11–20 of 21 posts
I like the South Korean system. Stand up when you're ready to leave and walk out. They will intercept you by the door for payment. No high tech necessary, sorry YC folk.
what if they fail to intercept you? free lunch?
I simply won't be held hostage at a restaurant when I'm the one with something they want (payment). After a reasonable amount of time, I'll get up and head to the door, bill in hand. If the waitstaff does not come dashing toward me, I'll stop by the register if there is one, or tell the hostess that I want to pay my bill. I rarely need to do this, but the fact that I ever have to do it at all annoys me. I'm not annoy…
I really think you're in the minority of expecting to be in and out of a restaurant quickly, save for diners.
I really wish restaurants around the world would adopt that system (I guess the dependency on tips is one aspect that prevents this approach from being implemented in other countries. In Japan, there is no tipping).
But tipping is another annoyance in today's restaurant culture anyway.
There are a few startups tackling this end of the business. Integration here with restaurants is challenging and usually only applicable to people who use restaurants as a utility (not a luxury). Spoke to someone yesterday about http://www.tabbedout.com/ which markets it's "Pay when you're ready" thing.
Thanks martin for the mention!
We’ve spent a lot of time working on this problem space. Ultimately, there are a few different takes on solutions and different ones make more sense in certain situations. The IRL vending machine scenario outlined in the original article may make sense in some counter service places, but far less in a white tablecloth restaurant situation.
While on the surface it may seem like it is not a hard technical problem, it can be. Two approaches to solving the problem include writing middleware integrations for incumbent point of sale software (eg. TabbedOut) or write the point of sale software yourself (eg. Square). Both can have hurdles to overcome on the technical side as well as the human side.
So some of the obstacles in place are: is there an existing point of sale? Would the restaurant require something more powerful than an old school cash register? Who should be processing the credit cards? How quick does fund settlement take place? How much disruption of the normal business process is acceptable (fix things, but don’t make a server’s life more difficult)?
On another note, from the end of the article where Nick mentions that he would be happy paying an extra 10% tip, that seems like a nice gesture, but in practice that isn’t a common mindset from the consumer. When TabbedOut launched, there was a $0.99 service charge for tabs opened with the app. Overall, the concept of making the consumer pay for the service was not very well received.
We’re constantly working on improving our solution and would welcome any feedback. Oh, we’re also hiring engineers if this sounds like a problem anyone would like to help solve [careers@tabbedout.com].
TabbedOut and MyCheck have really struggled to get any real traction here in New York. I saw recently that Cover does more volume in Manhattan than all the competition combined. Not sure if there are any good options in SF.
I simply won't be held hostage at a restaurant when I'm the one with something they want (payment). After a reasonable amount of time, I'll get up and head to the door, bill in hand. If the waitstaff does not come dashing toward me, I'll stop by the register if there is one, or tell the hostess that I want to pay my bill. I rarely need to do this, but the fact that I ever have to do it at all annoys me. I'm not annoy…
Do you find yourself only patronizing places with a register up front?
I agree with the article. Why can't we just pay at the register and be done with it? Adding on to the Japanese restaurants. They have a call-button system which is much more efficient than having to flag down a waiter. And, payment is more common at the register. This allows Japanese restaurant to have fewer waiters and waitresses working. You miss out on the interaction with the wait staff, but that's not really why…
There are a few startups tackling this end of the business. Integration here with restaurants is challenging and usually only applicable to people who use restaurants as a utility (not a luxury). Spoke to someone yesterday about http://www.tabbedout.com/ which markets it's "Pay when you're ready" thing.
http://photos.pennlive.com/patriot-news/2013/08/ziosk_termin...