Tech Check is a regular column on restaurant technology by Senior Editor Joe Guszkowski. It's also a newsletter.
Chili’s Grill and Bar has pared back a lot of its technology recently. It ended a test of robotic waiters and has pumped the brakes on its virtual brand, It’s Just Wings, so it could concentrate on running its restaurants better.
But there’s one piece of technology that Kevin Hochman, CEO of Chili’s owner Brinker International, is really excited about: touchscreen computer tablets at every table that allow guests to pay their bills whenever they want. The funny thing is, Chili’s has had them for almost a decade.
Today, almost every Chili’s customer (94%) settles up with their tabletop device rather than a server, Hochman said during a panel at the Global Restaurant Leadership Conference earlier this month. That sort of tech adoption is almost unheard of, and yet in this case, it’s easy to understand: Waiting for the bill at a restaurant is the worst part of dining out, and Chili’s tablets work like a charm. (I would know, because—and I hate to brag—I used one last week.)
The tablets, made by Ziosk, serve another important purpose, too. After a customer pays, the device asks them a few questions about their experience. How was the food? How was the service? Did you have any problems? Chili’s gets 20 million responses a year that way.
“We get so many surveys,” Hochman said. “We can look [at results] by server, by cook, by bartender. We can see what their experience was. How much tips they made. How much sales were done. It’s big data on an amazing level at thousands of restaurants.”
Again, these tablets are not new, nor are they all that high-tech. A lot of casual-dining chains, including Red Robin and Olive Garden, added them around the same time Chili’s did. But their continued relevance, in an age of AI, robots, self-driving vehicles and drones, is a reminder that newer is not always better.
I wrote last week about tech products that jumped out during the latest round of restaurant earnings reports. They were, like pay-at-the-table devices, fairly old school: self-service kiosks, handheld server tablets, third-party delivery and loyalty programs.
This points to a couple of things. One, we underestimate how long it takes novel technology to take hold, especially at restaurants. The first kiosks began showing up in fast food in the early 2000s, and yet it feels like they are only just now starting to really catch on.
The pandemic skewed the typical adoption curve: We looked up one day and online ordering, QR codes and delivery were everywhere—they had to be. It will take years for this next wave of tech, headlined by AI, machine learning and robotics, to become anywhere near as widespread. Indeed, many restaurants today are still adjusting to the massive digital shift brought on by the pandemic.
Two, the situation for most restaurants is dire right now. Costs are up, traffic is down, and operators are white-knuckling their way through the storm. For many, it makes sense to lean on proven solutions until they can catch their breath.
I’m not advocating for a moratorium on innovation. I do believe things like AI can have an immediate impact for restaurants today. But mundane solutions can be just as effective.
I am reminded of a conversation I had recently with Olga Lopategui, an expert of restaurant loyalty programs. I called her to talk about the hot new loyalty trends: AI! Gamification! NFTs! She politely told me to get real.
“It all looks cool from the outside, but you don’t know how it’s performing,” she said. “Usually the basic, simple stuff is the stuff that works.”