Diners pay at own pace, ward off fraud with new devices: Fatz Cafe, Legal Sea Foods and Potomac Pizza are among early users of pay-at-table technology

Nation's Restaurant News, August 14, 2006 by James Scarpa

Seeking to boost server productivity, speed up table turns, reduce credit acceptance costs and plug a potential gap in security, some restaurant operators are bringing something new to the table with the guest check--a customer-run wireless credit card payment terminal.

These pay-at-table devices let customers settle tabs by swiping their plastic, including PIN-secured debit cards that cost operators less to process than credit cards. No longer must guests hand over their cards to servers who hike to remote point-of-sale, or POS, system workstations.

Three restaurant chains currently are testing or using dedicated pay-at-table terminals: Fatz Cafe, Legal Sea Foods and Potomac Pizza. Each is early in its pay-at-table experience and lacking hard data about its effect on service speed and sales volume, but all indicate there has been some positive feedback from customers.

"Efficiency in the dining room is our main motivation," said Steve Corson, vice president of human resources and training for Fatz Cafe parent Cafe Enterprises Inc. of Taylors, S.C. "We want to train our guests to swipe their own cards. We tell them to think of the terminal as an ATM machine."

Also inspiring the technology trial at the 32-unit chain's Winder, Ga., restaurant, Corson noted, is concern for credit card security, given the rising incidence of card fraud and identity theft.

Fatz Cafe's Winder unit is several weeks into a test of the new VeriFone Vx670 wireless handheld credit card terminal used in conjunction with an Aloha POS system.

The Vx670 is more compact and easier to handle than its predecessor device, the Vx610, which was tested in recent months. It features a 128-by-128-pixel, backlit display and backlit keys for visibility in all lighting conditions, a vertical magnetic-stripe card reader and a tip calculator that spares guests the mental math. It works on secure local-area wireless with Wi-Fi 802.11g technology.

At first, customer reaction was "mixed," Corson said. "But the comments have become very favorable. Some of our regular customers look forward to using it. Servers like it, too."

Corson added: "There's obviously some explaining to do when you close out a check at the table for the first time. But people are getting more familiar with it."

Adam Greenberg, president of Restaurants Zone Inc. Md., parent of four-unit Potomac Pizza, said his company was testing six VeriFone Vx670 terminals at the chain's 120-seat Gaithersburg, Md., store. Those terminals are being used in tandem with three Micros 3700 POS terminals in the dining room, he said.

With only four days of testing under his belt, Greenberg noted that a large number of the customers who have used the payment terminals, "have loved them." He added that nearly all the Gaithersburg restaurant's credit-using customers had tried the devices, but explained that the technology had yet to see duty on a typically hectic Friday or Saturday night. Greenberg said that he has asked VeriFone and Micros for a cellular phone technology-based version of the terminal to support his delivery customers who pay with cards.

Both Fatz Cafe and Potomac Pizza sources said they were provided the terminals and vendor setup support free of charge for the purposes of conducting the tests.

For Legal Sea Foods, pay-at-table service is "a controlled rollout" rather than a test, said Ken Chaisson, vice president of information technology for the 33-unit, Boston-based casual seafood chain. Three of its restaurants in Boston are using Ingenico i7780 pay-at-table handhelds with SIVA software. One is LTK, short for Legal Test Kitchen, a new small-plates dining concept that courts tech-minded young professionals.

Legal Sea Foods lets customers choose whether to swipe at the table or hand the card to the server for take-away processing. "It's an option," Chaisson said. "I don't foresee a restaurant being totally workstation-free."

Chaisson declined to quantify how much pay-at-table is speeding up service, citing the brief history of the terminals--just 60 days in one restaurant, even less in the other two. "We would hope to shave double digits of time from table turns," he said. "Our restaurants run waits at lunch and dinner."

Asked to estimate the proportion of credit payments settled at the table, Chaisson said, "If I had to guess, at LTK only, I'd say 20 [percent] to 30 percent."

The Ingenico terminal is a customer-facing handheld with a range of one-half square mile. About the size of a countertop card terminal, according to Chaisson, it has an easy-to-read display, easy-to-follow menus and a built-in magnetic-stripe reader and receipt printer. It runs on a Bluetooth wireless network and soon will be changed to Wi-Fi, which Legal already has in place for laptops and other handhelds. "Why have two networks?" Chaisson said.

Like Fatz Cafe's, Legal Sea Food's early experience is mixed. "We've heard some very positive results from the waitstaff," Chaisson said. "Some report getting more tips and serving more tables. But not all. Others are struggling with the technology."