This was new to us. Some restaurants have iPads at the table now, where you can place your order and it goes directly to the kitchen. But where we had dinner on Saturday night in Port Huron, MI, there’s a little screen at each table for the express purpose of paying for your meal.
Everyone was marvelling at them so either we are all hicks who don’t get out much, or it’s a new thing.
It appears that they will eventually enable the option to order directly, as well, making the servers true servers and not much more. She brought our bill, I swiped my credit card and it printed my receipt on completion, although I had the option of having it emailed to me. When dinner is underway, there’s also a touch-screen button to summon your server.
To my husband’s chagrin, I actually enjoy the self-checkout option at grocery store, but interacting with the clerk isn’t part of what makes food shopping a good experience. In fact, more often than not, it makes it worse. However, in a restaurant, a great server can add some fun to the meal. I suppose that freeing them up from dealing with money means they’re available to give better service where it counts. The pay-and-go option meant we didn’t have to wait for her to deliver 7 orders of clam dip before she brought us our bill. But it’s one instance where I hope the gizmo doesn’t replace the human altogether. I don’t want my dinner arriving one day on the outstretched metal hand of a robot, or worse, down a conveyer belt, just because it’s deemed more efficient.
And I’ll bet that all these gizmos aren’t accessible! So, I’d get to always deal directly with the server.