I’ve seen them and like them fine. I’m not excited to see one, but I’ll use it if it’s there. I don’t notice its streaming ads for desserts or trivia games after a moment or two but I could always turn it around if it’s obnoxious.
As others said, being able to pay the moment I’m ready is great and it’ll let you pick items to split into separate bills. Tipping is a sliding scale thing where you can pick a percentage or dollar amount and be told how it translates to the other side. All in all, I’m fine with them and prefer them for the end of meal experience.
Those tabletop terminals are set up to spy on diners, which is why I turn their screens to the wall and cover them with my coat, to muffle conversation.
I really like them for ordering, although I can see that being a highly personal preference. I find that’s it’s easier to customize the items and I’m far more likely to get exactly what I ordered. And for some reason, I’m less likely to forget a special request than I am while ordering from a waitperson.
I have some friends that hate them, because they are the people that have 57 questions about the preparation of each item and the origin of each ingredient, all peppered with helpful suggestions about what they wish the restaurant menu contained ( I wish you had the pasta with sauce made with ground turkey) and salted with frustration that they can’t get the exact dish they are inventing in their head (you can’t make it with Swiss cheese because you don’t have it? Really?) Yes, this drives me up a wall but these friends have other redeeming qualities. But to them these extended interactions with the waitperson are part of the dining experience.
But I’d rather hear these friends bitch about having to order from a kiosk than listen to them order from a waiter. It can be cringeworthy.
Just realized another advantage, I used them a couple of times at the bar at National airport in DC. They allow you to quickly see the drink prices. Yes, airport bars are amazingly expensive, but at least you know what you’re going to pay. Plus, it’s easy to see how much more the premium drinks cost, sometimes the good beer is just a dollar more.
I’m not seeing more sales if a competent waitperson can upsell the customers on more and more expensive dishes. The Applebee’s near us has them, though the kiosks only show the damn games, and aren’t set to a screen for ordering, so I expect the management agrees with me on upselling.
I turn the screen away from us when we are eating.
A non-chain restaurant has iPads on the table to order from. They could use a better GUI for it.
I figure this is just moving the ordering kiosks a lot of fast food restaurants have now to the tabletop. I’m all for them since you see the options better and some clown at the counter can’t mess up your order quite as easily.
See, that’s my problem. It’s not fast food. If I go to a full service restaurant, I want full service.
Who’s always waiting for a check? Usually I have the opposite problem: they’re in such a hurry to turn the table (even when half-empty) that they bring the check before I order it.
These aren’t diners/coney islands/greasy spoons. They’re allegedly full service restaurants.
It’s the feeling that you’re being pressured to get the fuck out. Not exactly the relaxing experience that eating out should be. (Not counting hitting fast food or a quick lunch at work)
We usually turn them towards the wall, helps with keeping our 4 year old from wanting to play games. We don’t use them to order food or summon a server. We have used them to pay our bill when we are finished which is a nice convenience. And yes, they’re FAR more secure than physically handing your card to waitstaff member. A large vector for fraud is card skimming - the underpaid and overworked server takes your card and then when out of sight swipes the card through a reader capturing your card data. Not having your card out of your physical possession is always better.
After we ordered my GF’s son swapped one of these with one from another table because he thought it had different games on it. Kind of screwed up the server, the people who ended up on the other table and the bill.
Ugh, I’ve seen these at Chili’s. I just stopped going to Chili’s. It’s made the eating out thing very impersonal. If I do all of my transactions at the terminal; why have waitresses at all? Just have runners whose only job is to deliver things to your table. I sure as hell don’t think I should tip you if you’ve put a system in place where I can only get you if you’re summoned. I don’t want to call someone to top off my beverage. I hate them.
Do you feel the same way when they bring you your food quickly?
I’ve never felt pressured to get the fuck out (by the restaurant—there have been times when I’ve wanted to get the fuck out because there was someplace I needed to go). Just because they bring the check doesn’t mean you have to pay it right then.
I hate having to ask for the check, and I hate hate hate having to sit around for a long time after I’m done, wondering where the server is so I can pay and leave.
I’m the opposite. I love the idea of being able to summon a server, and especially being able to pay when I’m ready. Servers at even some of the best restaurants I’ve been to seem to disappear for 20 minutes when I’m ready to leave. (not that high end restaurants would ever go to a tablet, but they could at least have a little button at the table to push)
This is the problem I have.
Bonus points for coming back 20 minutes later with a faint aroma of cigarette smoke.
In absence of those handy machines, I usually hand my card to the server and say “Could you go run this please?” thereby cutting out much of the delay.
This is New Jersey, known for being in a hurry and rude. Slow service stands out in stark contrast to the normal hustle and bustle.
As soon as the server sets down the entree (or any final item of your meal like one last beer or dessert)
“Hi, Michelle, I am in a bit of a hurry today, so when you get a second, can you run my tab and bring me the bill so I can get my card to you while I am finishing up and then I can get out of your hair, OK?”
I haven’t seen that exact sort of thing, except possibly at an airport bar (I wasn’t ordering anything, so I didn’t see it in use). I have seen:
a restaurant where you order through an iPad that is brought to your table
restaurants (especially Korean restaurants) where you summon your waiter with a flight-attendant-call-button-style thing
I like the idea of being able to call the waiter at will and paying whenever I want. I’m not a big fan of ordering things through a touch-screen menu though; I sometimes end up having to search through several different categories before finding the one that contains the item I want (whereas an employee would know instantly which button to press). For instance, I wanted to order Chicken McNuggets at a French McDonald’s but they weren’t under “Chicken”, they were under “Snacks”. On another occasion I tried to order a double cheeseburger meal combo at a Canadian McDonald’s and I couldn’t figure out if such a thing doesn’t exist or if I was just not ordering it correctly.
heres the place that does some of them … they also own what used to be ntn triva … which was a trivia game network that plays in bars and restaurants across the country …