A group of diners. A Chili's in Dallas . Some beer, some chips and a missing server holding the check hostage. For Shawn Gentry, who sat at that table and waited (and waited) to pay, they were the ingredients for a new business.
"Of course the server does a great job of bringing out the food and topping off your glass, and then when it comes time to check out, they're conveniently on a break," Gentry said. "And we really posed the question to each other right there: 'Why can't we just check out right here at the table, right now?'" Now a couple of years later, Gentry is president and chief operating officer for TableTop Media. His company and others are innovative technology providers trying to sell restaurant operators on pay-at-the-table self-service options. And restaurants and chains big and small, from fast casual to quick service, are looking into how to take advantage of available pay-at-the-table technology.
"If you look at the way that we really operate in the U.S. and the trends that we're in right now, people really want to take control of their experience," Gentry said. "You see it at the grocery store, you see it at the airports … and when we look at where we are now, I think people really want to take control of their experience in restaurants, too."
Pay-at-the-table
California restaurant concept uWink has applied POS technology at table-mounted terminals for customer ordering and payment. The resÂtaurant concept and proprietary software and hardware was designed by Nolan Bushnell, uWink Inc. CEO and founder and former CEO of Atari Corporation and Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater.
The uWink concept is a combination restaurant and entertainment center. Customers order with tabletop terminals, which have 12- to 15-inch screens with animated graphics, and also use them for game play.
Having the self-service terminals at the tables speeds customer service and cuts labor costs. With the tableÂtop terminals, the 300-seat restauÂrant only needs half the wait staff of a typical restaurant the same size.
The POS system enables customers to place an order as soon as they are seated. When customers need a drink refill or decide to add another item to the order, they don't have to wait for a server to return. When they are ready to leave, customers can acÂcess the total and pay with a credit card using the mag-stripe reader on the top of the terminal.
"The whole thing speeds service by at least eight to 10 minutes on averÂage in the beginning of the meal," Bushnell said. "Customers love the speed, particularly during lunchtime when many of them have a limited amount of time."
POS systems on the move
While pay-and-order devices used by uWink are mounted to the tables, mobile tablets allow staff to take a store's POS system anywhere — into the drive-thru lane to speed up service, curbside for payment processing, to the tableside for order taking or payment and even to the back of the house for inventory.
Mobile tablets like San Jose, Calif.-based DT Research Inc.'s WebDT Mobile Tablet typically come with 8- to 10-inch screens to allow acÂcess to more information at a glance. WebDT Tablets can be programmed to be compatible with a store's POS system so staff members can enter orders as if they were at a terminal. When equipped with a mag-stripe reader, the mobile tablet also can accept credit card payments at the point of transaction.
Restaurant staff equipped with a mobile tablet can move anywhere in the store to take an order. Whether a customer pays at that point or at the counter, their order is being processed before their eyes.
An internal Li-ion battery powers the units, giving up to 2.5 hours of use by optimizing the system's power-management parameters. An opÂtional external hot-swappable battery can more than double usage time with proper power management. And as the technology has evolved, the devices have gotten more manageable to use.
"As these (mobile) units have gotten smaller and more durable, then obviously the advantage is they're lighter...they're easier (to handle), and you can actually hold them in your hand," said David Hale, vice president of program management for DT Research, which develops and manufactures a line of informaÂtion appliances.
Being able to access all the necessary POS data at once saves time and is more efficient, he said.
Andre Nataf, strategic and multiunit manager for Menusoft Systems, developers of Digital Dining, said the return on investment for mobilizÂing POS devices is substantial.
One Digital Dining customer has seen an additional $75,000 to $100,000 a year; after utilizing handhelds, other restaurants have seen anywhere from a 10-percent to a 40-percent increase in gross income, he said.
"Basically, it comes down to one thing, and that's efficiency," Nataf said. "It maximizes efficiencies in a restaurant."
* Additional reporting done by Christopher Hall.
For more information about pay at the table and self-service ordering, read our special report Mobile Tablets, Handhelds Mobilize Workforce to Increase Productivity, Improve Service.
