Ordering food from a tablet at your table is so convienent!

[JEDI]

went to an all you can eat sushi place in nyc.
every table has a tablet for which you order your foods.

loved it!
no need to wait for a waitress to come over.

it also saves the owner $ since he has fewer servers on the floor.

I suspect with the new minimum wage increase laws that includes servers in some cities/states that more and more restaurants will switch to kiosk/tablets.

 

[cbrunny]

I've done this with good results. I've done this with terrible results.

 

[futurefields]

Another job destroyed by automation

 

[Fardringle]

Sometimes the interaction with the waiter/waitress is one of the best parts of the meal, so I'd dislike it in those situations. But for the most part I like the idea simply because you don't have to wait for someone to take your order, and you don't have to worry about them taking your order incorrectly, which tends to happen more often in the lower cost places that are most likely to use a system like this to cut down on labor costs.

 

[Pulsar]

Absolutely, positively hate it. The last thing I want at my dinner table is an electronic device. I'm there to eat and converse. Especially if you have kids - these things are intentional traps waiting to happen. We went to olive garden with the kids about a month ago and they had one of these on a stand at the table. One of my grubs grabbed it and was trying to look through it and ended up ordering things without meaning to. I had a very long disucssion with the manager about it.

If they're going to put an electronic device on my table that #1 advertises shit, #2 has no volume control #3, offers to allow kids to play games that COST MONEY to my bill without a reasonable attempt at age verification... then fuck them.

I now move these to other tables, both at applebee's and olive garden. I pulled the double sided tape off one to remove it.

Oh... and when did we start censoring 'bad words' in off topic?

 

[highland145]

Oh... and when did we start censoring 'bad words' in off topic

Your Mother called....

:raz:

 

[Ns1]

For sure with rising wages this is the way of the future.

 

[lxskllr]

I've never seen one, but I've been avoiding chain bar/restaurants the last bunch of years. They all have the same shit on the menu that tastes the same everywhere, with different shit bolted to the walls. It gets old quick.

 

[Imp]

Could have done this a century ago with a pen and paper. Simple form, write down table number and item numbers from menu then drop it off at the cashier. But I guess that was too poverty?

 

[OutHouse]

Hate them and consider them a nuisance. Only Chili's has them in my area and god forbid that kids be bored for a hour anymore. all i have seen are kids playing the games on the damn things.

 

[RockinZ28]

I like them. Think it justifies quite a tip drop when all you have to do is deliver my food to the table. Heck some fast food restaurants do that.

Just need a "refill button" so the airhead can stop texting/FB in the back when my glass is empty for 10 minutes.

 

[Xstatic1]

This concept gets a thumbs-up from me! The only place I know of that has a tablet at each table is Olive Garden. The 3 places (Be Our Guest Restaurant at Magic Kingdom/Walt Disney World, Deli department at WaWa and Buc-ee's) that have kiosks to place your order worked well too.

 

[Anubis]

it works in airports, thats about it in my experience

 

[Red Squirrel]

I remember when I was a kid there was an A&W down town where they had phones at every table, like, a land line phone, you pick it up, someone would answer and take your order. I always thought it was the coolest thing as a kid. I've never actually seen it anywhere else after that.

 

[CA19100]

I've seen it at a couple of places, and I don't like it at all. Last time was at a Red Robin, and the interaction particularly pissed me off. The waiter came by to check on us, and asked if everything was OK with our meal. I said yes, but we'd love a couple more beers. He asked us to order them on the tablet, because his "metrics" for percentage of tablet orders were the worst in the restaurant, and he was in trouble with his manager for it. I was just incredulous (with his boss, not him).

I'm enjoying my meal and just want to ask my excellent waiter for another drink. My hands are covered in sticky food, and you want me to put down my messy sandwich and use a germ-covered tablet to order my beer? No. Just no.

The only thing I liked about the system was that I could pay my bill with it whenever I wanted, without waiting for the check or for my card to be run. Beyond that, I hated it, and actually turned the thing against the wall because all the animations on the screen were so distracting.

I ripped them a new one for it on the survey they gave me, for whatever good that will do.

 

[Red Squirrel]

They need to add voice activation to these things. now people are going to be talking to computers at the dinner table instead of their family. What a time to be alive!

 

[Newbian]

Easiest solution would be for the restaurant to offer a discount if you use the tablet only or force a waiter to do the job.

Order at table devices like this have been around for a long time but it's simply a tradition some people prefer where they want to talk to another person when they order their food.

 

[sdifox]

So no tip for tablet?

 

[highland145]

So no tip for tablet?

You could rub your tip on it. They clean them after every diner....right?

Right?

 

[Kaido]

Sometimes the interaction with the waiter/waitress is one of the best parts of the meal

I would love to know where you're going out to eat because that has been the case in like 1% of the restaurants I've been to, lol.

 

[highland145]

I would love to know where you're going out to eat because that has been the case in like 1% of the restaurants I've been to, lol.

Hooters.

 

[Kaido]

went to an all you can eat sushi place in nyc.
every table has a tablet for which you order your foods.

loved it!
no need to wait for a waitress to come over.

it also saves the owner $ since he has fewer servers on the floor.

I suspect with the new minimum wage increase laws that includes servers in some cities/states that more and more restaurants will switch to kiosk/tablets.

Thoughts on it so far:

1. They've begun rolling it out at a lot of local chains like Olive Garden.
2. Hate the games thing, you have to hide it from your kids so you don't get charged.
3. I actually like the in-house advertising, I ordered a dessert I saw on the screensaver last time I went. I'm very visually-oriented, so if you want to sell me on something, show me a bright, colorful picture of it.
4. I've had good (attentive) servers the last couple times I've been out, but I can see it being really useful if the in-house service stinks. Most places have mediocre server service, so if you could just page the kitchen for what you want, that's actually pretty awesome.
5. Have not really used them to order, mostly out of habit. Everyone is so used to talking to someone to place their order that it's kind of hard shifting gears. A few dates ago I had a waiter that came around like once every 25 minutes & totally neglected to use the touchscreen to place additional orders because it just wasn't second-nature. My guess is that the kids today will grow up with this stuff & it will be normal.
6. I think it will be useful for getting really accurate orders. You can specify a medium-well burger with no onions and verify that your order is actually being sent to the kitchen properly. Communication can really screw things up sometimes, so that'd take one additional headache out of the loop.

Personally, I go out to eat for either food (don't want to cook, want hot food now, want to try something new) or social reasons, or both. Interacting with the server is usually one of the least pleasant parts of it because you usually either get someone who never shows up when you want them to, or is there every 2 minutes & won't go away. Very rare to get someone who either has good timing or is fun to interact with. I usually just kinda want to focus on my food & my friends when I'm out. Maybe I'll remember to use the table tablet next time I'm out...

 

[ponyo]

No tip for the server if I have to order from a tablet.

 

[LevelSea]

Interacting with the server is usually one of the least pleasant parts of it because you usually either get someone who never shows up when you want them to, or is there every 2 minutes & won't go away.

A lot of restaurants in Japan have a button on the table you can press to get a server. No need to wait or get pestered.

 

[OutHouse]

He asked us to order them on the tablet, because his "metrics" for percentage of tablet orders were the worst in the restaurant, and he was in trouble with his manager for it. I was just incredulous (with his boss, not him).

see that shit pisses me off. some corporate asshat is trying to justify their expensive ass MBA degree and his pilot program. the customers dont like it, so the poor staff get in trouble because some metric isnt where the corporate asshat wants it to be.