E la Carte (YC S10) to Deploy Restaurant Tablets in 113 Airports Nationwide | Hacker News Reader

E la Carte (YC S10) to Deploy Restaurant Tablets in 113 Airports Nationwide

pandodaily.com

41 pointsyoniriemer17 comments

Tried out a similar service at NYC's La Guardia while waiting for a flight. Not a fan -- a few gripes:

(1) Cleanliness is a concern. If I'm going to be eating a burger or something else with my paws, you'd better believe I'm going to want to clean my hands after touching one of these bad boys.

(2) Novelty for novelty's sake. I have no problem interacting with another human being when I'd like to order a glass of wine or dinner during a trip--in fact, it's often a welcome break from a long day of traveling alone.

(3) Poor functionality. My friend and I were prompted to enter our flight information under the auspices that we'd be "alerted" with updates about our flight--boarding, delays, etc. No such luck... We arrived at our gate and were scolded for being the last ones on the flight. If only they'd known we were distracted by the future of airport dining!

There's no real pain point here. I suggest that E la Carte pivot toward creating more edible food in airports... That's a disruptive mission that I can get behind.

Well, keep in mind that this is a pretty innovative idea, so it takes time to figure everything out... I think what they do is actually pretty awesome. Especially when it comes to paying the bill - it save a huge amount of time.

You can circumvent this problem by asking for the bill in the moment your food arrives.

This is the my tried-and-true method for my meals in a rush. And I imagine that restaurant staff in airports are particularly well accustomed to customers wanting to move through their dining process at an accelerated clip.

Given all the inhumanity now part of modern air travel, it's nice for me to have a little personal interaction to look forward to in between security screenings and boarding processes.

> The Presto is a rugged 7-inch tablet with a built-in credit card reader

I'm eagerly awaiting the first malware reports.

Looks like you had your haterade this morning.

I don't mean to badmouth their product, it looks interesting and I'd love to be able to pay-and-go as soon as I want instead of waiting for a waiter to come around.

But at the same time, these things will be laying around for customers to play with them, unattended, for long periods of time. The security implications are important.

How do you think the malware will be installed?

I doubt you can access a web site or use USB port on it.

I don't know, I haven't seen one in the wild yet, hence the lack of any technical speculation.

You otherwise would be handing your credit card to a stranger who can quite easily skim it.

Sure, but that doesn't scale as easily as being able to push malware on every device out there. They receive software updates somehow, right?

Well if you're talking about that big of a hack, you'd be better off hacking Aloha, MICROS, or any of the other very large hospitality POS systems.

Slightly different business model:

Airport food is mediocre and overpriced. So you build a website so people can order off-airport food and have it delivered. You team with a nearby restaurant, run a van back and forth, send delivery people with bags of food to designated waiting areas.

The airport authorities won't like it though.

Is this really feasible? I don't fly a lot, but the last time I was at an airport, the only areas that invited you to sit down/have a meal were on the far side of the TSA checkpoint, etc.

Random terrible brainstorm idea: purchase the cheapest available airplane ticket for your delivery person for late in the evening. They can now pass through airport security.

Obvious problem #1 is that ordering drinks is now impossible, but what does a delivery service offer that in-airport restaurants don't?

Another obvious problem is that the TSA agent may arbitrarily claim that you can't bring in X pounds of food, all pre-packaged, into the airport - especially since it rapidly becomes obvious that you're handing it to a total stranger.

Depends on the airport. The new terminals at IAH have some pretty good restaurants. I'm partial to the Terminal C-South wine bar.

I used one of these at a restaurant in Palo Alto and the experience was bothersome at best.

  Sharing it at a table is impossible.
  The UI is laggy and annoying (jumping shopping cart).
  There's no quick way to scan the menu.
  It does not display the total cost before placing an order.

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