If you people are talking about the Horn & Hardart Automat, you are wrong, wrong wrong. I ate there, plenty, in fact it was the first restaurant I at at by myself. The ones in New York had good food, at least to me. It was busy enough that the food got replaced very quickly, and I never had old or cold or over heated food. I still remember Macaroni and Cheese there quite fondly. They cooked the food there also, it was not trucked in.
I always went during the day time, so maybe at 1 am the Hopper painting might be accurate, but he made everything look depressing. A lot more space between tables in his painting than I remember also.
I’m not the only one who loved automats. The last time I passed the Automat on 42nd street in New York, in the early '90s, it had been rented out for a bar mitzvah.
Even if it’s automated, wouldn’t the waitstaff still be bring you your food/clearing it away/refilling drinks/bringing you any other things you need? And thus, wouldn’t a tip still be needed?
Almost all of the chain sit down restaurants I know have take out areas now. I don’t know what happens if you want to sit at a table, though.
At any decent place the waitperson is going to try to upsell you, so purely automatic ordering is going to hurt the sales of the restaurant. There are some people who ask about menu items also. Not so much in fast food. I have been to a Jacks with a kiosk which was fine except that there was only one of them, the person before me ordered for a family of 8, and I felt pressured to order quickly at something I was unfamiliar with. I suspect a couple of them would be good, though.
That won’t fly with me. I pay the extra money because I want to sit in a comfy chair and have my food brought to me by a pleasant person while enjoying a decent atmosphere.
This was brought up in the other thread, but I think it’s pretty much a non-issue.
In a few years, 95% of people will be carrying around their own touchscreens in their pockets. You won’t have to wait in line behind anybody. Just pull out your phone and order.
Chipotle’s already figured this out. All they need now is a quick and easy way for someone who’s never been there before to configure their phone to use the app and know which restaurant they’re in.
Another “no” vote, because it’s bad enough having to wait for retarded people to retardedly give their orders orally, retardedly get their money together and pay (like it’s a major fucking surprise or something), and retardedly pull the fuck away from the window with their retarded order, much less wait for them to retardedly try to figure out the (seemingly incomprehensible, to a retard) technology of placing an order with a touch screen. And I’m not even counting the retards that work there.
Hey, I even mentioned Chipotle up thread as one of the app-providing places. I’m all for both, or for smartphone only (because I’m just that selfish), but not kiosk only, which is what the linked article seems to be discussing.
When I lived in Naples, FL in 1992, Arbys had a self ordering kiosk. It was cool, you just touched the screen and when you were done you could pay by credit card and it gave you a pick up ticket.
Sheetz does the self-ordering thing. If you want food, you go up to the screen, make your selections, then go to the cashier to pay for it. They won’t give you your order until you pay for it, which solves that problem. I like Sheetz.
I ran into this at an Arby’s in Savanah GA back in '95/'96, thought it was pretty neat. I want to say that they had the “insert cash here” payment option also but that could be a mistaken memory
This is highly offensive to persons that are probably not capable of reading it. However there is a PSAout now referring to the “R” word. You really need to get out of the 1950’s, you ah… what letter of the alphabet isn’t taken? You inconsiderate neanderthal. (HA! “N” IS taken, so neanderthal is just fine.)
As for the issue, I’ve thought about this for a long time as well. I don’t think it would ever work in anything but fast food (ok, technically it would work, but as others have pointed out, it would not bring them back to the restaruant). But for a McDonalds?
I can see it working like this -> At each sit-down table, in front of each seat built into the table would be a touch screen that a customer could place his food/drink order. Be given a receipt right at the table with his order number on it, and wait for his number to be called. There are so many ways to make this customer friendly and kid-proof, it’s not even worth discussing as possible problems. If it were my restaurant, I would also have maybe 2 people taking orders at a register, to keep the old folks, tech fearing people, and other mud people out of **our **way and into their own way.
Any fast food restaurant that would eliminate my experience of being behind the family of 9, or the moe-ron that stares at a menu that hasn’t changed in 50 years going “ummmmm yeahhhhhhh” like Lumbergh from Office Space, will get my repeat business.
When I order at most fast food restaurants, I specify exactly what I want. Slowly. I omit nothing. I always say whether it is for here or to go, and I always say at the end “That will be all today,” so there is no need to ask, “small or large?”, “fries with that?”, “what to drink?”, or “anything else?”. Yet I often get asked those anyway.
So a person taking the order is something I would be glad to dispense with and things would be much smoother all around.
I think it could work, especially if they scan your card first and then offer you choices you’ve made previously. People are creatures of habit. I could see checking out with 2 or 3 taps.
