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Comment by max_im | Hacker News Reader

I work in midtown NYC near a Chick-fil-a location. Used to be a line down the block, went with a friend yesterday thinking we caught the line at a short time but turns out they were using smiley employees with ipads coordinating orders and that they were serving arguably more people than before. Very impressed with how seamlessly they've integrated tech in their brick and mortars in contrast with the countless "cashless" restaurants that just add cruft, inefficiency, and customer resentment.

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I have a friend who used to be a shift manager at Chick-fil-A. I can't remember exactly what he called that process... It was like meet and greet or walk and talk, but it's surprisingly efficient for the drive thru. He said it cuts down the average wait time for customers around 15% at his location.

I don't know what it would be like at NYC since it's not a drive thru.

It's crazy efficient. When you walk in someone with a tablet takes your order, and by the time you get to the cash register your food is ready. Works so well because the employees are able to catch customers at the end of the line.

Here's "Line busting" the drive thru 68+ cars deep. It's astonishing the WiFi goes out that far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIQWyYQ0EYg

FWIW, also an edge approach, with Prometheus etc.

Slightly off-topic, but what's the reason that Americans all tend to line-up at the drive thru? I was in LA, there was a huge line at the drive thru, so we parked, went inside and got our orders really quickly.

The comfort of still being in your own space. For example, listening to your own music, no excursion for your kids to belabor, precisely don't have to park and get out.

Yeah, I think I would rather wait 10 minutes in my car than 5 minutes in line. I'm sure other people may feel differently. And something about the drive-thru still "feels" faster, even if it's not. I think it's just the idea that you get to pull out and be on your way after you've gotten your food.

At McDonald's at least the drive through is prioritised over walk ins. That said if the queue is still long it might be quicker to walk in. But inside if orders come at the same time they do the drive through order first.

I guess it also stops people from leaving. Since once you made an order you're more invested to stay and pay for it. But if you were in a long line you might get fed up and go somewhere else (or get a phonecall to do something etc).

True, but I've generally found the line moves fast even when the line is out the door. The main bottleneck in most fast food places are putting your order in at the cash register so if that's removed it speeds things up a lot.

They figured this out at McDonalds in Moscow. Kudos to CFA, queue management at QSR are otherwise seriously lacking.

It's called "Face to face"

Chick-fil-a does not run the iPad software but it does integrate with their systems. The same company who sells their POS software runs the iPad software and I believe the Chick-fil-a One app.

They've been doing this for several years at least (employees taking orders of people in line). I think since before the iPad was released.

For sure. Meant it more as a response to contents of the article that they've managed to break down their business processes into a subset of (dare I say) microservices that have allowed them to pinpoint weaknesses in efficiency and improve upon them - ie. the waffle fries example mentioned.

On the other hand when reading the article I kept thinking of the poor sod who has to cook a new batch of waffle fries because “The Edge” told him to.

Why do you consider the cook "a poor sod"? Because he/she is working a job and making a living? I imagine you didn't mean much by it but understand that just because everyone isn't employed in what many consider desirable professions doesn't mean their work is not important or that they don't take pride in what they do.

Not meant to be a rant, just wanted to make the point.

I actually interpreted the comment a bit differently. I read it that the employee who used to have some autonomy on when to make adjustments is now doing it because the computer, which they (perhaps) have no control or insight into, is telling them to. I'm sure there's more nuance and people who would view that instruction differently. But to the comments direction, I'd assumed it was alluding to a dystopia of sorts where we do more and more things "because Computer™ said so".

Yes, that’s exactly it.

In hindsight, “sod” wasn’t the right term to use (that’s what you get for posting at midnight) but the point I wanted to make was the removal of meaning, autonomy and human interaction when not only are you doing a repetitive job, but how you’re doing it is dictated by a machine. The movie Brazil came to mind, although I’m sure there are better parallels to make.

You'd be amazed how much satisfaction you can get out of learning to keep a steady stream of perfectly-crispy fries going. It's quite fun on a busy day - hectic, but strategic, and rewarding when you can stay on top of things _and_ produce minimal waste in the process.

In some sense, the automation of demand prediction takes some of the fun out of gaining that intuition yourself. On the other hand, it is nice not to be the queue blocker with orders piling up behind you because you weren't prepared for a sudden burst of traffic...

Okay, looking at it as the computer helping you stay in the flow is certainly a different perspective.

It might be looking back on my time in fast food with a slightly more romanticized lens than most would probably give it. :)

There’s a short-order chef game my kids play on the iPad, you can practically see the endorphins pumping when they manage to serve all the customers in time.

The human brain is definitely wired for this sort of thing.

Me too probably. I loved my fast food job in high school. That said, I'm glad I'm not still doing it.

From my days in those kinds of jobs I'd welcome it. I won't have to go count how much we have on hand. I just drop whats listed and move on to something else. My problems would usually come from "a system" that were missing large steps or prerequisites. "Start frying 1 batch of fries and other in 4 minutes" except the fries weren't cut the night before so both fries wont go in for another 20m. Or the food in the fridge is no longer fresh enough to serve, so we're down some food for the dinner rush.

Ultimately “the edge” will just do it for him :-P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pboejsWb484

These got installed, but adoption was low due to cost, they were tied into the POS.

What!? I LOVED my fast food job as a high schooler. It was fast-paced, and good work. I likely would have enjoyed getting instructions from a computer, lol. I certainly wasn't some poor sod.

> They've been doing this for several years at least (employees taking orders of people in line). I think since before the iPad was released.

Wendy's used to do this around 91/92 (clipboard, not iPad)

I think they ditched it with the smoking sections.

Quite a few stores do that when they get busy.

I live near the busiest chic fil a in the country. If they didn't have the iPads it would be impossible to serve all the people.

That is strange to have a cashless restaurant. If anything cash is preferred. I know of a few places that only accept cash. And in the last week my debit card chip has been malfunctioning so I have to pay cash for everything until my new one arrives. I even attempted to use nfc today. That is a shit technology and was a waste of time. The POS terminals simply don't work.

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