E La Carte Raises $35M to Expand Pay-at-the-Table Technology
blogs.wsj.com
blogs.wsj.com
Maybe I'm going to the wrong restaurants.
My point is more that the interaction with the waiter is actually an integral part of how the sit-down restaurant experience differentiates itself from fast food, as well as an opportunity to persuade guests to take extra side dishes and chef's specials from the point of view of the restauranteur.
(Yes, it's probably partly a cultural thing; I don't even want to order a main course until I've got snacks on the table and a drink in my hand unless it's counter service. But notionally more efficient alternatives to traditional table service have been around for a long time everywhere without restaurant owners feeling the need to replace it en masse)
I take your point, always important to see if there is a cultural need before just slapping "tech" and "efficiency" on our experiences.
That said, fast casual has been digging into the midrange sit down market for the last decade. Fast casual limits waitstaff interactions and eliminates the need to pay before leaving. That could be read to suggest that the market saw the need, even if established owners didn't.
There's probably not a similar need when you're mostly paying for experience. I don't see tablets replacing staff at most places with a sommelier. The mid to low end of the market though has generally demonstrated demand for ways to enable faster and more fluid exchanges.
I am somewhat of a food snob, but I don't like to cook. Fast food and cheap (aka applebee's) food is off the table, but the traditional wait time at mid to high end restaurants is simply wasted time. Honestly, I find ethnic restaurants often have a great balance as it's often vary good food without the overhead of an 'up scale' restaurant. But, american restaurants rarely mix casual dining with great food.
The reason why we don't see kiosks for ordering food, IMO, is path dependence. Entering data into a form is work, and people don't want to do it themselves.
Have you used the kiosks at Carls JR? I greatly prefer these to talking to a real cashier. I can customize my burger in all kinds of ways that a human cashier is going to screw up and forget about, and I don't have to feel rude about wasting their time.
Also it'll upsell you on bacon and chocolate cake, which are both pretty awesome add-ons.
This is even better - as you don't have to stand and wait at the bar for your order to be taken.
Plus, the one I used had the ability to arbitrarily split the check without having to have the waiter remember the random dollar amounts to put on 4 different cards.
The thing is, with real POS integration (which most companies don't have) -- you could do all of this from the customer's phone rather than a stupid piece of hardware at the table.
I suspect the hurdle here is social not technical, similar to Google Glass.
Or being able to call up the bill on your own device, and pay it on the spot?
It could look like a regular bill holders but have NFC embedded. You could still leave cash if you want. Or you can tap your Apple Watch use Apple Pay (or similar technology).
A better solution I saw in Japan was a button that has the waiters come in a couple of minutes.
Why American restaurants don't implement something like this reminds me why some places in San Jose are cash only.
Liked being able to pay when we were ready to go.
In this day whenever everyone sits and plays on their phone and takes photos of the food, this will turn the tables over a tad faster. Something the restaurants should like.