

At the restaurant of the future, tablets take your order - bremac
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/at-the-restaurant-of-the-future-this-gadget-takes-your-order/253855/

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patio11
This is one of those companies which makes me wish I was an accredited
investor, because the first time I heard their per-table numbers I thought
"They're going to be an unstoppable juggernaut."

Seriously, in a low margin business they're transformative. I don't mean at
the table/waitress level (sucks to be the server, by the way), I mean they
literally move entire classes/areas/niches/locations of restaurants into
economic viability. (Bad restaurants have -5% margins and close. Good
restaurants have 8% margins and stay open. Some of the stats suggest just
using this gives +N% with N sufficient to make businesses viable.)

Seriously, I think restaurants will take to this like accountants took to
spreadsheets. Or they'll simply die.

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georgieporgie
The first time I saw a touch-screen ordering system was in an izakaya Japan in
2006, and I'm sure you've experienced them, too. However, since then, I
haven't really seen it pick in most Japanese restaurants. I have to assume
that there is a significant percentage of the population that actively wants
the experience of ordering from a human.

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gdilla
They've been instated in at least a couple of national chain restaurants in
japan. My last trip, just a few months ago, I visited a shabu-shabu restaurant
and kaiten sushi (rotating sushi bar) that had touch screen tablets at every
table. They weren't ipads - that's about all I could tell. In the case of the
rotating sushi, it even alerted you to the fact that the dish you ordered was
coming on the conveyer belt in a few seconds.

Edit: I just posted a video of it. My nephew and niece in law (?) loved to
order for us: <http://youtu.be/LxQpJk52Sbc>

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noonespecial
I can think of one place where I _don't_ want the experience of "being served
by a human". McDonalds. It would be fantastic if there was just a touchscreen
by the register. Even if the cashier was standing right there to take the
money. I can't count the number of times I've spend 4 minutes saying
"Chhiiickeenn MC-Nuuuuuggeets" as slowly and clearly as I can _to a person
standing right there_ , only to get a McChicken sandwich in the bag.

Don't even get me started on the drive-thru.

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Greenisus
The Jack in the Box near my house has a touchscreen machine you can use to
order food. My order was perfect, but navigating the UI was much slower than
simply saying what I wanted.

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bherms
A restaurant in Indianapolis has iPads at every table that include lots of
things like the ability to like on Fbook, Twitter, etc, view and write Yelp
reviews, view the menu, learn about the staff and restaurant, etc...

In addition, the servers carry these small devices not much bigger than an
iPhone that have touchscreens to send the orders back to the kitchen. In
addition, the devices have card readers and a small receipt printer so the
server can handle everything from right at your table. It's pretty cool and
futuristic, especially for a brewery/pizza joint.

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gdilla
Come to think of it, there's a restaurant at La Guardia airport in NYC, of all
places, that has iPads at every table. They use that as a selling point. In a
busy airport, it seems popular.

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msrpotus
Have that at JFK too. Haven't used it but seems useful, especially since it's
mixed in with a lounge area so not everyone there is ordering food.

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twiceaday
At the restaurant of the future, water will be wet and food will cost money.

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gphakos
I have spent a lot of time thinking about waitstaff/ customer interaction at
restaurants as I neither like cooking or being disappointed by my food. I just
don't see this as something that will appeal to a lot of people.

There are too many cases where it falls down. For example, my girlfriend will
ask almost every server their opinion of two items on the menu. She doesn't
always choose the one that they recommend, but feels it to be useful input in
her decisions. Another time when the waitstaff are extemely useful are for
people with alergies, or lactose intolarance.

Yes the second case can be solved by lists of ingredients, or icons indicating
what each meal is free of (lactose free, soy free, gluten free, peanut free,
etc...) all of which would be provided by the computer interface. But is that
really what I'm looking for when I go out to eat? No. I like being able to
ask, "Does this have cheese in it?" or "Do you like A better than X" and
getting a yes or no answer.

I believe we will see a restuarant that is McDonalds meets RedBox in the near
future. However, until there are serious advancements in language processing
so that I can ask questions about the food I am about order (and pay atleast
200% mark up on) I don't expect many resturants to be shedding their waitstaff
in favor of customer opperated touch screen devices.

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lubutu
I think it's great that technology can be put to use to improve our everyday
lives. But when it comes to replacing human contact with a touchscreen, I'm
going to have to decline. As a programmer I can spend up to 8 hours per day
staring at a screen and being frustrated. I don't want the same to spend my
time outside of work doing the same. Can't we improve the backend technology
but retain the brief human contact? It may be more efficient, but is that
really all that matters?

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blahedo
If ever there were a surface that screams "touch me and spread germs
everywhere", this would have to be it. Right there at the table with you and
your food. Yikes!

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wiradikusuma
what's the difference with holding (and flipping, if it's a book) the menu?
unless of course you already know what to order.

~~~
blahedo
...right. Upvoted because I feel dumb for not thinking of this too.

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neovive
This parallels the changes in consumer banking since the introduction of the
ATM. It's now rare for most people to interact with bank staff beyond opening
an account or taking out a loan.

Supermarkets are another great example of self-service automation. For
example, my local supermarket has 8 self-checkout lanes occupying the same
space as 4 full-service cashier lanes. Only one staff member is required to
support these lanes -- although they should have two considering there is no
training requirement for the customers :). It's interesting to note that there
is no discount for using the self-checkout, although you are now scanning and
bagging yourself as opposed to the full-service you receive in the standard
cashier. I assume this is the "cost" of progress (and shorter lines).

In the long-term, I think the restaurants that leverage technology to enhance
the dining experience will benefit greatly (e.g. enhanced menus, reduced
printing, order ahead, entertainment, brand engagement, etc.). Restaurants
that simply use tablets for cost-cutting will lose customers. Dining in a
restaurant is more discretionary than banking or supermarket shopping.

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nknight
> _It's now rare for most people to interact with bank staff beyond opening an
> account or taking out a loan._

Loans I wouldn't know about, but opening accounts at major banks without
entering a bank branch is generally quite easy, particularly if you can afford
to wait a few days for physical mail to go back and forth. One hopes that
particular anachronism becomes increasingly rare, too.

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politician
It's surprising that you can open a customer bank account over mail given the
Know-Your-Customer (KYC) laws which I thought included a physical presence
check. Something to Google on a rainy day...

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nknight
I've never heard of a physical presence check being required, and I've opened
a couple accounts "remotely" in the last five years with institutions I'd
never done business with before. They practically demand your life history,
but not that you walk into a branch.

Physical presence checks would simply put some of them out of business. There
are national banks with no or very few physical branches.

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rurounijones
The restaurant of the future.

Or the Japanese restaurant of yesterday.

Honestly, I use this all the time at Yaki-niku places.

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waterlesscloud
"It costs about a dollar a day per table, it can even go lower depending on if
you have sponsors involved because all the alcohol companies want to get
involved"

Great. Ads during my restaurant dining experience. Gosh, what an exciting
prospect.

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juiceandjuice
There's been lots of basic technologies that could replace waiters, even phone
switches + operators, but the reality is people want interaction. In some
cases this will make sense, but not for 90% of restaurants.

~~~
electromagnetic
To actually be useful everything on the menu would have to have at least an
allergy list. They'd also need to be customizable or the restaurant will
actually lose business.

I won't eat asparagus or whole mushrooms. I have friends that are vegetarian,
or that wont eat veal/lamb, etc. It's hard enough finding a good restaurant to
go to and accommodate everyone, let alone go to a restaurant that can't even
afford to hire waiters and can't ask does xyz have peanuts in? Cause you know
buying lunch really sucks when someone goes into anaphylactic shock because
their waiter app can't handle allergy info.

~~~
alexismadrigal
I think they can do that actually.

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stretchwithme
Give me a way to see my favorite meals with the swipe of a card or somehow
connecting with my smart phone.

And if you make everything to customer order like Subway, give me a way to re-
use my old instructions.

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dctoedt
Imagine the table-top tablet having a button to activate a voice connection to
a remote call center, with a cheery, knowledgeable voice on the other end of
the call. (I thought I'd read somewhere that some fast-food restaurants do
this already for their drive-through windows.)

It could even be a video connection, with a small screen on the tablet, and
one or more cameras to show all diners at the table.

The potential loss of privacy could be an issue for customers. The equipment
to bug your dinner conversation would be sitting right there in front of you.

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elchief
1\. it will be nice to not tip. dropping total cost to a customer by 12% will
increase demand for restaurant meals.

Also, it'll be nice to pay at the table and jet. call me a crank, but i hate
waiting to pay.

2\. it will be good to have timed order-to-delivery stats for the manager, so
we can get consistent performance.

3\. if they can get some smart data mining going on, then could raise revenues
for the restaurant. "people that liked burgers also liked vanilla shakes.
would you like one?". swipe in with your credit card, and it knows your
favourite meals.

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albertsun
Reminds me of the story of the Automat <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat>

People thought these were going to replace all restaurants too.

~~~
alexismadrigal
Story author here... I loved that one of the ladies that I talked to
NAMECHECKED the Automat! Totally unprompted.

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polyfractal
I actually just interviewed someone from E la Carte [1] about their job
positions. This is a pretty cool company, working on a pretty cool product.
It's nice to see a startup building a physical product that is already
providing a lot of value to customers.

[1] <http://startupfrontier.com/2012/02/e-la-carte/>

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theorique
Wagamama and Legal Sea Foods have had earlier versions of these kind of
technologies for a while. This is the next step in evolution.

If it cuts costs (for the restaurant owner / manager), improves the customer
experience, and 'encourages' customers to spend more ... you can bet that
owners will be all over it!

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sopooneo
I'm with you, but I am very dubious that these things will actually improve
customer experience. The _experience_ of going to a restaurant is very much
one of being _served_ by another human being.

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polyfractal
Eh, that's the part I like the least about restaurants. I really don't like
the feeling of being _served_ at all. And I certainly don't like someone
bugging me every twenty minutes asking if my food is ok (while I invariably
have food in my mouth).

I go to restaurants to enjoy the food and enjoy the company. If everything
else could just get out of the way (like the waiter) I'd be happy as a clam.

~~~
rogerbinns
I'm with you on that. I detest the time wasted waiting to place an order. And
even more I detest the time wasted waiting to pay and making payment. For some
reason restaurants really like to drag the latter out as much as possible.

I'm fine with people adding value. Adding in unpredictable delays for them to
carry paper between me and the cooks or me and a credit card machine is not
value.

~~~
sopooneo
I agree with both of you. And I don't think anyone likes to have to wait to
pay. But as far as not liking being served, _we are not the norm_. I hate it,
but I guarantee it is the psychological aspect of servitude that is most
appealing to a wide swath of humanity that "treats" themselves at restaurants.
I admit that it may be a matter of context. Going out from work to grab a
quick bite might be different than an "evening of fine dining" even for normal
people.

In my life, I've found that those most interested in being waited on are those
whose normal lives put them in positions of feeling put upon by others most of
the day.

~~~
polyfractal
That's a very good point which I hadn't considered. :)

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unabridged
I just want an app where I can type in my fast food orders, and have them
ready when I get to the window or brought out to the parking lot. I'm thinking
Jack-in-the-box will be the first chain to do this, they already have machines
in store that allow you to order without interacting with the cashier.

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hkuo
For anyone Angelenos, there's a restaurant called Stacked in the South Bay
near the Del Amo mall that dors ordering and purchases at all tables and bar
seats through iPads. I happened upon it purely by chance and it was just
awesome, and their app design and ux alone is worth a look.

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dctoedt
Next will be a "Page my waiter" button. That could be a win for diners in a
restaurant with busy wait staff. Perhaps the tablet already has one; I
couldn't tell from the article.

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jtchang
Dammit. I go out to eat for the experience. Touchscreens are an experience.
But if they start replacing all the waiters? That's just going to piss me off.

~~~
patio11
The restaurant industry will certainly produce numerous options catering to
your preferences, and they will be marketed using copious helpings of "Only
poor people would order food from a machine. Rich people like yourself deserve
to talk to an artist."

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magicarp
A lot of conveyor-belt sushi restaurants in Japan have this. If you go to one
chain (kappazushi), your sushi gets delivered to you on a bullet train.

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keeptrying
Is this a single founder story? According to crunchbase it only has one
founder.

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tzm
Please select your order method: 1) Human or 2) Tablet

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xmmx
Less server interaction = less tip?

Just kidding, by then i bet they'll demand 40%

~~~
alexismadrigal
They say that the tips actually go up, probably because the suggestion is 20%.

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rajpaul
When I was a kid and video game arcades were still popular, there was a huge
one in the mall.

They had a restaurant and you could order food from a touch screen, and play
games on it while you wait.

I hated it. A waiter always came by to make sure your order was correct. I had
to wonder, what's the point? It was gimmicky and useless.

This was probably 13 years ago.

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Radzell
My startup is looking to stop having every resturant instead my startup will
scan 2d menus and display the food in 3d as well as let you order it. I think
it would be difficult for ever restaurant to have a app. I also say web apps
are not the answer.

