I went to a new restaurant in town this week and saw, for the first time in the wild, that every table had ordering kiosks made out of gussied up ipads. I had heard about these from a Planet Money piece and they were being touted as the future of the service sector, the first in a series of machines that would replace wait staff.
That would be great if it weren't for one thing - they didn't replace the wait staff, I did. At first it was neat, a new toy to play with and make conversation over while we waited for our food. But as we started to enter our orders it became apparent that this new technology wasn't new at all. It was the same POS system wait staff has been using for years. Now, instead of telling a waiter what I want I have to order it in piece by piece.
I wanted a burger with no pickles and a fried egg. It took a minute, but eventually I was able to navigate the menus to take off the pickles, more of a UI issue than anything. The egg, however, was another story. It normally comes on a different burger, and where a human could understand that shift, the unforgiving machine was unable to adapt. I tried to flag down someone from the restaurant, but the floor staff was primarily food runners, none of whom had the time or inclination to take an order.
After my unfulfilling burger we went to a new bar that, through sheer luck, was also trying their hand at automation. The bar had a beer wall, 10 taps each controlled by a RFID bracelet you could rent at the bar. Your rental opens a tab and you're charged per fluid ounce, down to the 10th, of what you pour.
Once again, the concept is neat, but the practice left me feeling like I was just an unpaid bartender. For one, no one was coming to my table anytime soon, which is great for uninterrupted conversation - until you get thirsty. At that point, everyone at the table has to migrate to the wall and choose their beers.
These are minor gripes and I'm sure that future technologies will make the process more seamless, but I'm not sure I want it to. Part of the appeal of eating out is being taken care of, is being served. In both these locations, I was my own server, which would be fine if I was on a budget and trying to save some cash but when the checks came not only was I not saving money, I was paying a premium for the privilege of using such tools.
I guess this means I'm an old man now.
This is the teething stage where the design of the process is lagging behind the technology. In the ideal restaurant scenario you would have ordered your meal using your phone before you even sat down. With a text field for details like "no pickles". If you compare mobile website interfaces now to ten years ago, for example, ordering plane tickets was technologically not that different, but the design sensibilities are what's really changed between then and now. The bar example sounds quite pleasant, because I'm used to getting up to go the bar anyway and digitising the process with quantitative payment seems appealing.
Your ideal and my ideal are very different. My ideal restaurant scenario has me walking in and being recognized by the maitre'd/greeter who says "hey, kleinbl00! Welcome back!" at which point they guide me to my usual table where I'm recognized by one of the two or three wait staff I encounter regularly who ask me how I've been. They tell me what the specials are, but only the ones they actually like because honestly, the salmon cakes haven't been getting rave reviews. They keep my drink topped up and they bring me extra ketchup because it's easier for both of us and then they bring my check early because they know I like to get it out of the way before my guest really knows what's up and then linger over the table." This is pretty much the situation I have at several restaurants. It's been suggested by industry players in a couple different places - get to know the good restaurants, get them to know you, and tip well to ensure that you are always treated well and always given preferential treatment. It's the exact point Isherwood makes - if I'm going out to not prepare food and drinks myself, I prefer my food and drinks to be prepared with care by people who are good at it. I'm not interested in dining at a restaurant where "no substitutions" means "no substitutions" not because they're busy, but because they're hamstrung by their technology. Assistance-free eating has been around for over 100 years and it ebbs and flows in popularity, but it never crests to the point of people preferring it. The argument that the technology is in the "teething stage" holds no water when you consider that pushbutton menus were the rage at Sonic Drive-Ins back in the '50s. The bar example is terrible. Speaking as someone who spent college mixing in bars something like 50-60hrs a week, the whole point of going to a bar is to go to a bar often enough that you get free alcohol. If you're meting it out a tenth of an ounce at a time there's zero point in me paying double to triple what it would cost me at the grocery store.
This whole thing screams of horrible all around. It sounds like some faceless manager trying to squeeze blood from a stone.The bar example is terrible. Speaking as someone who spent college mixing in bars something like 50-60hrs a week, the whole point of going to a bar is to go to a bar often enough that you get free alcohol. If you're meting it out a tenth of an ounce at a time there's zero point in me paying double to triple what it would cost me at the grocery store.
How-the-fuck-come does it seem like randoms on the damn internet can get this simple fact of how an eatery works, but not people running the damn place? I've changed restaurants because the waitstaff left for a new establishment. Building a rapport with the people who serve you is a great way to try new things and expand your pallet. If I saw ipads on the tables I would assume that they want to treat me as a commodity and not a customer. Or, I was at an Applebees.Your ideal and my ideal are very different. My ideal restaurant scenario has me walking in and being recognized by the maitre'd/greeter who says "hey, kleinbl00! Welcome back!" at which point they guide me to my usual table where I'm recognized by one of the two or three wait staff I encounter regularly who ask me how I've been. They tell me what the specials are, but only the ones they actually like because honestly, the salmon cakes haven't been getting rave reviews. They keep my drink topped up and they bring me extra ketchup because it's easier for both of us and then they bring my check early because they know I like to get it out of the way before my guest really knows what's up and then linger over the table."
The bar was interesting but trouble came up when multiple people wanted drinks. Normally I could put in orders for many, but with all the tabs I had to carry four bracelets and just had trouble. I'm sure it's all ui issues, but I did end up feeling slighted.
You're right the whole thing doesn't work well for rounds. There's no doubt that this isn't going after anything approaching high-end. Today's novelty will be tomorrow's convenience. Also if eateries want customers to be engaged then there needs to be some sort of demonstrated value added like a loyalty scheme.
I can't agree with this more. A good waiter/waitress/bartender helps make the experience. Granted, a bad one can ruin it, but despite some people's claims on the internet that bad servers are all but ubiquitous, our interactions with them are few and far between.Part of the appeal of eating out is being taken care of, is being served.
One point is being greatly overlooked here as well. A good waitstaff can upsell you, route your choices to the "specials" and help make the back end more efficient. A restaurant is much more than taking orders, it is more about wrangling as much cash from people who are buying an experience than anything else.
I see where things went wrong.I wanted a burger with no pickles
Exactly! Great observation. This is essentially the same as placing your order at the counter and taking a number. Except...it's even less appealing because you have to put in effort and you lack the human to human interaction. What is your favourite special today? is a hard thing for a POS system to answer.
To be fair, some days I am loathe to interact with humans, especially strangers.
I agree with everything you said. The only thing I really need automated is paying the bill at the end. Sometimes I just like to eat, pay, and run (Lunch break, class in a little bit, etc.) I went to a restaurant that was attempting some automation, but not a lot. I thought the balance was pretty nice. You get that iPad thing on the table. It has some games, and some other smaller features (digital menu, food recommendations, etc). The only thing that was automated was drink refill, pinging the waiter, and paying the bill at the end. It came in a lot of handy because we still had a waiter who took our order, but it took all the little annoyances out of the way.
This is a really interesting PoV. The title misled me into thinking that this is a rant about robots taking the high paying jobs leaving the menial jobs for human. I think it is ridiculous to replace people with robots in a service industry, a place where we expect empathy and a human response. It's cool to have a robot wash my car but I can't imagine a robot taking care of a human baby. That's one thing I learned from Futurama.
I saw these at the airport this past year and they were awful. They can give you flight departure information okay, but could not take an order - and even when a human came over to try and make the stupid thing work properly, the human wanted to throw it through a big airport window. Technology that should be kept: technology that is useful, technology that helps us, technology that serves us and takes care of us. Technology that should be turfed: this stupid piece of shit. STOP THE MADNESS
I recently talked to an urban planner who did some consulting in airports, and he told me that airports are governed very similar to cities and municipalities, but without all the democracy getting in the way. Did you get a similar impression from your airport work?FUN FACT: 95% of the restaurants and shops at airports are owned and operated by a monopoly.
That's actually a great quote. Yeah, I would say that the average port authority works exactly like the city council of a North Korean municipal center. We handed in the bid documents on the Sea-Tac Central Terminal Expansion on September 10, 2001. The next morning everything changed, obviously. And that's when the Port of Seattle told us that despite the fact that their forced overruns had pushed us all 300-1000% over budget, the next eighteen months of redesign would be entirely on our nickel. Why? Because fuck you, we're the Port. All that homeland security money? Yeah fuck you, that's going to porno scanners. Don't like it, get sued for breach of contract. Want to counter-sue? Go right ahead. Know that we'll hide things in federal, state or city jurisdictions depending on our mood and know that we can keep hitting you with change orders so that you lose even more money while you wait for this piece of dogshit to wind through the courts. What was even funnier was when the Port of Seattle insisted that as part of Homeland Security they needed guys with machine guns doing spot checks as people rolled up on the gate. City of Seattle said "fuck you, it ain't Port property until they walk through the door, you put any TSA shitheads outside the building we'll arrest them."
I currently work in a restaurant as a server and I hate these damn things. At least once a week one of them starts to update indefinitely. When someone uses the call button it simply puts a blinking light on the machine at the table which is annoying as hell for the guests and draws extra attention to the time it takes to get to the table. The pay at the table screen almost never works right. People complain about the $1.99 cost for unlimited games that their kids accepted the charges for because they didn't pay attention even though I respectfully let them know about it ahead of time. Half the people don't even want them on their table. The gratuity is in a slider that starts at 20% as the middle ground. If you don't adjust it, your server gets 20%. Most people don't even look at it. Nice for the server but a bit of an underhanded way to "earn " money. It's more trouble than it's worth. This isn't even considering the fact that the food service industry is one of the few places people can work and make a semi-decent living without additional schooling. If it becomes automated... Game over man... Just game over...
I agree with most of the users on here. The capabilities of technology far surpass human capabilities, but it just so happens that our capabilities have developed beyond technological ones, and we must give them a few more years in order to not only close the gap between us and them, but for them to surpass us indomitably.
They aren't that common in Japan or China either, actually. They're more common in Japan than in the US, but still rare enough to be noteworthy when you happen to run across one. In China I think they're probably less common than in the US, if only because labor costs are still pretty low. I travel to various places in China fairly often and off the top of my head can't remember the last time I saw a restaurant with much (customer-visible) automation. Not a very rigorous observation, though; I may just not be frequenting the parts of China where they're concentrated.
I imagine my gripe being when I'm stuck behind someone who can't work the machine. I use the self checkouts at the grocery store, and the game I play is to complete my purchases before the others already there. Sometimes I lose badly when there's someone under thirty with only two items, but so often there are people who constantly struggle with "scan, bag, repeat." This may change as I gradually become the old person unable to fathom new technology, but right now basic self checkouts can be a struggle for many.
I hate the self-checkout so much. - buying light produce? Yeah, please wait for the attendant. - Using your own bag? yeah, please wait for the attendant. - bought beer? Yeah, wrong line, go over to one of the two lines that are open, neither express. - Forgot and used register 2? Yeah, please wait for the attendant after every purchase because that one has a virus that eats up all its cycles and nobody here understands computers.
The weight sensor is what drives me nuts. - Bought a light item and the weight sensor didn't detect it? Wait for attendant. - Scanning too quickly since you want to be out of there within the next hour and there is a line building up? Wait for attendant. - Moved a bag off the weight sensor because you need more than two bags to fit your stuff in? Wait for attendant. - Scanned an item and put it back in your cart because it makes no sense to put that large of an item on the tiny bagging area? Hit "I don't want to bag this item" and wait for attendant. - You seem to be triggering "wait for attendant" too much, so wait for attendant to put in a passcode to tell the system that you are doing everything right.
And I use my backpack because I generally ride a bicycle to the store. And the weight sensor won't tare anything that ways over 200g. Which means I have to put everything not in the backpack and then fill it up afterwards, or else I need to wait for the attendant after every single item, and the attendant is generally off smoking a cigarette. At least you have a passcode. Here? No, fuck you. Every. Fucking. Item.
None of this would be that bad if someone hadn't realized that, during slow periods, they can send everyone home but the one attendant manning the self-checkout lanes, so if you don't notice on your way in you're either using the self-checkout lane, or putting your stuff back on the shelves and coming back later.
I dunno, man. a scale that runs XPSP3 maintained in a retail environment by underpaid, overworked manual laborers and has to interface with coupons, credit cards, cash, checks and EBT is gonna be a bad time just about any way you implement it. Until grocery stores start fielding in-store IT departments those stupid scanners are gonna suck.
The one I interact with is running Red Hat, they could and hopefully did arrange to administer it remotely. I say it wouldn't be that bad so long as there were actual lanes open too because then you can choose your badness; standing in line or dealing with the kiosk. If you just have a couple of things and aren't doing anything unusual like using a backpack, the kiosk might well be better than standing in line. Well, unless it's running XPSP3, which is just irresponsible for a device processing credit cards.
Similar, my store sometimes has a checkout that doesn't accept cash. Just walk away, even if you were going to use a card. If that message comes up, you'll never get past it. The attendant will try to fix it, and it might even look like they did, but it will be in vain.Yeah, please wait for the attendant after every purchase because that one has a virus that eats up all its cycles and nobody here understands computers.
This is the worst idea. So bad. This is amazon's AWS for drinking. This is so dumb so dumb. This just makes me imagine the person who thought up this restaurant conjuring ideas of how they can penny pinch all their customers.After my unfulfilling burger we went to a new bar that, through sheer luck, was also trying their hand at automation. The bar had a beer wall, 10 taps each controlled by a RFID bracelet you could rent at the bar. Your rental opens a tab and you're charged per fluid ounce, down to the 10th, of what you pour.
I had a friend who wanted to patent a system that basically enforced pours on bartenders through RFID and metering. I told him that this is exactly what is done at low-end establishments in Vegas where their turnover is measured in weeks and where their customer retention is zero.