Slowness of the interface isn't really a huge problem, because it can still speed up service and improve efficiency.
Just last week I was sitting at a terrace located a little ways away from the restaurant itself. The waitress punched in our drink orders, but we stopped her from turning around and asked her about the specials. Our beers arrived before she finished describing them.
This place had one order-taker and one or two 'runners' who delivered and bussed. Increasing latency while taking orders isn't nice... but in this case it completely obliterated message delivery time (and a whole lot of legwork).
I guess that's the problem. The restaurants I like are rather small. They have only two or so people. I guess there is apoint when the restaurant is large enough when those mobile devices pay off.
Just last week I was sitting at a terrace located a little ways away from the restaurant itself. The waitress punched in our drink orders, but we stopped her from turning around and asked her about the specials. Our beers arrived before she finished describing them.
This place had one order-taker and one or two 'runners' who delivered and bussed. Increasing latency while taking orders isn't nice... but in this case it completely obliterated message delivery time (and a whole lot of legwork).