I think the issue I see people running into here is the "all or nothing" approach to handling these problems. To start, classifying the restaurant by its custo

I think the issue I see people running into here is the "all or nothing" approach to handling these problems. To start, classifying the restaurant by its customers expectations is important. The experience of dining at Panera Bread[0], for instance would be radically improved by ripping out all of the touch screens at the front-end and moving them to the tables. For dine-in customers in that kind of restaurant, I'd rather sit down knowing "I have a table" before ordering my food. Too often it's packed and by the time I have my food there's no place to sit. I also have extra time to fool around with their inadequate software without feeling like I'm holding up the line/getting ripped off because I'm not ordering "correctly"[1]. For take-out customers, I'm not competing with all of those dine-in people either in the food line or the check-out line, they're sitting at their tables waiting for their tablet to notify them to come up and grab their stuff from the window. At more full-service "chain restaurants" where the customers might revolt at giving up the server, a tablet can be used to allow the customer to signal for drink refills, pay the bill and handle parts of the job the server usually handles allowing servers to cover more tables and customers to not play the look for our guy/gal and try to get their attention for my coffee game. I hate ordering on tablets ... hate it ... but the tablet is a useful way to advertise add-ons. I never plan on it but I'm often pulled in when I see something chocolate-brownie-with-ice-cream-like pass by. I rarely order it, though, because it never coincides with when the server is there and by the time they're back, I'm over it. However, if a tablet were available for me to spontaneously add an item, I'd be more likely to do so. I'm not saying that's a good thing for my health, but I'd be a happier customer. I usually leave the restaurant wishing the server had come back sooner to "double-check" that I really didn't want desert. It's not their fault. Take the server away, entirely, at those restaurants and I'll stop going. I'd rather just have it delivered. But put the tech in the right places and staff, the business and the customer can benefit. No, I don't sell these things or do anything in relation to that kind of business ... realized this kind of sounded really in favor of the tech and while I am in favor of what it can do and I have seen a handful of solid implementations, I've seen it done wrong and worsening the customer experience far more than I've seen it done right. Maybe my tastes are off? [0] It is a cross between fast food and a cafe. You order at either a digital device or a person, standing in line for both in the morning, then you stand in line for your food, grab it and (possibly) find a table. [1] I always appreciate when I go into a new fast-ish-food place, order a few things and the person behind the counter says "I can save you a buck if we use this combo, instead". Most of the software for these restaurants are terrible at such basic things.