And there lies perhaps the biggest danger when you’re considering a move toward installing tableside technology in a restaurant: losing these less obvious, but emotionally crucial, parts of the waiter role.
Another danger is that the implementation will be off-brand and off-putting. There is a 4-ish star steakhouse with locations in several U.S. cities (think: "Morton’s but regional") whose black-clad, iPad-based menu opens on Page One with cheesy Comic Sans electronic discount coupons and two-for-one offers. Maybe this doesn’t put you off your feed, but it did me, and I doubt that I’m alone. Which means that all the effort the restaurant had put into properly costuming the waiters, gussying up the dining room, sending its sommelier on vineyard junkets, teaching the waiters how crumb down the white tablecloths (and buying all those silver table crumbers) went down the drain with that one, ridiculously off-brand, choice. Folks: Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should do it; before you deploy any tableside technology, make sure that every single part of the deployment fits your brand, or at least fits your brand as you want it to be perceived in the future.
Tammy Mastroberte in her article "Whats new in POS Hardware in 2014" highlights the importance of a proper POS system for restaurants and presents the offerings of major POS manufacturing companies for the year. It was highlighted that 33% of a restaurant's technology budget went into selecting the right POS thus showing its importance to the sector. The importance of the traditional POS infrastructure was highlighted but it was also noted that new trends have come on stream to help improve service the major one being mobility. As noted by ED Beck CIO of technology at the National Restaurant Associaiton, " There is a lot you can do with a mobile that you could not do with the traditional POS." Because of this many of the traditional systems are being upgraded to include the ability to transit from fixed to mobile thus improving service provided.
