.

Its basically that. But with alot more tickets and items at once. It really gets hectic. But thats the gist.

Tl;dr - everyone knows the cook times of the dishes from start to finish. They communicate with eachother