Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s new Streetbird Rotisserie will become the first restaurant in the country to use Mastercard’s entry in the remote-order-and-pay race, a system called Qkr! with MasterPass.
Customers who download the Qkr! app to their smartphones can use it to place a takeout order at the New York City restaurant, pay for it and then pick it up from a designated spot in the restaurant, without any employee interaction. Samuelsson has indicated that he intends eventually to add delivery service, so that a delivery person has to do nothing but drop off the food.
The app can be used on both iPhones and Android-powered handhelds.
A number of big-name technology and financial giants are vying to become the mobile order-and-payment system of choice for restaurants. Apple’s ApplePay is being used by a number of chains, including McDonald’s, and Google Wallet, a cashless payment system, just landed Dunkin’ Donuts as a customer. Starbucks is testing a proprietary system for ordering and paying ahead of visiting a store, and already enables customers to pay with their smartphones.
Mastercard says that a point of differentiation for its system is the protection it offers against being hacked.
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