When you think about a burger joint, you think fries, ketchup, and grease, but soon you'll have to add iPad to the list. Stacked: Food Well Built, a chain of three restaurants opening in Southern California serving burgers, pizza, and salad, will have iPads on each of their 60 tables.
On the iPad, which will be affixed in a steel frame on a pedestal three inches above the table, you'll be able to create your own specialty burger and watch the ingredients pile on to the virtual bun. Same with the pizzas and salads. Best part is that once you're done, you can pay using the iPad then skedaddle. No waiting for the waiters to bring your check, which is a total pet peeve of mine.
Less human interaction at a restaurant? Now this is an idea I can get behind.
I hate dealing with waitstaff. It just seems so ... unnecessary. I've thought for a long time about electronic menus and credit card swipers at the table, so I'm super happy to see the iPads being used this way.
Soon there will be a generation going to restaurants that hasn't lived in a world without the iPad, so eateries have some catching up to do. I want to rub my greasy mustard-stained fingertips all over a screen and place my order myself and pay for it when I want. And I don't think I'm alone in that dream.
I don't know what this means for the service industry in terms of computers replacing jobs. We'll still need busboys and waiters to bring us the food (unless we get up ourselves?) so a 20% tip may seem a little high for someone not doing much more work than we, the customers.
Maybe restaurants with iPads will attract more people, thereby making more money, and able to pay their staff higher than the $2.30 an hour (am I dating myself there? that's what it was when I was a waitress). But as technology takes over, there will be more demands for jobs in that industry. Instead of waitressing during your summers in college, you can assemble touch pads.
All I can say is yes yes yes to iPads in restaurants. Next stop, schools!
What's your take?
Photo via Ben Atkin/Flickr
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Comments 17
This just saddens me. Four of my closest friends are waitstaff. And they work their asses off to make sure your dinning experiences are as pleasant as can be. I'd hate to see them lose their jobs to an iPad. Besides, Apple has enough money as it is. Sally The Waitress deserves the money from taking an order more than they do.
That just seems really sad to me. :(
I don't believe this is going to be a good thing in the end. Computers are taking all the jobs away.
no, we need more jobs not less!! yeah it sounds like a nice idea, but im sure its a sucky one for those who try and make a living taking orders and bringing people their food.
I can see both sides... as someone who would love the interaction of building my meal on a technological device I'll probably never buy but seems so fun, and the fact that I have absolutely nothing against wait staff. I'm also not a fan of a possible job loss either.
I don't know about you guys, but I like to go out to eat so I don't have to do anything. It's nice to have someone else prepare and bring me food and drink and then I get to leave the dishes and go. It does get annoying sometimes having to wait for the check if the server is super busy, but that can be remedied by putting a payment machine thingy on the table and that's the end of it. Servers have a job for a reason. We need that human interaction. If this is limited to fast food, I won't complain. If it goes to sit down only places, I will boycott the heck out of it.
Oh yeah....lets allow MORE citizens to lose their jobs to machines. Those citizens can't possibly have families to look care for or anything. There are more servers than not who bust their butts to do their job correctly, earn their paycheck and try to make your dining experience as pleasant as possible.
What a ridiculous and offensive idea.