All the fast food joints near me are installing digital kiosks that let you order and pay for your food without any human interaction. (No doubt as a reaction to the skyrocketing minimum wage.) I love them! I can take all the time I want, and I don’t have to interact with any mush-mouthed slacker millennials, other than picking up my food when they call my name.
It also solves another growing problem that has been irking me for several years now: digital menus that are constantly changing! Just when I find an item I think I might want to order, it disappears! And I have to wait twenty or thirty seconds for it to come back! Bastards! Now, at the ordering kiosk, I control the content!
Am I the only misanthrope who loves these new kiosks? Or does the rest of the world have the good taste to agree with me?
(I debated if this was food oriented enough to go in Cafe Society, but decided that the food was incidental and it was really about the technology and society thing.)
This.
When we drove across the country, we’d often stop into a McDonalds for coffee in the afternoon. The ones with kiosks had options quite invisible in the traditional signage.
Most of these were in places where I doubt the minimum wage was driving it. But if it was, kudos to it for making businesses more efficient and making our experience better.
I like them, but the last few times I encountered one, there was an employee standing by to input my order for me. Now, I’m at the “get off my lawn” stage of life, but have worked as a computer professional since the 90’s. Prolly could figure it our myself.
Never used one, even when the option was available. Do they save me money over those that order at the counter? If not, I pay for service and service is what I expect. Same thing for self checkout. Give me a discount if I have to do the work.
This year, I’ve gone vegan. Taco Bell is by-far the best quick, eating-out go-to for me. Now that they’ve installed kiosks, I can customize anything on their menu with add-ons that are all meat- and dairy-free. My current favorite is a chalupa, fresco style with rice, fritos, guac and refried beans. If I tried ordering that with a person at the counter, it would end up a hot mess of extra sour cream and chicken on a piece of wonder bread. It’s just nice to look at my options on a screen, touch the ones I want, and know that they’re being sent to the kitchen crew correctly.
I’m not typically a fan of automation, but this is a thing of beauty, and it doesn’t appear to be hacking away at jobs (yet). There’s still a person at the counter for cash orders, and there are still the same number of people prepping the food and working the drive-thru.
I love the concept but the execution comes up short.
I have had the machine accept payment, then not give me a receipt.
Several times I went through the motions of placing my order only to have it tell me it isn’t currently accepting electronic payments, thereby making me go to a cashier anyway.
They still haven’t figured out how to smoothly get the soda cups into the hands of guests who have already paid. Either they leave them out (probably incurring loss) or you have to flag someone down to ask them to give you a cup.
The people behind the counter seem more distracted.
The app stinks. It looks like a crappy iPhone app put on a sideways big screen TV. Everything takes too many taps, and the darned thing just isn’t that responsive.
If they are out of stuff, you don’t find out until after you already paid, and the manager argues that they can’t put a credit back on your card.
But when everything is working right, I love them. I can zip in and get my business done while everyone else is still standing in line. Kind of like self checkout at the supermarket.
Also, weird side-note: When ordering by kiosk at Taco Bell a couple weeks ago, I went to the “Burrito” screen, and there were only two options-- and neither of them was a bean burrito. So I cancelled my kiosk order and went to the counter and asked the lady what was up with their lack of burrito options on the kiosk. She said there was a tortilla shortage, and as a result, they were limiting the number of things with soft tortillas at the kiosk. Wait, I said, A TORTILLA SHORTAGE? How does that even happen?! Thanks Trump.
While I will use the kiosk I favor using a restaurant’s app that lets me save a favorite item or even entire meal complete with customization. When Taco Bell had issues this month with a lack of the proper size tortillas for burritos the app showed those items as unavailable on a location-by-location basis. I give props to the designers of that app as it just plain works well.
The kiosk is ok for customization, but more cumbersome. At McDonald’s I want my burger with no pickles. My go to meal at McDonalds is a two cheeseburger combo with fries and drink. I have to customize each burger individually. I’d prefer an option to apply the chosen customization across all sandwiches in the same combo.
I tend to think of self-order kiosks less as “taking jobs away from workers” than as “freeing up workers to do other tasks”. If a machine can take the customer’s order, the employee who’d be standing idle at the counter while their customer stares at the menu can be using that time to bag products, make specialty drinks, et cetera.
I was supremely happy when we got one at the restaurant where I used to work, and I wish we’d had more than just one.
I personally prefer the smartphone app. I like being able to order before I get there so it’s ready when I get there. I also like that there will be no line for ordering, as sometimes the in store one has a line. The app itself once learned seems to work better and more consistant - though this varies per site.
Smartphone apps, kiosks, self-checkouts, are all good. I use them whenever they’re present. Last week I placed a cannabis order via the dispensary app and when I arrived I was able to zip right past the line of people waiting. I was taken directly to the register to pay!
I’ve only ever used the ones at Panera Bread. It took a couple of times to learn the process, but now it goes smoothly. It’s easy to customize my sandwich/soup order, and it goes faster than talking to the cashier.
And yes on the mealy-mouthed cashier comment, too. It’s hard to hear them race or mumble through their spiel, especially in a noisy lunch rush environment.
I like that I can stare at it for a while and figure out what I want. (No, I don’t buy fast food often enough to know in advance.) I also like that you can see the options to customize your food.
This. I’d been wanting to try one of the “international” sandwiches and when I was traveling last week, stopped on the road to take advantage. None were on the menu boards. Huh. Well maybe being on an interstate exit they have a limited menu to make things faster.
Then while on my sojourn I stopped at a ‘real’ MickeyD’s and they had none displayed, either. Suspicious, I used a kiosk for the first time and there they were.
I’ve recently heard stories of kiosks that play ads too often, but I’ve never actually seen one. Like someone said it would interrupt their ordering with video ads, which seems insane.
I generally prefer the apps, or even the website if I order from home. I’ve never seen a single ad on them once you get started.
The main exception is the Subway site, which is set up to take your money before the order is actually routed to the store. This can be a problem out here, where our DSL can go out in stormy weather. They say the money will be refunded if the order doesn’t go through, but that seems to be hit or miss.
That said, using a kiosk at Subway seems kinda silly, as they’re making the food right in front of you anyways, with you ordering as you go. The closest two stores do not have them, at least.