Tablet technology in your restaurant

Someone signing their name on a restaurant tablet.
In the restaurant industry, tablets are the way of the future. They help and hinder food service operations with speedy service and on-demand expectations.

You’ve probably visited a restaurant that uses tablets for wine lists and for menu selection. Then there are also those establishments where tablets are used for payment processing. Some restaurants have even installed table-side tablets to handle the entire ordering process, so customers only interact with hosts and the server who delivers their meal.

Depending on where you stand, the idea of incorporating handheld tablets into the restaurant industry is both intriguing and troubling.

The Problem with Using Tablets in Restaurants

A tablet can be helpful in narrowing down the characteristics or type of wine a customer prefers, but a sommelier is still the expert when it comes to the final selection. The server, too, plays a critical role in the meal—suggesting an appetizer or describing the ingredients in an item can’t be easily replaced with a menu on the tablet. If you have questions about something, who do you ask?

At some point, everyone has complained about bad service at a restaurant and found it casts a negative impression on the overall experience. But what about no service? What does that do to the dining experience? With so many restaurant choices these days, owners need to consider how every decision they make affects the customer’s experience, their likeliness to return, and their likeliness to recommend.

Considerations When Purchasing Tablets for Your Restaurant

If you’re considering a tablet or two (or more) for your restaurant, you’ll also need to think about how many items you need to sell to cover the cost of the tablets. If you are going to use the tablets as an ordering tool, how many sales of high-profit items are you going to miss out on because no one is suggesting them?

Another thing to consider: how likely are your tablets to disappear? No one wants to think their employees would steal from them, but it could happen, and then, not only are you out the money, but you also no longer have the tablet.

It’s impossible to have this discussion without also acknowledging the advantages of using tablets in restaurants. They can be very useful for tracking and managing inventory, storing recipes, and even scheduling and necessary reporting. However, should they really be a replacement for people and good service?

Paul Motenko, co-founder of Stacked Restaurants LLC is quoted in Nation’s Restaurant News about this very subject. He says, “If you’re using this technology it has to be for the benefit of the guest.” At NCCO, we couldn’t agree more.