Tablets at restaurants: Applebee's, Chili's race to eliminate human interaction

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/12/03/tablets_at_restaurants_applebee_s_chili_s_race_to_eliminate_human_interaction.html

by robg • 13 years ago

32 51 13 years ago

slate.com

pirateking• 13 years ago

And it is only a matter of time until McDonalds is effectively a brick and mortar sized 3D printer of food-like compounds with a Siri interface...

seanmcdirmid• 13 years ago

Vending restaurants are already pervasive in Japan. There might still be a human cook involved, but you order with coins at a machine.

Larrikin• 13 years ago

Personally I think its great most of the time. Human interaction should still be an option, especially when it comes to specialty orders. I always felt something like this could work well at places that have a lunch rush in America. A string of machines that don't accept substitutions and only credit cards, along with a line for people who want a human to take their order.

jessaustin2• 13 years ago

It has been a few years, but my impression of the coin-operated stand-up ramen shops I frequented in Tokyo was that the cook and cook's assistant were the only people working there, and they often had no time to spare dealing with money. If labor costs must be reduced, it seems better to cut the cashier than the cook.

judk2• 13 years ago

This was called automat in the USA, popular in the 1970s.

jrs99• 13 years ago

how about an app and a drone that dips a fry into ketchup and drops it into your mouth.

jjwiseman• 13 years ago

Software matters. Here's a historic record of my attempt to eat at uWink, Nolan Bushnell's touchscreen restaurant: http://lemonodor.com/archives/2008/05/uwink_a_cold_greasy_pl...

willidiots• 13 years ago

I ate at the Mtn View uWink a few times before it died; it seemed to suffer from a few procedural issues:

* People didn't understand how to use the tablets, so you needed staff to explain things to them.

* Certain things (like drink refills) that are high-frequency are easier handled by human intervention, than by calling up the "order refill" option and waiting for someone to appear

* Food was expensive (presumably to account for the cost of POS systems plus a full staff) and not great (not really an issue for Applebee's / Chili's as they've made an empire out of mediocre food)

* As mentioned above, a fair share of software glitches - so you need IT support in addition to kitchen / service staff.

It didn't really seem to solve a problem - you replaced the customer-staff interaction with a customer-staff-computer-staff interaction.

I'd like the ability to page my server, but that's about it.

gallerytungsten• 13 years ago

These restaurants have already eliminated cooks, so this move isn't all that surprising. In case you didn't know, most "food" at chain restaurants is prepared in advance, sealed in pouches, and re-heated via microwave. In other words, expensive leftovers.

saraid216• 13 years ago

Is the food prepared by machine, too?

RickHull2• 13 years ago

Industrial-level automation, yes.

joezydeco5• 13 years ago

They also employ techniques like sous-vide cooking (temperature-controlled immersion bath) which eliminate a huge amount of health and safety issues in busy kitchens. Almost every restaurant, from Michelin-starred chefs to the lowly Taco Bell to the beloved Chipotle stores use this production method among others.

Okay, you don't like the food. But there's nothing wrong with how it's made.

rbranson• 13 years ago

I know Chipotle uses immersion circulators, but the scale of their use is a far cry from "almost every restaurant." Taco Bell most certainly does not use immersion circulators.

pbreit2• 13 years ago

I'm probably naive but that doesn't sound true. I've seen that kind of thing at McDonalds, et Al, but not "fast casual" like the subjects of this thread.

judk2• 13 years ago

Sysco.com sells factory-produced food for small restaurant businesses. Large businesses have their own in a company version.

pwim• 13 years ago

As these machines gain prevalence in America, maybe it will end the tipping culture. By placing an order through a machine, perhaps patrons won't feel obligated to leave a tip.

jessaustin2• 13 years ago

For whom would a tip be left?

tjr• 13 years ago

The software developers? :-)

nextw33k2• 13 years ago

The person that cleaned the table, the person that brought you your food, the person that fetched you a new fork because you stopped one, the person that pointed the way to the restroom, the person who asked if everything was to your liking.

mmuro• 13 years ago

A different article I read said that tips actually went up.

The system doesn't eliminate human interaction, it just streamlines certain things. Eliminating paper marketing for drinks and desserts could end up saving them a lot of money.

RickHull2• 13 years ago

And so on, and so forth, as minimum wage proponents seek to end all opportunity for unskilled workers.

dualogy• 13 years ago

A tablet costs perhaps $200 a year.. (replace a cheap one every year or a pricier one every 2-3 years) --- really not sure what "wage" you had in mind there..

optimusclimb• 13 years ago

Would you truly prefer to go to a bank branch/human teller over an ATM for cash?

meddlepal• 13 years ago

For cash, no. For any other type of transaction I prefer it.

yetanotherphd• 13 years ago

I don't think minimum wage is really in important issue. If a person is really worth less than the minimum wage, there are plenty of ways to get around the restriction.

Just as raising the minimum wage isn't the silver bullet that it's proponents claim, neither is lowering or eliminating it.

yk2• 13 years ago

Quick back off the envelope:

    100 Tablets ~ $10k

Guessing that this is roughly the number of seats a waiter can wait, this leaves a few thousand dollars for an automated delivery system per year. ( I hope something that involves a catapult.)

PeterisP• 13 years ago

A single waiter for a hundred seats ?? Thats an order of magnitude mismatch; a 100 seat venue needs a bunch of waiters, and every "waiter needed" means multiple waiters working in shifts because most waiters don't work 12 hours per day 7 days per week.

yk2• 13 years ago

Probably, I have next to no idea how many waiters are needed. So I took a number where I am quite certain that I overestimate. So with realistic numbers, the situation looks certainly worse for waiters.

proee• 13 years ago

Arby's tried this sort of ordering system back in the 90's. They had a touch screen CRTs at the point of sale. Customers placed orders by choosing from an on-screen menu. The system was setup to where an Arby's employee stood behind the machine, waiting for you to finish the order. There was no communication with this employee and so it made for quite an awkward experience.

The system only lasted for a few months and they went back to taking orders using traditional methods.

Here's a link to the system Arby's used..

http://www.quirks.com/articles/a1991/19910602.aspx

sanskritabelt• 13 years ago

I've seen plenty of gas station restaurants use a touch screen to order, it works fine except there's a high risk of eating gas station restaurant food afterwards.

jchendy• 13 years ago

Airports too. This is at JFK. http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/jetblue-cibo-express-foodcour...

pkboy• 13 years ago

They still need people to take the food from the kitchen to the table, or will they make drones for that?

pbreit2• 13 years ago

My favorite fast food ordering innovation was routing all drive through orders to a call center in Utah or somewhere.

joseph_cooney• 13 years ago

There is a Japanese restaurant not far from me that uses a system like this. Your table/booth has an ipad you place orders on. Staff bring out the food to your table. You walk out at the end and pay. It worked really well.

jgamman• 13 years ago

who would want to dine at a place like this? and i use the word 'dine' vs 'eat' on purpose. if you think of food as fuel then this makes sense. if you enjoy dining out, this is a huge step backwards. bring on the franchise wars - i wonder if taco bell will actually win... (bonus points for naming that mostly bad 80s movie)

mark-r• 13 years ago

Our local Chili's has had this system for a while now. It hasn't reduced our interactions with the waitron, we still order and pay our bill face to face. If anything it has increased their load as the kids keep badgering them for an extra console or for help when one locks up.

jcampbell1• 13 years ago

I like this idea. In China, there is a Japanese owned Italian join called "Saizeriya". They have call buttons for the servers who had palm pilots to send the orders to the kitchen. It was insanely efficient, and they passed the savings on to the customers. It was a sit-down a la carte experience with fast food pricing. I'd call it Walmart meets the Olive Garden.

I am not sure where tablet ordering makes sense:

It would move fast food upscale, and not really increase cost.

From a service experience, it is about the same as a diner where you pay on exit.

It is a service downgrade for Applebee's / Chili's where it is common to customize orders.

I had my first experience with tablet ordering in the US at an airport bar. It was great. Rather than worrying about paying the bill in time, it was pre-pay and I chatted with the bar tender instead of exchanging credit card paperwork.

nextw33k2• 13 years ago

The order taking part has always been error prone, I would have thought that a fast food chain like McDonalds would have been first for this, their queue-order-collect system seemed more streamlined and ready for a pre-order by mobile system.

Tablets at restaurants: Applebee's, Chili's race to eliminate human interaction

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