Press the Button
June 28, 2017 7:47 AM   Subscribe

 
Relevant: Planet Money: I, Waiter
posted by R a c h e l at 7:49 AM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


> Machines, you see, don’t need to get paid or go to the hospital. And as he told Business Insider last year, “they’re always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, and there’s never a slip and fall, or an age-, sex-, or race discrimination case.”

Yes, but if you fill your restaurant FOOD PRODUCT RETAIL SERVICE ESTABLISHMENT (TM) with them you wind up with a creepy, sterile vibe that I personally find off-putting. If I want to eat a meal accompanied by a complete lack of of human interaction, I'll eat a sandwich over the sink when my wife's out of town.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:58 AM on June 28, 2017 [34 favorites]


Bleh. That sounds awful. I haven't come across this yet in any restaurant except McDonalds, and I refuse to use those electronic ordering kiosks in McDonalds. Ordering meals at a sit-down dinner this way? No thanks.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:06 AM on June 28, 2017


Confession: I eat at Chilis from time to time.

I use the kiosk to pay my bill at the end of the meal, but I don't use it to order - I find the interface to be pretty bad and overcluttered. But not having wait for the server to bring the check, take my card and do god-knows-what with it, and bring it back is definitely value-added for me.
posted by muddgirl at 8:10 AM on June 28, 2017 [17 favorites]


I haven't been to a lot of casual dining chain restaurants since these started appearing, but I did not care for them in the few that I have experience. Mainly it's the advertising. The stupid things are already earning the restaurant money hand over fist, apparently, so why do they also need to show ads?

The first thing we did is turn the screen around, but that leads to a tragedy of the commons where every table's screen is facing outward at the other tables around them. It's miserable.

I wouldn't feel too terrible about the loss of these jobs if there were something to replace them. Paying people to serve you food has always felt a bit off, a little too feudal. But I don't think our automated future is likely to offer better jobs (or a UBI) any time soon.

At some point software developers and roboticists are going to have to grapple with the ethical problems of automation. Consider fully automated long-haul trucks. If/when those arrive, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be out of work, likely with no replacement job. Is it ethical to participate in the development of such products in the absence of adequate government policies to compensate workers for the loss of their jobs? At what point does a developer have to say "I'm not going to be the one who creates a product that puts tens or hundreds of thousands of people out of work so that the rich can get even richer"?
posted by jedicus at 8:15 AM on June 28, 2017 [9 favorites]


My wife and I have done this at airports -- Toronto's international terminal has a large bar/lounge area with embedded tablets where you can browse and order and somebody brings your food over to you. It didn't seem too Jetsons this is the FUTURE or particularly sterile and inhuman at the time; I kind of appreciated the ability to just sit down, decompress, and not feel like we had to make immediate drink/food choices because somebody kept coming over to ask if we were ready to order yet.

But, I mean, I've been with my wife. So I'm interacting with a human that I've already preselected as my preferred interaction partner, above all other humans. If I were dining alone -- which almost never happens -- I might feel differently.
posted by Shepherd at 8:16 AM on June 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


I have certainly appreciated things like this in a couple of situations - ordering take-out/delivery food over the internet and when in a fast-food burger joint with the kids when there's a long line. But in a place where I can sit down and review the menu? I guess I can see the appeal from the management dollars & cents side, but yeah...I think it would kill the atmosphere. Even in a chain restaurant, good wait staff make a big difference.

I guess this where we are headed though, where only the very rich get to order food and have a human bring it to them.
posted by nubs at 8:17 AM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


The first thing we did is turn the screen around, but that leads to a tragedy of the commons where every table's screen is facing outward at the other tables around them. It's miserable.

Turn it face-down. The base usually isn't attached to anything.
posted by muddgirl at 8:17 AM on June 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


See - this is one of those areas where I feel like technology could fill a definite niche but unfortunately the way capitalist technocrats work, I have to oppose it because it's just going to be used to reduce labor costs.

Restaurant and bar staff are great at helping you navigate the menu, suggesting what's good, offering local advice if you're in a new city, and generally interjecting some levity and interesting tidbits to make your night better. I want ALL of that, and would happily pay a restaurant and tip a server for just this.

However - in restaurants or bars that are getting slammed, things like drink refills, allergies at the table, and getting the bill are a colossal problem when it's busy. I've been on both sides of it - splitting a bill, then coming back with a credit card machine, is difficult to prioritize when there's food getting worse under a heat lamp or drinks whose ice is melting. A table of 10 people can take 10 minutes to close out which sucks for the other 5 tables you might have going at that time.

Having a screen where I can order another beer or pay the bill when we're done would make dining in restaurants even more pleasurable and could make serving, which is a HARD job, a little easier. If technology was about improvement of lives and not increasing profits, this would be great stuff. However, in today's world, this kind of ad-filled garbage machine that shows up at the table at the expense of a job or two can die with fire.
posted by notorious medium at 8:21 AM on June 28, 2017 [41 favorites]


We used one at the recently-opened Red Robin near us to order apps. The person delivering the food still managed to bring us somebody else's sweet potato fries, and when we pointed that out just said "well, you can eat them anyway." The one advantage I do see in having them is the ability to pay your check and go without having to wait through the elaborate dance of doing that with a server.
posted by briank at 8:22 AM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think some of the economic issues might be different there (after all, no tips), but I noticed a lot of places we visited last year in Tokyo and Kyoto had tablet menus. Granted, we definitely didn't eat anywhere fancy and we were sitting at bars or counters a lot of the time, but I really loved not having to flag someone down for water/more food/whatever. There was selection menu for drink options, for food, even for hand wipes, and customization wasn't difficult. We probably did spend more money, too, because nobody ever took the menu away, so if we decided we wanted to try an additional thing, we could just request it, instead of flagging down a server, sending them to get a menu, poring over it, and deciding if we still wanted something or if we just wanted to leave at that point. Which just required pressing a button and taking the slip to the cashier by the door!

It's probably a taste thing. I don't usually like palling around with servers, because they have a lot of logistical stuff to handle without managing how I FEEL about my dinner, but for people who like that interaction, a tablet probably does ruin the experience. I loved them.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 8:24 AM on June 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


notorious medium: Restaurant and bar staff are great at helping you navigate the menu, suggesting what's good, offering local advice if you're in a new city, and generally interjecting some levity and interesting tidbits to make your night better. I want ALL of that, and would happily pay a restaurant and tip a server for just this.

Exactly. Also, humans are better at navigating dietary restrictions and special orders.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:24 AM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


I get the squickiness but as someone with food allergies and flavor issues, I am really thankful there's something that lets me punch in NO MAYO and I successfully get something at the table that doesn't have mayonnaise on it. Because half the dang time when I order something without mayonnaise to it--both due to digestive issues and flavor issues--I check the bun and, yep, there's a big ol' glob of it. Likewise, when I say I want it plain, that means I want it plain. Yes, that means no lettuce and tomato. Yes, I'm sure. I know, it's weird. JUST MAKE ME THE HAMBURGER LIKE I WANT IT OKAY JEEZ.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:25 AM on June 28, 2017 [11 favorites]


There are a lot of surprising numbers in that article. Thanks for sharing.
posted by heatvision at 8:27 AM on June 28, 2017


I went to a Chili's that had these. In the moment, I actually find them quite appealing... I can order what I want, when I want, and nobody is disturbing me. But having spent time in the world, I can't help but wonder what I'm giving up that I won't recognize the value of until it's too late and it is gone.

I'm reminded of growing up in a relentlessly sunny place (Texas) and then spending a winter in Montreal, never having questioned the blanket applicability of my instinct to always, always avoid sunlight. Because although human animals in fact need exposure to it, the concept of not getting enough simply didn't mean anything in Texas. In fact I was looking forward to escaping it! But after months of avoiding the sun in a place where days were significantly shorter, and my mood had become inexplicably dark and irritable, I finally realized I was missing something I'd never lacked before.

So people suck, right? They're annoying, cause all kinds of problems and hassle. So a city that functions, for the most part, without them... that would be amazing. For the first couple of years, we'd be ecstatic. Then, I suspect, a coldness would set in. Like sunlight, the friction of human interaction, both good and bad, turned out to provide a warmth I didn't recognize the value of. I'd never been without it for any length of time.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 8:27 AM on June 28, 2017 [36 favorites]


I've only encountered these in airport restaurants where, frankly, they make a lot of sense. Everyone is in a hurry and staffing tends to be inadequate anyway, so the added efficiency is a big benefit.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:33 AM on June 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


I find this automation stuff vaguely interesting because in America, McDonald's used automated kiosks as a threat to not pay workers, while in Australia, they advertised the same kiosks as creating jobs because of the staff required to fulfil custom orders. Given how infrequently the kiosks are used here, I'm guessing that a server taking your order is going to be more efficient in the long run.

People tend not to recognise that transformative technological shifts transform culture as a response. The future isn't like now but with tablet servers. The future is going to have tablet service and also how people feel about tablet service. At a guess, I'd say tablet service is going to be a marker of a low-quality restaurant; I imagine in most countries that'll be a stigma, but people still seem to eat at Denny's.
posted by Merus at 8:34 AM on June 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


At some point software developers and roboticists are going to have to grapple with the ethical problems of automation.

I'll decline to suggest that we all hold our collective breath.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:41 AM on June 28, 2017 [21 favorites]


Wawa's have had those kiosk ordering things for awhile now, and I somewhat guiltily love them, because they pander to my talking-to-humans anxieties. (See also: self-checkouts, GrubHub and grocery delivery.) I also have a lot of trouble understanding mumbled speech, or speech when there's a lot of other noise going on, so my normal pasttime of going "sorry?" while I ask some poor human to repeat themselves three times is significantly reduced. Presumably it's pretty nice on their end, too, to have a clear ticket to read with everything laid out in a specific order.

But yeah, I worry about the effect it has on jobs, and I don't know if joining the campaign for a $15 minimum wage really helps that when there are, quite possibly, just going to be fewer jobs.

(I should also note that I've only done this in takeout/quick service places, and I have no idea if I'd like it any better in even a cheap chain sit-down.)
posted by kalimac at 8:45 AM on June 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


Turn it face-down. The base usually isn't attached to anything.

In our case it was on a rotating base bolted to the table. If I can't turn it down in the future I'll probably put a napkin over it.

I guess this where we are headed though, where only the very rich get to order food and have a human bring it to them.

I think where we're headed is the (re)creation of a servant class, where labor becomes so cheap relative to the wealth of the upper class that people working 'in service' becomes common again: butlers, maids, nannies, cooks, valets, drivers, etc, all mediated through apps and the gig economy. It's depressing to contemplate.
posted by jedicus at 8:45 AM on June 28, 2017 [17 favorites]


Actually reading the article, this jumped out at me:
Besides bumping check averages, the tablets can generate revenue with game fees and display ads, which the restaurants split with the tablet companies. And once the platform is in place, it becomes a powerful tool for data collection. Thanks to the surveys that pop up after meals and records of how diners use the screens, tablet-enabled restaurants are starting to get a huge amount of new data on how their customers are thinking. The tablets also encourage customers to check in with their rewards programs—which means restaurants can start crunching the numbers for an Amazon-style prediction-and recommendation engine. “What we talk about is how to provide a better guest experience,” says John Regal, chief strategy and product officer at Ziosk. (emphasis mine)
I hope I don't have to spell out how microtransactions, advertising and data harvesting do not improve the experience of having a meal at a restaurant.
posted by Merus at 8:59 AM on June 28, 2017 [26 favorites]


Before going on long-term disability I was a developer for one of the leading manufacturers of these devices. That company isn't mentioned in the article, but some of the large customers (Wendy's, Panera) are. Those companies are throwing money at the kiosks like mad in order to reduce staffing and logistics costs, regardless of how many of their customers voice their displeasure. The bottom line for the companies is, well... their bottom line. It doesn't matter what's good for the customer or good for the business, only what's good for the budget.

I've made it a habit to stop giving my business to places that view their customers as nothing but a revenue stream, and the kiosk is a great indicator of that.
posted by ElDiabloConQueso at 9:00 AM on June 28, 2017 [15 favorites]


I'm a little conflicted about this sort of thing. I am a person who is naturally slightly uncomfortable being served, just as I naturaly slightly resent having to serve people—though I've been on both sides of that table in the past. I don't like the weird power imbalance that comes with service jobs, especially when the server relies on my tips for their daily bread. Also, the food service industry in particular is notoriously exploitative. (Plus I'm a bit of a misanthrope to begin with, so I'd just as soon not have to talk to anyone I don't know when I'm out for a meal.)

That said, waiting tables/tending bar is one of relatively few jobs out there where you can more or leas just get a job that pays a reasonable wage without requiring much in the way of prior training or certification. (I realize that you might have to work your way up and that the better-paying establishments will probably require you to have industry experience, but still the barrier to entry is relatively low.) Jobs like that are few and far between, and they fulfill a very valuable role in society—not everybody who needs a living-wage job is in a position to get a degree or do an apprenticeship or training program first.

Basically, in a world where servers had lots of other options for good jobs, I would love to see this kind of thing become widespread. In the real world though, I have mixed feelings.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:07 AM on June 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


I usually try to ignore these things but the last couple times I've been to Red Robin and Chili's and asked for a check, I got a walkthrough on how to use the kiosk thing instead (oh, I just remembered, this happened at Olive Garden as well.)
posted by jordemort at 9:13 AM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


Restaurant and bar staff are great at helping you navigate the menu, suggesting what's good, offering local advice if you're in a new city, and generally interjecting some levity and interesting tidbits to make your night better. I want ALL of that, and would happily pay a restaurant and tip a server for just this.

What you're saying can be true in some contexts, but I think that if you're hoping this is going to in any way be a significant driver in the restaurant decision-making process you're going to be sadly mistaken. For one thing, the prime locations for these kinds of on-table kiosks are the types of restaurants (chains) where there's no such thing as "local" options, and where the menus are already designed to be navigated very easily. For another, and I'm trying not to make my own personal preference the assumed default, but I honestly have never met more than a handful of people who want a waiter to interact with them other than to take orders and deliver stuff.

I mean, I'm not saying I want the waitstaff to be automatons, but nothing could make me cringe more at a restaurant than a waiter who apparently wants to have a conversation with me. No offense, I'm here for the food and the company I brought with me, not to hear your life's story.
posted by tocts at 9:19 AM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


“they’re always polite, they always upsell,

upselling ain't polite.
posted by philip-random at 9:29 AM on June 28, 2017 [11 favorites]


The games and advertising pushes coming from these devices have made visiting any so-equipped restaurant with children miserable. All they want to do is play with it.
posted by arrjay at 9:33 AM on June 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


For casual chains, this is about all about revenue enhancement turning tables (pay and leave instead of waiting for the check) and a little bit about incremental and impulse ordering. Hugely powerful if it works. The savings in cost terms are pretty low, and if people cut their tip % a bit (which isn't happening as of yet) it's more than made up by more table turns and more order volume.

For fast move, the move to self-service kiosks happened a long time -- but they built them into the registers and someone else enters your order on the kiosk you could just as easily handle and without the language and communication issues that in a lot of markets are quite significant between customers and clerks. The payoff profile is pretty amazing. A kiosk can operate about 5,000 hours a year. Figure that it enables the place to eliminate 2,500 hours of worker time (still need someone to ask questions, hand over orders), at $12/hour all in payroll costs the kiosk is worth $30,000 a year. In a $15/hour minimum wage jurisdiction all in payroll costs are more like $20/hour so that's $50,000 a year. 4 kiosks = $200,000 a year. If your technology costs for four kiosks are $20,000 a year ... that's $180,000 in incremental pre-tax profit, which is HUGE when you know store-level profit figures.
posted by MattD at 9:34 AM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


In my own experience, I've noticed that a lot of Sushi restaurants have embraced this type of technology and service. But now I'm seeing this crop up in other restaurant establishments and fast food chains as well. It's spreading very fast. Guessing its a combination of reducing employee payroll cost as well as the fact that it is also more acceptable now and people are becoming more comfortable with this style of technology.
posted by Fizz at 9:42 AM on June 28, 2017


At some point software developers and roboticists are going to have to grapple with the ethical problems of automation. Consider fully automated long-haul trucks. If/when those arrive, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be out of work, likely with no replacement job. Is it ethical to participate in the development of such products in the absence of adequate government policies to compensate workers for the loss of their jobs? At what point does a developer have to say "I'm not going to be the one who creates a product that puts tens or hundreds of thousands of people out of work so that the rich can get even richer"?

If you refuse you'll be the one out of a job since somebody else will do it. On the other hand, your automated truck is probably going to be safer for other road users, so you might be causing deaths by refusing to automate trucks, is that ethical?

Automation is on the rise and is and will kill jobs, the structure of our society is woefully unequipped to deal with this, and I don't know how it'll end but it probably won't be pretty.
posted by coust at 9:45 AM on June 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


Guess I should get a job installing and maintaining kiosks.
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:53 AM on June 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


Inamo projects the menu on to the table. The projection means you can change your 'tablecloth' watch the chefs, or play (fairly unexciting) games as well as ordering; probably the best feature is that when you're deciding what to order you can get a picture of it projected on to your actual plate.

I think the ease of ordering means you eat more.
posted by Segundus at 9:55 AM on June 28, 2017


The games and advertising pushes coming from these devices have made visiting any so-equipped restaurant with children miserable. All they want to do is play with it.

I'm willing to bet that "preoccupied children" counts as a plus for some non-zero percentage of parents.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:04 AM on June 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


I'm surprised that so many people are uncomfortable with interacting with servers. I find it so much easier to interact with a human than with a machine. You just say what you want and you're done. If you don't know what you want, they can help you decide. I frankly don't want to have to click through everything and order myself. And all things being equal, I'd rather interact with a human than not anyway. But then, I also hate self checkout machines for the same reason. Can't somebody else just ring things up for me? I didn't go shopping to be a cashier, I didn't go out to eat to be a server. I say this having spent a huge portion of my life in the service industry, too. But then, that in itself will generally knock all the shyness out of you!
posted by rue72 at 10:20 AM on June 28, 2017 [11 favorites]


I like talking to the waiters when I order food, finding out about the daily specials, what beers are on tap, what they recommend, that sort of thing. I prefer a proper menu to a screen anyways -- I find it annoying to scroll or swipe through stuff, as it takes me much longer to figure out what I want. Oh well, I rarely go to chain restaurants anyways as there aren't many in my neighbourhood.

I hate self checkout machines with one exception... IKEA, where my hatred of standing in line forever outweighs my hatred of interacting with a robot.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:29 AM on June 28, 2017


I've encountered these in airports, where I love them. Getting to sit in a comfy-ish chair by the gate where you're not going to miss announcements of flight delays or other news *and* have someone bring you beer and food without having to haul your bags with you everywhere is great.

I hate, hate, hate self checkouts everywhere else.
posted by heurtebise at 10:42 AM on June 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


...linguine di mare with sauce on the side and meatballs instead of shrimp...

You're fucking with me, right? Do you order a cheeseburger, no burger and grill the bread? That's a grilled cheese. If you want spaghetti and meatballs order it. People like this should only be served by a machine.
posted by Splunge at 10:43 AM on June 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


i assume there is a corresponding reduction in the price of the meal? what's that? no? it's all extra profit for the owner? shocked, i am shocked

i heard you city folk have self-serve beer taps now too.

I GO TO A BAR TO RELAX AND KICK BACK, NOT TO DO SOMETHING YOU OTHERWISE WOULD PAY SOMEONE TO DO YOU CAPITALIST PIG

sorry i need a beer
posted by entropicamericana at 10:44 AM on June 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


see, the problem with using tablets to input your order is that they are not connected to a trek-style replicator
posted by mwhybark at 10:53 AM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


although ... no one said it would be easy, I guess. we've all seen kirk eat those little colored tofu blocks, right?
posted by mwhybark at 10:57 AM on June 28, 2017


At some point software developers and roboticists are going to have to grapple with the ethical problems of automation.

I think this is simply wrong. As wrong as saying "At some point loom-makers and seed-drill designers are going to have to grapple with the ethical problem of automation". First off, because it ain't gonna happen. Never in a million years. Secondly, they shouldn't have to. It is not the role of individuals whose actions do no direct harm to become the moral conscience of society just because of the degree they happened to take. Thirdly, can you imagine how utterly fucked we'd be if we actually did employ that sort of meritocratic selection in our decision making?

It is the role of collectives, not individuals, to adapt society to technological change. The most important collective in that, by orders of magnitude, is government. And no, the US and the UK do not have governments capable of enacting the regulation and building the structures needed. But they didn't at the start of the Industrial Revolution, either. So instead of hoping that somehow people are going to stop automating stuff because we don't have a system that can cope, all we can do is fight the same long and arduous fights that the unions and the Chartists and the socialists and everyone else has been fighting for hundreds of years. We're living through history. It's not particularly easy, but it's not going to stop. Better to be a part of it.
posted by howfar at 11:38 AM on June 28, 2017 [14 favorites]


At some point software developers and roboticists are going to have to grapple with the ethical problems of automation.

That's not hoping to happen until five minutes after they start automating software and robotics development.

And don't say it won't happen. It's already being worked on using things like machine learning. And oh, it will be glorious to listen to the reactions of programmers when they find their jobs on the firing line.
posted by happyroach at 11:39 AM on June 28, 2017


And oh, it will be glorious to listen to the reactions of programmers when they find their jobs on the firing line.

A+ solidarity
posted by The Gaffer at 11:41 AM on June 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


I usually try to ignore these things but the last couple times I've been to Red Robin and Chili's and asked for a check, I got a walkthrough on how to use the kiosk thing instead (oh, I just remembered, this happened at Olive Garden as well.)

Explain to them that you just want to make sure that your tip goes to the kiosk itself, not any humans, and ask if it prefers being tipped in RAM or storage.
posted by delfin at 11:42 AM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


However, in today's world, this kind of ad-filled garbage machine that shows up at the table at the expense of a job or two can die with fire

I saw a demo of Noodoe at the NRA show, I think this is a nicer calmer way of interacting with staff without the obnoxious screen in the way. It's a little cube you place on the table with your request (check, service, water, etc) facing up.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:45 AM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Explain to them that you just want to make sure that your tip goes to the kiosk itself, not any humans, and ask if it prefers being tipped in RAM or storage.

I'm suddenly reminded of older episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where Joel would reward Crow and Servo with RAM chips when they did what he wanted.
posted by Servo5678 at 11:55 AM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I find it so much easier to interact with a human than with a machine. You just say what you want and you're done. If you don't know what you want, they can help you decide. I frankly don't want to have to click through everything and order myself.

But... You already have to read the menu to decide what you want. The tablets I've encountered are the same as reading the menu, except once you decide what you want, you tap on it and you're done. Rather than waiting for the server to come around (could be five minutes or more), remembering what you wanted (if you leave your menu open, the server might not stop), and hoping they heard you right and wrote it down correctly. Except in cases where you have questions or need modifications, I can't see how ordering from a human after reading off of a menu can be in any way easier than just making the menu interactive and ordering from there.
posted by primethyme at 12:05 PM on June 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


...and if there are any disputes, they can simply call up the recorded audio/video.
Oops, I spilled my water on it.
posted by DesbaratsDays at 12:07 PM on June 28, 2017


Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) opened a restaurant in Mountain View that had screens in front of each person for ordering and then playing games.

I took my kids, and in the middle of us entering our orders, my younger son pressed the 'order finished' button, causing much confusion and lots of wasted time for the waiter to clean up the ordering mess (he showed up when we pressed the 'help us we messed up' button). He seemed to be used to it though. The restuarant closed soon afterwards.

I've seen the kiosks in a fast food restaurant, but my kids are picky eaters, so it is just so much easier to just tell the guy what we want. Everyone else we saw come into the restaurant skipped the kiosks too, so I have a feeling that any chain that tries to go all-out kiosk ordering is going to be at a disadvantage.

I've said it before, where we really ought to put in automation, and where you can save the really big bucks, is middle management. We can start with those short-sighted fools trying to get bonuses by pushing these kiosks as a way of avoiding small increases in minimum wage pay.
posted by eye of newt at 12:30 PM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oops, I spilled my water on it.

Surely these things were designed to be food- and beverage-proof? It'd be monumentally foolish not to consider that right from the start.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:34 PM on June 28, 2017


I am just cringing a bit at the hygiene implications.
posted by Samizdata at 12:51 PM on June 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


You can wipe down a tablet just as much as you can wipe down a menu. I'm pretty sure they aren't putting those faux-leather folder menus into the dishwasher.
posted by Pyry at 1:03 PM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Waiter, is there any soup on the menu?"

"There was, ma'am, but I wiped it off."
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:07 PM on June 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


I've said it before, where we really ought to put in automation, and where you can save the really big bucks, is middle management.

I am kind of mediocre at basic human interactions and prefer to use self-checkouts and kiosks wherever possible, but it turns out that the possibility of having our department's monthly meetings replaced with a robotic summary of events, updates, and anniversaries is the beautiful future I've really been searching for all along. My god, and we wouldn't need to do performance evaluations! It's too beautiful to contemplate.
posted by Copronymus at 1:09 PM on June 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


These are becoming more common in LA, and I generally like them as a customer. Less pressure to order in a particular timeframe, less issues with language (useful for my wife, who still finds it difficult to be understood in English by servers/cashiers even though her actual vocab/grammar is fine). And of course my social anxiety really appreciates it.

It would be better for society if we could divorce these choices from the jobs/income issue (basic income or w/e, so having a job and being able to live are not the same thing). Not just here but in every field.

These are not even remotely new -- they are basically the same as the more old-school version you see in Tokyo at ramen/soba/etc shops, where you buy a ticket for a particular food item and hand it to the person behind the counter. New to America, I guess, as I haven't seen the other style here before but the tablet-y version is becoming common.
posted by thefoxgod at 1:10 PM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh yay, another thread about how those evil purveyors of electric lighting are putting good, honest candle makers out of business!

The whole notion of "destroying jobs" is a real coup of capitalist propaganda. It rests on the assumption that eliminating the need for tedious labor is inextricably linked with driving people into poverty, but it's capitalism that creates this situation by ensuring that the benefits of automation accrue only to the ownership class. If the benefits were shared more equitably, automation would be a net win for everyone, including the people whose jobs are eliminated.
posted by shponglespore at 1:11 PM on June 28, 2017 [6 favorites]



If the benefits were shared more equitably, automation would be a net win for everyone, including the people whose jobs are eliminated.

yes, well, if that were to ever happen, i think many of us would not mind automation
posted by entropicamericana at 1:22 PM on June 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


Capitalism is no more an argument against automation than war is an argument against whetstones.
posted by howfar at 1:24 PM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Scroll up a bit. :)
posted by Splunge at 2:44 PM on June 28, 2017


This sounds like a genius technology for airports, where everyone is tired and stressed and any moment of efficiency is purely good. But it sounds kind of awful at a restaurant. I've seen the kiosk things at McDonalds, but I've never seen someone using them. Otherwise I haven't been in a restaurant that uses this technology.

I agree with the people guessing that this will mostly turn into a class marker, where the "quick serve restaurants" all get automated and people who can afford $18 hamburgers at the local place get personal service.

Though there seems to be some experimentation going on with less clear boundaries, also -- two different McDonalds I stopped at a couple of months ago both surprised me by having table service. You order and pay at the counter, but then they bring out your tray. I wasn't the only person confused, since it wasn't what one expected at a freeway exit place.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:33 PM on June 28, 2017


I don't know, in LA it's mostly the fast but expensive places that use this kind of thing (like the $15 ramen place, comparable to the $18 burger example). That may just be because they tend to make up the majority of new restaurants, though.

At fast food places this seems especially nice, as you avoid communication issues and generally have reduced wait time (easy to keep a bunch of these open even when restaurant isn't expected to be busy and might otherwise only have one person taking orders) and you're not expecting fancy table service anyway. The only cheaper place I've seen them at is McDonald's as well, and it worked pretty well there (and seemed popular).
posted by thefoxgod at 6:57 PM on June 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Last time I was in the US (Rochester, NY), I was appalled at the number of screens per bar/restaurant. When the people I worked with in Rochester came to visit us in Belgium, they were pleasantly surprised at the lack of screens everywhere. When told that using your smartphone in a restaurant is considered to be a bit rude (it's something most people tend to do apologetically), they wanted to come live here. Dining and drinking are still social activities; we eat out more for the experience than out of of necessity (such as having no time to cook, not enough room, ...).

So I think tablets won't be replacing waiters here soon (but then you never know how fast things can go of course).
posted by Captain Fetid at 11:57 PM on June 28, 2017


THe main problem I've had with the tablet or touch screen ordering (I've only experienced it at a McDonalds) is that I've always been too drunk to properly understand how to order. I'm in a McD's I'm going to be drunk and so are all the other people in the place as well. I've never been in a McD's sober since well before touchscreens were a thing and their UI/UX certainly isn't intuitive. It could be if it had a drunk mode where it was literally a picture of a list of burgers and a checklist of addons, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to oder a McChicken with fries and a drink that I gave up and just ordered from the counter. Literally the thing should have been one button followed by a question of if you wanted it as a meal/ supersize me whatever, but instead I got bogged down in questions of lettuce and sauce and upselling bacon and whatnot.
posted by koolkat at 2:09 AM on June 29, 2017


I've never been in a McD's sober since well before touchscreens were a thing

Maybe you should give it a try once
posted by thelonius at 2:41 AM on June 29, 2017


Maybe you should give it a try once

I've been in a McD's once in the last 11 years. I'm good, just was slightly frustrated by the touchscreen experience.
posted by koolkat at 3:15 AM on June 29, 2017


I always appreciate good wait staff. So, I don't see all wait staff going away as a desirable end.

Sometimes, I just want to sit-order-eat with little interaction, just want the food without all the trappings.
posted by filtergik at 3:24 AM on June 29, 2017


Ugh, put me down as one of the people for whom this does NOT improve my airport eating experience. All the ads and splash screens and the inability to just hit a button and turn the screen off are awful. And on top of that, the menus on these things are usually super nested, which means I can't glance over the whole thing like I would a physical printed object to make my food decision. Instead I have to go to food>sandwiches>burgers to look at the burgers, then back out to other sandwiches, then go up to food again and click on entrees, look at the entrees. But wait, maybe there's a small entree sized appetizer or salad I'd like to eat! Ok, back to food and click on appetizers. I have to click on a picture of each appetizer to read the description, which I want to do because I guarantee that picture is a stock photo and not something that came out of this kitchen. And then when I want to order a drink I have to back all the way out and scroll through the drinks, which are not clearly lableled as draft beer vs botttles half of the time. If the draft list switches up, it may or may not be up to date in the e-menu.

I used one of these systems to order an old fashioned in DCA and it was brought to me topped off with seltzer water, and when I tried to flag someone down to ask them what the fuck they just handed me, they immediately launched into a spiel about how I could use the goddamn tablet to, I dunno, order another sorry excuse for a drink?

And then after I finally got a less disgusting still not an old fashioned, I had to summon another live human to figure out how to charge food and drinks to separate tabs so that I could submit them for expense reinbursement. Something the system definitely wasn't set up to do, and instead required me closing and paying the drink tab. If I had wanted another drink (ha!), I'd have then had to close my food tab, pay it, and then open a new drink tab. All of which involved like 5 extraneous splash screens with games and ads and all that crap.

I can imagine a version of these devices that doesn't make me so angry, but the current implementations I've encountered are everything I hate about technology making things "more efficient," but only for the business.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:21 AM on June 29, 2017 [3 favorites]


These are showing up in Sydney in some of the izakaya-type cafes where everyone piles in at once for a drink and a light meal. I love them. By far the best feature is that the language on the menus can be switched, so if you're dining with friends and/or colleagues for whom English is maybe not a primary language they can order with more confidence.

At the end of the day a bad restaurant is a bad restaurant. I fucking hate sushi trains but I have to concede that having food trundle past on a little conveyor belt doesn't make it bad food. Those sins are committed elsewhere.
posted by um at 6:49 AM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


I want to add that these things change the way you normally approach dining. I don't know if this is universal but in most restaurants I've felt you need to have your game plan more-or-less worked out in advance so you can make the most of your (typically infrequent) interactions with the server. That isn't true when you order using a tablet: maybe you decide to start with a beer and some dumplings, realize afterward you're still hungry and just keep ordering. When you're full, and sufficiently drunk, you stop ordering. You don't have to keep flagging down a server, or ask for a dessert menu that you may or may not order from. It feels like less pressure, and consequently more enjoyable.
posted by um at 7:01 AM on June 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


I've never been in a McD's sober since well before touchscreens were a thing

Maybe you should give it a try once


are there still adults who go to McDonald's sober? Knowing everything we now know.
posted by philip-random at 8:41 AM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


We sat down in an airport restaurant recently. Nobody seated us, we simply grabbed the one table that opened up as we waited. Busy busy busy -- O woe! How shall we ever attract the attention of a server before and after the meal and get out of here in time to make our flight?

There was no tablet nor touchscreen, rather a small metal box attached by a cable. It had but three buttons:
(O) We're ready to order.
(O) We're ready to pay.
(O) Cancel.

The system -- signaling, human, paper -- worked perfectly.

If only the food had measured up.
 
posted by Herodios at 9:00 AM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


> Capitalism is no more an argument against automation than war is an argument against whetstones.

Whetstones can be used to sharpen swords and sythes alike, and would exist outside any call for war. However capitalism, more specifically, the naked American brand, has virtually no social safety net, so any unemployment under the system represents people going hungry, and sleeping on streets after they've gone through family and any savings, unemployed; forgotten.

The argument for automation under capitalism is always that there will be new jobs, or maybe not, but fundamentally it is capitalism that makes us care about jobs at all. If I didn't need my job to make rent and put food on the table; if the same went for everybody, putting people out of a job and giving them leisure time would be society's highest calling. As it stands, we can laugh at programmers when their job is automated too. I'd rather a social safety net that didn't rely on being born to rich parents.

Back to the article and question at hand though. Inherent in the name, fast food restaurants are about speed, so having tablets, or better yet, a smartphone app to expedite ordering only makes sense, especially when you just want to grab something real quick from Starbucks or McDonalds or otherwise. There's nothing worse than running late and dashing into a coffee shop to find a huge line.

It seems a bit weird at casual dining, but it was inevitable just like every relationship starts "let's never be those people" seeing a bored couple play with their own phones over dinner, not talking.

We live in a world where casual dining businesses are fighting tooth and nail against a hike of minimum wage all the up to staggering amount of $15/hour. Meanwhile we've seen computer viruses WannaCry and NotPetya being used as an attack between two nations with a significant amount of collateral damage, and the most advanced defense we have against this is to write on the whiteboard in the lobby. Maybe a properly funded IT department, not overburdened by regulation (or maybe not enough) could have protected against this attack, or maybe that's the embodiment of the no true Scotsman fallacy. My question is then, do the restaurants really know what they're getting into?

A tablet at the table is fun, a lark for now, but much like hospitals can't run without computers these days, once restaurant staffing levels go lower due to tablets making up the difference, it's one thing to fire the one annoying kid making minimum wage that argues about everything when there's plenty more choices, it's another thing to negotiate with the single company that basically runs your whole restaurant, and will costs millions to replace. If Ziosk and Presto Tablets are shrewd, they'll have a remote disable functionality they can trigger if Chillis doesn't pay up.

(On preview: McDonalds, by the way, did 24 billion dollars in revenue for 2016. I'm happy some people have the choice of better options these days, but plenty of people still eat there.)
posted by fragmede at 9:30 AM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


This may start at the level of Chilis and Red Robin, but the automation of placing orders is making it's way into the Fine Casual restaurant world as well. All the ambiance of McDonalds, plus real plates, glass, & tableware.

Eventually, a human server taking your order will be one of those things only the high-end, $$$-rating-on-Yelp joints will offer (and charge for accordingly) as a status signifiers.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 9:50 AM on June 29, 2017


Whetstones can be used to sharpen swords and sythes alike, and would exist outside any call for war.

That's rather my point. I think we're probably agreeing. Automation can be used to make either naked exploitation or luxury communism a reality, and worrying about automation, rather than the systems that use it, is precisely analogous, in my view, to worrying about whetstones rather than militarism. Automation certainly sharpens our focus on what is wrong with our systems, but...as Marx has it in Capital, "It took both time and experience before the workers learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and therefore to transfer their attacks from the material instruments of production to the form of society which utilizes these instruments." Hopefully we can learn from the confusions of the past, and distinguish more clearly than some of our predecessors in this struggle.
posted by howfar at 10:16 AM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've seen these tested at a few different fast food restaurants over the last couple of years and they don't seem to last. The expectation is that the customer is just as good as the cashier, and on top of that using an interface that the customer is not able to get familiar with like an employee would. I've been at a Jack-in-the-box that was testing one of these and you were NOT ALLOWED TO ORDER THROUGH THE CASHIER! The cashier's new job was to walk people through their order on the kiosk. And the interface was just terrible. I got stuck behind a guy buying a dozen breakfast jacks but there's no way to input the quantity. So he'd go through the process of getting one, adding it to the cart, taken back to home screen, rinse & repeat 11 more times.

And I can just imagine how terrible it's got to be for the line cooks. To take McDonald's as an example, there's a generally accepted way to customize orders. If someone orders a mcdouble without onions, the cashier is going to say "no onions", not "only mustard ketchup pickles". People will place their orders in the dumbest way possible, not because they're dumb, but because everyone is different and everyone sees how to do a task in a different light.
posted by LizBoBiz at 10:35 AM on June 29, 2017


There was no tablet nor touchscreen, rather a small metal box attached by a cable. It had but three buttons:
(O) We're ready to order.
(O) We're ready to pay.
(O) Cancel.


So I'm guessing you click "ready to order", then eat the food, then click "cancel".

Right?
posted by walrus at 2:33 PM on June 29, 2017


I fucking hate sushi trains but I have to concede that having food trundle past on a little conveyor belt doesn't make it bad food.

Oh man, you'd really hate the places where they have a literal model train carrying plates of sushi round and round.
posted by wierdo at 2:58 PM on June 29, 2017


Oh yeah, these systems are amazing at sushi/izakaya type places in Japan. Of course, there you're used to summoning a waiter rather than waiting for them to decide to show up anyway (so its a little less annoying to order additional food than in the US) but being able to sort of lazily browse over it and click to order more food as you go along is wonderful. I wish it was more common here.

That said, I'd take the "summon waiter" buttons as a second choice. Still have a waiter, but no long waits for the check or trying desperately to make eye contact, etc. That + pay at a checkout/counter station vs pay at table are two things I love about dining in Japan.
posted by thefoxgod at 3:13 PM on June 29, 2017


We go to our local Chili's about once a week. Ever since we moved to Orlando we've become friends with the staff and management there. Even went to the wedding of two bartenders. We sit at the bar, drink and talk, then eat. They have the little screens. We never use them for ordering, they take care of that. We have played games on them when it's slow. You're supposed to pay a buck or two for the games but they waive that. Just some anecdata.
posted by Splunge at 3:16 PM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


jedicus: “At some point software developers and roboticists are going to have to grapple with the ethical problems of automation. ”
I had a client who asked me to make it so she just had to click a button and all her work would be done automatically. You should have seen her eyes when I told her that if I did that, her boss could automate clicking the button. After that, she and the others in her department asked me to automate collecting the metrics by which their bonuses were calculated instead.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:40 PM on June 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


We should eliminate jobs that suck, including food service jobs, so doing so is good ethically. That said, there are huge risks to the restaurant if they cut down on the human interaction side because eventually we will all start making sandwiches and picnicking in the park, like folks already do in Switzerland. Restaurants should automate the cooking, cleaning, etc.

Also, you should never use applications like this that run on your own phone because if you do then your health insurance company will learn what you eat, and eventually use that information to weasel out of paying for your heart attack, cancer, etc. I'd recommend paying in cash if you use one runs by the restaurant like this.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:48 AM on June 30, 2017


Also, you should never use applications like this that run on your own phone because if you do then your health insurance company will learn what you eat, and eventually use that information to weasel out of paying for your heart attack, cancer, etc.

That this seems like madness to anyone in the developed world outside the US is actually a great example of why it's capitalism and unregulated markets that suck, not automation.
posted by howfar at 2:18 PM on July 5, 2017 [1 favorite]


« Older Which group is protected from hate speech? The...   |   It's easier to get into a war than get out of one. Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments