Things have definitely changed here recently. At least in San Francisco, at-table terminals are now the norm in sit-down restaurants. Staff generally use the same device for order-taking and payment.
> Things have definitely changed here recently. At least in San Francisco, at-table terminals are now the norm in sit-down restaurants. Staff generally use the same device for order-taking and payment.
I used to work in PoS industry.
This tech is new-ish to the US but not to the rest of the first-world. 15 years ago, paying with a CC @ the table was common in Europe, but the terminal could ONLY do payments. The devices that have been rolling out to the US are more like android tablets in that they can run the order taking half of it, too. Selling hardware to a restaurant is tricky and "oh, no, this only allows you to move the payment portion to the table; staff still have to go to central spot to find a table that can accommodate guests and place their order" was basically a non-starter. The sales pitch is a lot easier now that everything can be done table-side.
For sure. "Bring the card to the device" and "bring the device to the card" seem about equivalent to me in convenience unless the device is something that the waitstaff is going to carry all the time anyhow.
