Streamlining the restaurant operation
I love efficiency. Here are three ways to improve the efficiency of restaurants.
One: Payment at the front counter. There’s no reason that my waiter should deal with the bill beyond handing it to me. The chick at the front of the restaurant never has enough to do anyhow—that why they hired her on looks—so the least she can do is run my credit card. Besides, the sooner I get my ass out of the of the seat, the sooner they can start busing the table.
Two: Separate checks by default. This works hand in hand with Idea One. As long as payment is efficiently handled at the front desk, separate checks should be automatically created. That is, all orders should be taken on a per-seat basis. How many times have you scrambled in a group to figure out who owes what? Splitting the bill sucks. If the restaurants got a clue, they’d save us the headache.
Three: Implement a barcode-driven seating and busing system. It works like this: Every table has a barcode sticker. When folks get up to leave, the busboy comes and scans the barcode. This wirelessly sends a signal to the waiting area that the table is currently being bussed. When the busboy is done, he scans the table again. The front counter is then aware of the seating availability in real-time and can efficiently seat waiting patrons.
Damn I’m good at this.
August 25th, 2004 at 9:13 pm
not too sure about idea two, because then all of a sudden you have five assholes paying with credit card instead of one asshole paying with credit card and four assholes paying him back.
August 25th, 2004 at 11:41 pm
well benny boy, as you know, there’s always paypal! haha
August 26th, 2004 at 6:27 pm
Here’s a thought for idea #2 which will help you and your server (as suggested by a server). Ask for separate checks at the beginning of the meal. It will make the separating them take half the time b/c the server knows it’s coming. Even the tiniest charges will be aligned to the correct person which helps the splitting process. At my restaurant, we already have position points marked for each person of the table which means we can split according to each seat. If we know who’s sharing bills with whom at the beginning of the meal, it helps us remove y’all at the end.
August 26th, 2004 at 6:40 pm
see here, now we get the input of a professional :)
September 4th, 2004 at 6:43 pm
For a new way to split the bill after-the-fact and keep track of all kinds of debts and payments between friends, check out http://www.jiffybill.com .