Quote:
Originally Posted by Pineedles
Great idea, but as others have stated the pitfalls are many. I think restaurant owners in the lakes region need to look towards mor automation to resolve the tight labor market, particularly since it is mostly a seasonal business. If you have been into a McDonalds lately you may of seen several kiosks that allow you to order and pay for your meals. This same concept can be employed with table terminals to allow the same at little expense. Even a Horn & Harvard automate type bank of self serve windows could b employed segregated by table where each window would have a meal, with all meals being ready at the same time. Busboys would still be needed but 1 person could easily take care of 20 tables.
Just because it’s self serve doesn’t mean it can’t be fine cuisine.
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Seven years ago I went into memorial day weekend with zero front-of-the-house staff. Just me. I frantically wrote a computer program which enabled me to communicate directly with the kitchen via an iPad from each table. This is widespread now. My program was designed to enable the guest to order over the phone and pay. I just haven’t had the need to institute that yet. Only an idiot would make the investment of terminals at a table because every guest has a terminal on their phone. Automation goes beyond a kiosk for McDonald’s. Your french fries are cooked by a robot and their soda is poured by a robot. This is definitely here and will continue to affect the dining experience. At the same time there will always be a need for a dining experience that includes human service. For those of you who are not aware, I was a member of the team responsible for the introduction of the worlds first transaction oriented interactive multimedia marketing and communications network back in 1993.