Darden replacing wait staff with table touch screens.

I can only imagine how this is going to play out until the reports are updated:

Ziosk was 8 inches tall, black, and full of greasy fingerprints. Although Ziosk was at the table the entire visit, it completely ignored us the entire time we were dining. Ziosk did not make eye contact or smile. It did not make a table check after an expediter threw down a plate of food and ran off before I could ask for a refill.
Finally, Ziosk had a broken credit card swipe reader. After swiping the card about a dozen times it finally read the card. Then it was out of paper and did not provide a receipt.

[www.chicagotribune.com]

@ wrote:

Olive Garden adds tablets to tables at all U.S. restaurants

Olive Garden has a tablet for two waiting for you. The Italian restaurant chain said Tuesday that it is installing Ziosk computer tablets at all of its U.S. locations so customers can order and pay by touch screen. Olive Garden, owned by Florida's Darden Restaurants Inc., started using Ziosk tablets in some of its restaurants last year. The chain said Tuesday that locations using the devices have experienced faster dining times and increased tip percentages for wait staff. It will start rolling them out at additional restaurants next month and expects the 7-inch devices to be in all of its more than 800 U.S. restaurants before year's end.

“We've been focused on improving the dining experience at every touch point, and we're excited to give our guests the ability to customize their visit by leveraging the technology of Ziosk's tabletop tablets,” Dave George, Olive Garden president, said in a statement. Tablets have made appearances in airports, where travelers can have food delivered to where they sit, but are still limited in the traditional restaurant scene. Ziosk tablets are in use at Chili's restaurants and are in the process of launching nationwide at Red Robin.

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Ate at Olive garden in Lakeland this weekend. I wasn't working and our server was outstanding. Almost wished I could write up a report for him. Dining on a gift card is nice, though. I will not spend money on a tablet server though.

And thousands of waitstaff will soon be out of a job in favor of a machine.

when does it end?

Time to build a bigger bridge.

This brings up another question. Do you even have a server assigned to you if you use this machine to order and pay for your food? If you have two different expediters throw down the salad and main course. Then, single roamer for an entire area of the restaurant handling the drinks leaving you with an empty glass for 5+ minutes. If every interaction is completely impersonal and the machine is doing half the job of the wait staff, what kid of tip do you leave?

If I have to order from a germ filled machine at the table and pay it, then the wait staff are going to be stretched to more tables and the service will suffer. Unless I had a server that was dedicated and doing check backs and staying on top of refills and offering a personal touch, I'd have to lower my tip down to 10% for no personal service, 12% for so-so service and 15% for great service.

I'm sure as the restaurants begin to expect you to order refills and desert and eventually eliminate the personal server and turn everyone into runners, they will still print out that helpful receipt showing post tax 18% tip as what is expected for good service.

What if you don't want that damn machine? What if you are paying to go to dinner and want the warm assistance of a REAL server?

I ate at a Chili's awhile ago that had one of those tablets. It was odd because we still had a waiter and everything was as usual (ordering from him, him checking on us, etc.), except we did choose to get the receipt from the tablet. I believe the only thing we used the tablet for otherwise was to play a game on it while we waited for food. This was back in August so maybe they were just integrating them then?

I suspect that if enough people were to Dave George that the chain would reconsider. I'm using a stamp...going to force his secretary to open a regular letter to complain.

.
Have PV-500 & willing to travel.
"Answers are easy. It's asking the right questions which is hard." (The Fourth Doctor, The Face of Evil, 1977)

"Somedays you're the pigeon, somedays you're the statue.” J. Andrew Taylor

"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him." Galileo Galilei

I can't even express how much I HATE HATE HATE those things. They will take away jobs from servers and we will be left with food runners and drink fillers, a la Golden Corral. I refuse to use them at Chili's and I express exactly why. I also refuse to use the self-checkout lines at stores for the same reason. They have proven to not make the lines any shorter or the checkout process any faster and all they do is take away jobs. The grocery chain around here, Jewel-Osco, is taking OUT the self-checkout lanes. I will shop there more often because of it.

HATE THEM.

ShopperShel

MSPA Gold Certified
Undercover Essentials Video Certified

Have video equipment, will travel!

dspeakes

When does it end???

It ends when the public says no and resists it as done by some of us with supermarket and Home Depot self checkout lanes. Just say NO and it is not inevitable, don't belive this bs for a minute.

And why even eat at Olive Garden when there are 999 REAL Italian restuarants everywhere, plus you are not
subjected to the long waits, noise and eating while watching the UFC or whatever trash is shown on their televisions.

Incidentally, some consumers are adept at scamming these machines. A co worker always buys a budget priced senior citizen kiosk generated ticket at her movie theater and never gets proofed by the ticket taker. How about the light rail line in Jersey City, NJ??? Nobody staffs the ticket offices and tons of thugs in droves never buy the machine generated tickets and ride for free to the nearby Newport Mall.

Yup, keep ridding ourselves of employees and see what happens, not counting the legions of unemployed citizens on food stamps in record numbers...

I just want a little flag pole at each table where you can raise a flag when you need assistance. A flag with blue waves for need my water refilled, one with a big check mark for when you're ready for your bill, etc.

Won't affect me at all. Can't stand fake Italian food, or any of the other Darden restaurants.

#1. I don't really care for Olive Garden.

#2. I don't use self checkout in stores. I can't stand them..

#3. I don't use the drive-thru at the bank. I prefer the interaction (the old dinosaur way) going inside the bank.

#4. I don't use the FF drive-thru (not counting shops) because I have to be sick, ill, leg broken to use a drive thru. I prefer going inside and eating at a table.

#5. I recall it was Bubba Gump's that has a sign on the table, red or green, for what you need (I can't remember, only dined there once and remember something on the table to signify something)...

#6. Either way, I will resist this change of a machine on my table. I paid good money, I want service!

Is Smokey Bones owned by Darden? Because I just did a shop for them and the Ziosk was incorporated into the report. We had a wonderful server, and it did not take away from anything she did.

Kim

@kimmiemae wrote:

Is Smokey Bones owned by Darden? Because I just did a shop for them and the Ziosk was incorporated into the report. We had a wonderful server, and it did not take away from anything she did.

Not any more apparently: In December, Darden announced that it would sell its Smokey Bones chain to Barbeque Integrated, Inc., an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, Inc., for approximately $80 million. The sale was completed in January, 2008.[

I for one am enthusiastically for as much automation as possible. While it is probably an early concept and will have issues to iron out, anything that can be done by a machine cheaper and more efficiently than a fallible human being should. I shed no tears for the farrier and the cooper come the time of the industrial revolution, I care not for the waiter or the bag boy now.

I only ask that I be given a choice to use the machine, or not

I was once told that the only checkout lane open was staffed by someone who went on break at a grocery store that was 24/7 at 3:00 am.

I simply asked them who wanted to un-shop my cart as I was going to walk away if someone did not provide full service.

There was a loss prevention person standing at the podium of the 4 self checkouts and he refused to give me full service.

There was also two employees that were not "active" cashiers just standing around. (Stock personnel)

This person who had the only active drawer and the manager was likely in the back doing who knows what.

It was not a MSC assignment and the store was Kroger. I waited 10 minutes and even though I spent close to an hour filling the cart, I simply walked out and they were VERY vocal about helping me check out AFTER I was heading toward the door.

Too little, too late.

At the risk of angering the majority, I think there is a pretty big difference between self-checkout and self-waitering.
There is no real "service" being provided at the checkout save from maybe putting things in bags. It's unskilled labor (don't get all worked up. It's true).
Being a waiter is a very difficult job that requires you to keep customers happy and cater to them. That can't be replicated by a machine. You may as well change the name to Automat if you're going to put these things into restaurants.
I use self-checkouts because nobody else does and it's faster because there is no line. I have exactly as much interaction with the self-checkout machine as I do the cashier in the regular line.

______________________________________________________________________
Seriously, nobody cares that you're offended.

I actually prefer the self-checkout at grocery stores. I'm OCD and I hate the way baggers will either cram 30 pounds of food into one of their thin plastic bags. Or they put each single item in it's own bag and I walk out of the store with 20 bags. At the self-checkout I can bag the items myself, and I scan quicker than the cashiers

Watch for the day when some hackers with whatever device will defeat the table touch screens.

Supposedly, some have already hacked automobile remote locks.

And McDonalds workers think they deserve $15 an hour? Meet your electronic replacement.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2015 12:55PM by DRJ.

And we cannot forget those who do not rein back their little kids who will see this as a new toy and the parents will wonder why 18 dinners of the most expensive food suddenly comes to their table.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain

Well, I was at a place where those were on every table, but had been turned off. The server explained that so many people complained to the onsite manager that she shut the system down.

Time for a little direct action?

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

We will also have the more paranoid who will no doubt think that this is some spying device planted by the government or IRS or suchlike and will think that their food order will somehow reveal their latent fantasies about shrimp alfredo.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain

@Misanthrope wrote:

I for one am enthusiastically for as much automation as possible. While it is probably an early concept and will have issues to iron out, anything that can be done by a machine cheaper and more efficiently than a fallible human being should. I shed no tears for the farrier and the cooper come the time of the industrial revolution, I care not for the waiter or the bag boy now.

That's because you were not a farrier or cooper.

You do realize that there will be little reason to mystery shop robots, don't you? If this catches on as much as you hope ("as much automation as possible"

not only will all the people we shop be out of work, so will we. Automation doesn't just make things easier and cheaper it puts people on the unemployment line while stuffing more profits into corporate pockets.

How do you feel about that automation now?

Be careful what you wish for.

Time to build a bigger bridge.

@Cettie wrote:

We will also have the more paranoid who will no doubt think that this is some spying device planted by the government or IRS or suchlike and will think that their food order will somehow reveal their latent fantasies about shrimp alfredo.

The Gov't already wastes your tax dollars studying how fast shrimp swim. It's not a stretch of the imagination to think they will create a study on the consumption of cheese, pasta, and shrimp and obesity and morbidity rates. I bet it's tucked in Obamacare somewhere. Remember, they had to pass it before you could find out what's really in it. We are still learning and they are still writing the details of it. They left it as an open framework to continue to grow.

I don't care two hoots if I die fat and happy after eating some of my homemade shrimp alfredo. We're all going to die from something.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain

I once did a shop where part of the shop was the interaction with the cashier. The problem was they ONLY had the self service lines available--no real cashier. After pacing the area several times, I went to the customer service counter and asked to be checked out there. It was so frustrating but I came up with some stupid excuse about not liking the scanners, etc. After spending over an hour for the job since the interaction I needed was super busy, I didn't want to "blow" a shop because I couldn't find a real person to be a cashier.

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

What if you don't want that damn machine? What if you are paying to go to dinner and want the warm assistance of a REAL server?

Then maybe you go to a REAL restaurant instead of Olive Garden.

the teller at my favorite bank asked if I ever used the ATM to deposit checks. I am not an ATM user and prefer to go inside. She informed me that they are closing a lot of their brick and mortar branches and only using the ATMs. I do not like that. Luckily I have other bank options - so far. I rarely use the self checkouts and when I do, I usually have a problem and it takes longer anyway.

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Darden replacing wait staff with table touch screens.

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