Of course I spent the extra money to get a few 2-color thermal printers. Now I can no longer get 2-color thermal paper for them, Isn’t that friggin special…
It looks like I am transitioning to inkjet printers for prep & customer receipt tickets. I am trying out the Samsung SRP-500 receipt printer (Ethernet connected)
I have found that the extra cost of 2-color pays for itself rapidly by me not seeing as many mistakes made in the kitchen.
In red print I have : Ticket Number, Order date, promise time & promise dates, add-ons, comments, etc. By making them stand out in bright red, and bolder fonts, mistakes have gone to nearly zero. instead of “I didn’t see that” when it says carryout , Inside, or Catering.
On the customer receipt, I have the order number in bright red, and no more “I Don’t know what my number is” happening as much.
I also added our web addy, & facebook info in bright red and saw traffic & likes increase too.
I tried impact 2-color, but ribbons dull so fast they became difficult to read after a very short time, and long loud print times too.
Anyone else using 2-color?
I use industry standard Epson U220s for kitchen and TM88s for receipt. We get a ton of tickets out of a ribbon and they are cheap enough to replace them when they fade. Never really had issues.
Maybe instead of relying on black and red just try adjusting (if you can with your POS) the actual ticket layout so everything is more easily readable? Or get glasses for your staff 
I got the inkjet Samsung, and I was sent a serial connected printer instead of the ethernet interface that I wanted.
The print quality is outstanding, but slower than molasses compared to my 2-color thermal printers.
I used to keep a set of cheaters on the line when we used impact printers, and I have 20/20 vision!
Too Loud, too slow, and the bolder I set the font, the quick the ribbon wears out, so I was shooting myself in the foot with them.
All I use the impacts for now is CC receipts, with carbonless 2-ply.
I tried doing monotone tickets, the things missed on tickets, and messed up was not worth the savings in paper and ink.
My 2-color thermal units really spoiled me, it got comments and “Adds” to stand out and bark at us.
My most annoying screw up with monotone was missing “Dine-In” or “Carryout” and promise times, and setting a carryout order for inside really screws up the flow on the line badly when it needs to be fixed,
Using a printer-resident font, especially with a serial printer, will make it print very fast.
I tried that, no change. The printer reacts quickly to each job sent to it,
it is just my being used to thermal printers spitting tickets out at the speed of sound, compared to an ink-jet carriage traversing back and forth making it seem liking it is moving at the speed of smell instead.
I have tickets printed at the terminals so the person taking the order has another chance to make sure items are in fact entered correctly and showing up on the prep tickets, it gives them another chance to correct any mistakes. And, customers love the zipline.