Charlie’s Kitchen in Cambridge, MA has implemented text messaging as a way to communicate with your server. On a busy night, you can text “Table 6, check please”, and a server will come over and drop off your check. You can use this service to order another round of drinks, or even your entire meal.
The system, offered by the company , isn’t automated — there are still servers reading the texts and bringing the food — and because of this, there are social implications of using this service. One example cited by NPR is what they call “prank texts”, mostly including propositions towards a server (“Glasses are sexy” and “Need your number”). Really, these texts aren’t pranks as much as they are using inappropriate language in a social situation where the procedures are very fixed. Sending too many of these “prank texts” can get you and your party cut off for the night, showing that social expectations are still in place even with intervening technology.
More advanced forms of this technology are currently in place around the world. One German restaurant, , has implemented more advanced forms of automatic restaurant ordering technology using text recognition processes to automate everything but checking in and out. With text recognition technologies, soon you may be able to conduct all transactions in 160 characters or fewer.
Read more at:
-LBC
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