BTW did anyone else notice that we're almost at 10,000 posts in this thread? Largest FT thread ever?
Originally Posted by
blaz
I don't have any cards that have offline as backup. I do have a European debit card and that asks for PIN, which tells me that offline PIN is somewhere in the CVM.
I definitely would be interested to see what happens (I have a card with PIN backup as well as a PIN primary card). Any way to obtain one of these devices for fairly cheap without having to open a bank account in Europe?
Originally Posted by
Hawaiian717
The one time I can recall running into a table service restaurant using Square was one that had recently opened and they bought over their iPad touch (or maybe an iPhone) with the Square reader for me to sign on the screen. They've since switched to a conventional swipe credit card terminal.
The two chains I've seen custom tablet order and pay at the table are Stacked and Red Robin. Stacked did all ordering and paying at the table, but I think they still brought me the receipt to sign. Red Robin seems to be in a transitional mode since a waitress still took our order and in the end took my card away as normal to swipe, so I didn't actually use the tablet for anything; this was my first time in quite a while going there. I did see other tables swiping their cards on the tablet to pay, and it looked like it had a built in printer for the receipt.
The other place I've seen table-side tablets was Genghis Grill, but since that's a created to order Mongolian BBQ, you order and pay at the counter anyway so I'n not totally clear on what the tablets were for anyway. I think you could use it if you wanted to order more things later, like drinks from the bar which was separate from the grill.
Stacked was the place I was thinking of. I've only been once but I'm a bit wary since a couple of days after I used my card there that exact same card was stolen and used to buy some stuff online. That place likely wasn't the cause though.
There also used to be a Genghis Grill near my house but it closed. It was weird because it used to be like you described, where you do your initial order at the counter and then you can order more from the table, but then became traditional table service before it closed. They still had the tablets there and I think you could use them throughout the entire time they were open.
I think Chili's and Red Robin use similar tablet systems and both weren't working the last time I was at either place.