Waiterless Restaurants?

Can you ask the tablet if the fish is fresh this week?

Just think how cheap dining out will become. Reduced waitstaff for the restaurant, higher table turnover because people wont have to wait for anything, and I cant really think of a good way of tipping a tablet. The waitstaff isn't really waitstaffing anymore. Their job basically becomes bussing tables.

It turns a treat of eating out into a fast food excursion. Bletch!

Anyone give any thought to the security of their wireless network and the tablets? I can think of a few nasty tricks that would deliver an electronic copy of each transaction to my own wireless device of even encrypt and compress the data and put it out on the Internet for me to retrieve at my leisure.

About ten years ago Best Buy discovered that their brand new cash registers were broadcasting financial transactions over 802.11 networks in the open. Minor details like credit card numbers, card holder names, expiration dates, and authorizations codes.

I wonder how you would conduct a cash transaction in an establishment that takes your order and payment over a wireless network. What's next? You place your order at the table and the tablet lets you know when it's ready and what window to go to to pick it up?

I don't see it flying on the 285 corridor. One of the reasons we go out to restaurants to eat is the human contact.

pacamom wrote: Just think how cheap dining out will become. Reduced waitstaff for the restaurant, higher table turnover because people wont have to wait for anything, and I cant really think of a good way of tipping a tablet. The waitstaff isn't really waitstaffing anymore. Their job basically becomes bussing tables.

Dining won't become any cheaper. The restaurants might see an increase in profits due to lower overhead but my wallet won't.

Prefer automated checkout at grocers. Faster and I don't have to listen to some clerk ask me stupid questions about why I am on crutches or walker or whatever. I get immediate attention if anything goes wrong at automated checkout too.

As for restaurants, works for me. More time to talk and share with family than have interruptions by someone who really doesn't want to be there taking an order and getting it wrong.

homeagain wrote: I will NOT use automated check out at the grocery store, for the same reason I would NOT
dine at a waiterless restaurant.....I try NOT to be a participant in the replacement of a human
being's job.....jobs are hard to come by as it is.....JMO

This idea is nothing new. The Automats of Philadelphia and New York were in business a LONG time ago. There were counter you sat at after going to a wall of small vending slots where you could order different items al-la-carte. Much like the cold food vending machines you've probably seen now a days.

1902 - 1991 (and there are new one now opening again)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

And here is an automatic sushi bar at Heathrow airport. Just a cashier and sushi cooks, the sushi is displayed and delivered by a conveyor set up. I saw this for the first time on my recent trip to Prague.

Click on picture for a larger image
[thumbnailpop:3hfbsppq] newton.acrossthebow.com/sushi_heathrow.jpg [/thumbnailpop:3hfbsppq]

And my step daughter says she has seen this set up in Denver.

I used to eat here..

http://www.thechoochoo.com/index.html