Understaffed Restaurants Resort To Serverless Ordering
Understaffed Restaurants Resort To Serverless Ordering
BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, JUL 02, 2021 - 08:00 PM
There are signs that technology is starting to become mainstream
in restaurants chains across the country. The introduction of automation
has made the experience for guests more pleasurable while more streamlined for
employees.
WSJ reports
casual-dining chains, such as Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc., Applebee's
International, Inc., among others, are quickly adopting technology for payments
that allow contactless ordering and paying.
Cracker Barrel's patrons can order their meals through an app on
their smartphone and even pay for the entire meal. As explained by the
president of Cracker Barrel, the good news is that amid labor shortages,
automation allows understaffed wait staff to handle volumes adequately.
"The
more we can move volume to things like that, it takes the pressure off the
labor in the stores," said Sandra B. Cochran, Cracker Barrel's president
and chief executive. "Staffing has become challenging at Cracker Barrel,
which has classified the personnel situation at 10% of its restaurants as
"critical," she said.
The automated ordering system frees up the server who once had
to write the order on a pad then transfer it to a self-serve kiosk machine.
Ordering and paying through an app allows the company to increase profit and
margins and speeds up the ordering process. Servers can focus on other tasks
while the app handles ordering and payment.
There has been some discussion about using tabletop technology
versus traditional ordering through a server, said John Glass, a managing
director and equity analyst covering restaurants at Morgan Stanley. "If
face-to-face interaction is important to your brand, and you suddenly took it
away, you've removed a layer of the brand differentiation," he said.
But in a new world where technology is pouring into restaurants
amid aims for a contactless
environment, the move could also prove beneficial for the customer.
Ordering from their phones means that a server won't screw up dishes,
substitutions, and the amount of food that someone wants.
Deepthi Prakash, global director of product and marketing
TBWA\Worldwide, an Omnicom Group Inc. advertising agency, said the
casual-dining app means "more and the tables turn over faster, because
they can get their orders and they can get their bills sooner." This is
also a big plus for restaurants that face labor shortages.
Technology is creeping into every corner of the restaurant
industry. Back-end systems are also being overhauled to make managers lives
less chaotic.
Applebee's is another restaurant that has invested in front-end
technology at its eateries. It has given servers in around 500 of its 1,705
restaurants hand-held tablets for processing orders instead of entering them
into a central computer system.
"Bottom line—the servers love these tablets because it
makes their job easier and allows them to make more money," John Cywinski,
president of the grill and bar chain, said.
There's no turning back as automation technology investments
will only increase in a contactless world as the evolution here will be the
introduction of robotics that will
replace human wait staff.
For those unfamiliar with why restaurant operators are turning
to automation - it is because of soaring labor and food costs, the need for
better efficiency, and the standardization of operations to reduce
errors.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/under-staffed-restaurants-resort-serverless-ordering
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