Tablets As Restaurant Menus: Order Up!

While thumbing around for the least expensive Prepaid Phone Plans, I was shocked to find that the restaurant industry continues to see steady sales figures that are leveling off. I had the misconception that the restaurant industry was the only industry, other than health care, that was continuing to rise with this recession.

Tablets As Restaurant Menus

Although people might not be eating out as much, restaurants are still trying to find unique ways to entice customers. One of those ways is through the use of tablets. Instead of relying on the traditional paper menus, more and more restaurants from the quick and casual to the upscale steakhouses are setting up tablets as their menus. For the most part, diners love the innovative menus, because they can order fast and engage in more conversation.

Most of the research shows that the types of restaurants really relying on technology are those that allow people to build their item. These types of places include sandwich joints and pizza places.

The other main type of restaurant taking advantage of the tablet technology is upscale restaurants like steakhouses. These steakhouses are able to really show how a diner’s meat will look visually (from ultra-rare to medium well preferences). C

ustomers can then really know what they’re biting into. They can also make recommendations about what wine selections work with certain entrees. The tablets allow restaurants to use suggestive selling and up-selling to build the tickets–for each individual order.

To be quite honest though, the incorporation of the technology could turn into a big mistake. While the tablets might help people order more quickly, it’s kind of the same thing as the u-scanners at grocery stores. Once you employ any new technology, workers’ hours tend to be cut and the business does not need as many employees in general. Part of the experience of dining is receiving personal customer service from a real person—the waitress/waiter. Because there is a lack of communication elicited from the tablet to the table of diners, more order mess-ups are apt to happen.

And let’s just forget about the customers and staff for a moment, how about the expense and responsibility of having expensive tablets in restaurants. Not only can malfunctions and technological issues with the software impact diner service, but how about when the screens break or crack? And there’s the chance that when restaurants are closed, there is the risk of both internal theft and/or stealing. These are all disadvantages that could hurt restaurant sales rather than help them increase their customer base.

And what about those who cannot relate to the tablet craze? Unless your part of the generation x, yuppie, or young single generations, even the baby boomers are going to have a hard time adjusting to tablets instead of menus.

Menus help show the restaurant’s image off and give diner’s a sense of what the food is all about. I don’t know about you, but before dining in a new restaurant, glancing at a menu and the way it is organized says a lot about the kind of food they must serve.