Posted on 04/21/2016 6:16:47 AM PDT by xzins
I think it was an Applebees. They had a tablet at the table that you could punch your order in and pay with. It was sitting at the table - it had a game or something on the screen. After the waiter had taken our order I asked him what the tablet thing was.
“Oh - you can order with that - but nobody does.”
IIRC they wanted a $1 to play some game on it while you wait for your food. I wonder how many kids with games on their phones would play it?
My local Chili’s restaurants have those on the tables — called Ziosk. They only allow reordering of drinks you’ve ordered before plus appetizers, I think, but it does allow credit card swipe payment. A phone app would mean not having to touch their tablet, which may be germ covered, and could have a full menu.
Yep. It’s just a matter of time. And if restaurants are designed a little differently, say with some kind of discreet conveyor system, you won’t even need a waiter to deliver the food to the table, and only minimal bus staff to do the cleanup.
These idiots better watch that they don’t price themselves right out of existence.
If that were to happen the elites would still go out and eat in a human staffed restaurant. They aren't going to do robo food service.
No. I would rather they learn to fix those machines. Get an education, get rid of the face metal and tattoos and join the rest of normal society.
Put a protective, disposable film over the screens, kind of like the film that covers a new cell phone screen. Change them out once an hour, or as needed.
I didn’t know conservatives were such germ-phobes.
Restaurants don’t make their money on “the elites.”. They make it on Joe Average and family, and he is cost-conscious enough to forgo the dubious pleasure of some intrusive waiter if it means he can feed the family for half the cost.
Where do you get that figure? Have you ever run a restaurant? Do you know what labor costs a restaurant? It averages 20%-30% of all costs. Increasing labor by 40% doesn't increase it's overall cost that much. Get real.
I didn’t say they COULD get the meal at half the cost. I said I suspected they would forgo the wait staff IF ... I repeat ... IF ... they could get it that cheaply.
My point, that you so obtusely chose to sidestep, is that the average diner is more concerned with cost than with interacting with waiters.
********************
It certainly is at a fast-food restaurant.
Only the slackers like the $15.00 an hour automated is good.
It could help to avoid this situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-e1Hxy_kQU
Fast Food Drive Thru - by Stevens and Grdnic
One less to do a "crappy" job of hand washing.
Post 118.
I love it too. The only thing that would make it better is full automation. That way nobody to blame but ourselves for screw ups.
Frankly I’m amazed how slowly quick service has adopted this tech... its been in place in larger convenience stores for years now... Sheetz, Wawa, etc...
Yes, MRSA darned near killed me. Even the wife and docs had the end-of-life discussion.
It is a serious illness and forever compromised my immune system.
Too many people have no idea about the illness and what it can do to your ability to fight the nasty ‘bugs’ and such that accumulate on publicly shared items.
Of course sometimes that can work to your advantage. ;)
Steve Martin - The Absent-Minded Waiter
LOL
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