I just mentioned this to a co-worker who said she had noticed the same thing near her. Stores are installing new readers so they can accept phone payments, these readers have chip slots, and the chip slots are disabled. One store went so far as to have fancy cards printed up which hang out of the chip slot telling people to pay by phone or swipe.
There must be some monetary motivation for this. Why is there an added cost to accepting chip payments but not phone payments? Maybe the phone payment groups are all subsidizing their system?
I suspect it might be related to the longer time required for these to work – that slows down the checkout, leading to longer lines and unhappy customers.
One of the nice things is that when you get your restaurant bill, the server doesn’t take your card and disappear into the back room and then come back with tab to sign. Instead, they bring a small wireless card reader to the table, you insert the card into the machine, enter your PIN, wait till the machine indicates the transaction has been approved and you remove the card and stick it back your wallet. The server never sees or touches the card. You get a chance to add a tip and choose between a dollar amount and a percentage, which it then computes and adds to the bill. Very simple and quick.
Two if the restaurants I’ve visited recently have gone further. There’s a video terminal at the table. You can place an order, reorder items and pay with your card or phone without any interactions with a server. I believe it also serves as a game terminal.
You can do this with non-chip cards. I’ve never seen a restaurant that had these readers, but if you go to places with small-time vendors selling stuff out of temporary booths they almost all have small wireless swipe readers that attach to smartphones.