Eating out with friends is one of my favorite past-times. But, in the US, the most cumbersome part of the entire experience is near the end of the meal - requesting and paying for the bill. You can have a wonderful meal but have the experience ruined at the end because it takes 20 minutes to pay the bill.

One solution to this problem is to have everything done digitally and automatically. Once I sit down, a waiter can take my order this an iPad. This gets automatically sent to the kitchen so there's no lag time in getting my order out.

Once I finish the bill, we can request and pay the bill in two different ways:

Design Thinking: Restaurant Routine - image 1 - student project

1) Through a system like OpenTable (or Reserve), it has my phone number and credit card information on hand. When I make a reservation, the system looks up all of the information. It texts me a confirmation once I sit down. And I can text it back when I am ready to pay. It texts me back the final bill and I can add a tip. From there, it automatically pays for my bill and I can walk out the restaurant.

Design Thinking: Restaurant Routine - image 2 - student project

2) In Europe, the host/ess or waiter will bring a credit card swiping machine to your table. This prevents the unnecessary back-and-forth of requesting the bill, giving them your credit card, having the card swiped, and then paying your bill. This can make the whole process 10x more efficient!

Both of these ideas allow restaurants to have higher turnaround times which means more profit for them!

Michael Karnjanaprakorn

Founder, Skillshare

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