Guacamole-Proof Point Of Sale
posted by Sean Deuby on May 16, 2007
Most people get dressed up for Mother’s day and take Mom to brunch. We donned cycling shorts and rode to a Tex-Mex restaurant at the other end of the bike trail. Nothing like a good ride to give you the illusion you deserve a big quesadilla, rice, and beans. (And nothing like a recumbent bicycle to get you a few extra looks.) At the restaurant I encountered some wearable IT I hadn’t seen before.
Our waiter had a wireless tablet device slung over one shoulder and a portable printer on his waist, similar to what you may encounter at a rental car drop-off station. This particular device could do just about everything : Take orders, check status, total the bill, print it, and even pay it (credit cards only; he didn’t have a cash drawer dangling from it) - all from his waist. He said that though there was a lot of resistance from the wait staff to using them at first, he personally liked it a lot.
On reflection, I’m not so sure I think the ability to pay your bill right at the table is a great idea from the customer’s point of view. On one hand, it’s faster if the customer’s in a hurry. On the other hand, I think that the waitperson standing there finishing up the bill, running your card, and printing the bill out kind of detracts from the restaurant’s ambience. Plus, you wouldn’t get the little mints on the tray like when they ring it up in the back.
In any event, the credit card reader wasn’t working so he was back to pad and pen. I suspect the engineers that originally designed the magnetic strip reader never tested it in a guacamole-rich environment.
Now if they could just figure out how to put the restaurant waitlist online and publish the estimated wait time to the franchise’s website on each location’s page. I’m sure check it before going out on a weekend night. Would you?
Comments (4) (closed)
tagged: guacamole, IT, point of sale, tablet PC
Comments
May 16 | Srikanth said:
sounds cool. I don’t mind paying at the table if he goes off the table while I writing a tip and signing the receipt.
May 16 | Kriton said:
The primary benefit for the customer would be being able to see their credit card the entire time. It would cut back on fraud and the ability to steal the CC information. They have guys in Apple stores that can do the same thing, one guy plucked me out of a long line and rung me up just standing there, it was excellent.
May 17 | Nathan Zeldes said:
On the plus side, this completely eliminates the inexplicable wait between when you get the bill and finally get to go home. It seems like a worldwide waiter conspiracy to take your card and disappear forever with it while you stare at the mints… what are they doing in that interval totally baffles me.
Jan 17 | POS Systems said:
This can be either good or bad for the customer. On the one hand, it is more secure because the server stays right in front of the customer so they don’t have a chance to right down credit card numbers for later fraudulent use. (More secure) On the other hand, many small business owners don’t have the knowledge to keep their wireless access points secure which leaves room for security breaches from outside the restaurant.