topic Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service in Casual Dining

Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

adamj — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 17:25:45 GMT

Good Afternoon Toasters!

Is anyone using MO&P for casual upscale. Are you having any guest challenges? any suggestions of best practices.

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

41Chris_Funaro — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 01:40:43 GMT

Adam

I haven’t had the opportunity to use this as a primary source of dine in service. We have used, and continue to use, this strategically in our operations

Examples: In one of our concepts, we have a waiting area with high top cocktail tables, kind of far away from the bar so we use these for those tables so guests can easily order from a small menu drink and an app.

Winter of 2020, we used them for our primary service in several outdoor igloos. The program has evolved greatly since then.

If you want to give me some specific questions, I can try to answer.

Overall, I think it’s great, but I am hesitant to move fully to this idea, unless it was for a fast casual concept.

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

adamj — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 03:25:47 GMT

Hi Chris!

Thank you for responding. We have been using MO&P for our business for sometime now. We have actually experienced pretty good success. Being a paperless business is highly valued within our community. In addition to changing or menu more than 2 times per week, and addressing supply chain issues that we may not even know until time of delivery, this product has answered many of our challenges (not to mention over $5K/mo on menus in the past).

We did struggle at first with many people and as a result now have 10 tablets on property to respond to those who do not want to use their phone or feel that it is too small. But as time went on and we stuck to our principles, the community joined in support and generally love it now. Our team now practices sharing it with our guests, so that they can understand, while continuing to reassure them our team is available for their service regardless of how they want to order.

Coursing is a problem, we would like to figure out for guest.

Also viewing on line people get hung up on "order for pick up or delivery". Thinking they cannot view without ordering?!?! Most people come to their senses.. but wish it could be more clear.

Coincidentally our per guest sales have gone up as well as reorders. Super handy with large groups to. Still a bit kludgy we've had to lean in pretty heavy with our team explaining it to guests, versus it being more self-explanatory.

Mostly curious with people out there who have had success with it and if they wanted to share any tips or tricks. We're not going back to paper.

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

FarmerTJC — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 14:14:49 GMT

I experimented with this summer 2021; I found it extremely clunky and challenging for the customer. Special instructions were a challenge. However, EXTREMELY interested in revisiting this for a new concept I'm working on. I'm not sure about the fit for more upscale or polished casual concepts, but that's a moving target as the technology moves upscale and works better.

TJC

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

41Chris_Funaro — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 15:38:49 GMT

TJC.

WAAAAAY Better now than in 2021. Some great features have been rolled out and several on the way. I think they are doing a 3 month free trail right now. Let me know if you want to get in to the nitty gritty details. Happy to help. We used it last weekend for a special event, and are using it Tuesday and Wednesday again.

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

FarmerTJC — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 16:35:31 GMT

Curious as to what kind of per person average you are running? We're trying to understand if this can work for a fairly upscale operation, that would be selling wine by the bottle, in an affluent Chicago suburb. The clientele is more Gen X/boomer than Millennials. Can we make this work at a $65 per person average?

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

FarmerTJC — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 13:40:34 GMT

I'm considering it. My personal opinion is it depends a lot on your guest base and their demographics. I tested it a year ago and it was problematic for the guests. If you have an older guest base, you might have more resistance to it. Here's an example; my two restaurants Farmhouse and Farm Bar both have a largely educated and affluent clientele. However, Farm Bar is more downtown and the guests are, on average, about ten to fifteen years younger than Farmhouse.

So we've implemented Sunday an app that allows a guest to immediately pay their bill at any point, without needing the assistance of a server. About 50% of our Farmhouse Evanston customers use it; about 70% of the Farm Bar customers use it.

Another question is special instructions; how much capability does the mobile ordering have to address this? Remember, guests aren't trained on POS.

Depending on your price point and positioning, there's additional questions about guest interaction and hospitality... We are reconcepting a restaurant and taking it substantially upscale (looking for a 50% increase in PPA). Having the guests order for themselves through their phones when I'm targeting a $50 PPA seems a disconnect.

We are using Toast handhelds in the restaurants; Maybe the fault is with us, but our impression is the quality of our guest interaction has declined and our per person average has declined. The servers can become 'order takers' and aren't interacting with the guests in the same ways they would have done before handhelds.

However, I believe that tip credit wages are going away in the next few years so operators need to figure our new models to stay in business. Technology must be part of the solution.

Just my thoughts for what they are worth.

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

FarmerTJC — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 19:24:55 GMT

I've been thinking about implementing a hybrid model. Check started by the server, but the guest can add on to the check by ordering through their phone. Trying to find someone at Toast to talk about this idea.

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

josh212 — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 05:32:15 GMT

@FarmerTJC You can easily do it as a hybrid model. and have a clean QR code near somewhere on the table or with the oils or something. It creates a better experience, how many times does someone not want to wait for a weeded server and goes up to the bar and gets a drink themselves creating havoc among who gets the tip for the one drink. Also thebiggest opportunity for most restaurants is taking to long to close a guest or pick up a check, thats also when people get ancy or are rushing. I love being able scan and pay. Or if I'm running arround I could tell guests no rush just whenever you can scan that QR code on the wall for your check. Just dont forget to claim your loyaltypoints

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

FarmerTJC — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 14:33:51 GMT

The concept is fairly upscale; we are shooting for a PPA over $50 so I don't want to have any concept disconnects; I don't want to make our guests feel like its fast casual or a QSR. However, I want to make it possible for the guests to order another glass of wine, a second cocktail or dessert without needing the server to stop by.

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

rcmck — Sat, 21 Jan 2023 02:20:11 GMT

I believe you can do this now https://share.vidyard.com/watch/iEFnYgu7qP3RdYyeprKWSw?

Re: Mobile Order & Pay for inside table service

Ryn — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 23:43:14 GMT

This is how we do it. We initially were encouraging all ordering to be done through the QR code (we're a board game cafe, so table turn times are much lower so tables aren't checked on as often) but found our staff to be too relient on them and obviously a lot of upselling was lost. So now we take orders on the tablets, but folks can also scan in and add to the same order- it goes on the same check (this has only been the case for a few weeks) which is a huge help for us.