Definitely not. The waiter is the worst part of eating out, for me, and I don’t even tip so it’s not about money. I just don’t like being bothered by them. Examples -
Asking if I’m ready to order. Every couple of minutes until I order. While I am clearly still perusing the menu.
Similarly, asking what I want to drink the instant I sit down. Before I’ve seen the drinks menu.
Nagging at me to order my entire meal at once.
Asking if I’m done because the fork isn’t in my hand.
Asking if I’d like the bill now. Multiple times.
Asking if everything’s okay (especially annoying when they interrupt the table’s conversation to do so).
Inane chitchat.
So yeah, the servers are the worst part of the dining experience for me.
Come now. You don’t really think that menus and tables are “disinfected” between customers, do you?
This is tangential to the OP, but I especially enjoy sitting down at a table that is still damp from the most definitely nonsterile rag used to wipe it. Those billions of microbes prefer a nice moist tabletop upon which to multiply; we can’t let them die of thirst!
Back to the OP, those ordering tablets will be just as dirty as anything else in the joint. Don’t get me started on the salt and pepper shakers!
Since every online ordering system I encounter tries to upsell me when I place a simple order – extra accessories, warranties, options – I don’t think that will be a problem. Imagine a tablet system that bombards you with “Would you like another drink? A scrumptious desert? A nubile companion?”
I think it is cool, but I hope it doesn’t take off in the sense that every single restaurant outside of a few that are too shitty or broke do not have them. Sitting down for a nice meal at a quiet restaurant is one of the few times where I am cutoff from all technology, including myself cellphone which I leave in the car. It is a rare occassion when it is just me and her with absolutely no other distractions besides the sodas in front of us. It is really a time of relaxation that I have taken for granted until you posted this. We are a very ‘plugged in’ couple, so we spend a lot of times with our heads stuck in various electronic devices.
I think the idea is not to use the tablet to request the check, but rather to just pay the check on the tablet. Swipe your credit card, enter your PIN, enter the amount for the tip, and you’re good to go.
I went to the briefly-open uWink store in Mountain View a few years ago. They had this kind of ordering system, and it was just awful. I don’t remember much about the experience, apart from my general dislike. Wiki says the chain closed down and are trying to sell the system to other restaurants.
Yeah, I’ve been to several restaurants where the server and/or maitre d’ are using tablets, but not one where I’ve ordered my food via iPad. Anywho, the idea seems kind of neat, and I suppose I wouldn’t mind eating a restaurant where I ordered via tablet once or twice, but really, I’d not be too keen on that being the way things are. And also, for practical reasons others have brought up, I don’t think it’ll take off, which is fine by me.
Why go to a restaurant if you have such disdain for waiters?
That’s a poor way to phrase it. I don’t disdain waiters, I just dislike them constantly bothering me. I go to restaurants despite that to get nice food, obviously.
Even as former waitstaff, I think this sounds like an awesome idea. No more worrying about whether or not your order should come out right… you put it, and any necessary directions, in yourself. No more waiting for the check… as soon as your done, slide and leave. The only downside I see is further marginalizing waitstaff (even less pay and / or tips) and I hope that if this catches on, that’d be another bug that would be worked out rather than exploited. I’d love to try one soon.
To answer the question earlier, the tablets seemed to be one per table; I didn’t care to look at the larger ones to see if this was true throughout the restaurant.
Oh, one good thing about the tablet: it had options for splitting the check (probably by marking particular items in the “shopping cart” when the meal was done). Now that I found neat and convenient. And you could ask for your receipt to be printed or e-mailed (just as you do with those smartphone based credit/debit apps).
Well, I think it’s neat. But judging by the carzy amount of people I’ve seen having difficulty working the self check at the grocery store, I’m a little unsure if this will pan out or not.
You don’t tip? I wonder if that’s one of the reasons you seem to get poor service?
Hmmmmm.
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If you’d read my list of complaints, you’d see that a lot of the problems I have with wait staff are them trying too hard and it becoming annoying, rather than the things I usually hear referred to as bad service (slow/no refills, etc).
Further, I rarely go the same place twice, preferring to try new things. These are experiences I’ve had in places that have no way of knowing I don’t take responsibility for their poor wage situation.
I’m quoting Shakes only to avoid quoting myself further upthread. The fact is that this idea has already “panned out” (again with the quotes!) in some locales, and I’m not sure why it hasn’t taken the world by storm yet.
Think about this: We can tell a bank, even if said bank is thousands of miles away, how much money we want delivered within seconds to our waiting hand, yet we’re all here wondering if we can tell a kitchen, a kitchen that may be 30 feet away, what we want delivered to our table.
This service model may not satisfy every establishment obviously, but in general, what’s the problem exactly? Patrons who can’t be trained like monkeys? Is there anything easier than poking your finger at the thing you want now and have it show up a few minutes later?
When I was a kid, a local diner had phones in the booths – the old beige Ma Bell handsets with a curly cord – that you used to call in your order to the kitchen. If we kids were lucky, we got to call in the order. But before I graduated from high school they took the phones out and started sending out servers to take your order instead. Kinda took the fun out of it.
It seems like a wasted expense to me. You have to have waiters anyways, and now you have to pay for an extra device and upkeep on it.
I’d think this sort of thing would fit a lot more at fast food restaurants, where they have a separate person taking your orders that could eliminated. And I’ve often dreamed about being able to order like that.
But at a sitdown restaurant? It just seems silly. And not one like, say, Shoney’s which goes for a cheap diner look, but one like Outback that tries for an experience? It seems like the wrong direction to go.
I guess I’ll be one of the weirdos by this board’s standards, as I actually like/prefer interacting with human beings than self-checkouts. (I use them begrudgingly, but if there’s ever an open lane, I take that, as half the time there feels like there is some issue with the self-checkout machine. Besides, I’m often buying beer, which requires an ID check, and the person overseeing the lanes is often out to help some other person with their purchase, so I have to wait. God, do I despise those things.) This tablet ordering system does not appeal to me, but as long as it’s just an option and not a requirement, I’m fine with it.
And what’s wrong with being asked what you want to drink when you sit down? That’s exactly what I generally want right away, and I don’t need a menu to ask “what kind of beer do you have?” The faster the beer gets to me, the better.