Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 10, 1993 TAG: 9311100052
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
And now, the pager.
Motorola Inc. and ServiceAlert Inc. have a new way of getting your waiter's attention: a paging system activated by a button in the salt-and-pepper holder.
Pressing the button causes your waiter's pager to vibrate.
The system already is in use at two T.G.I. Friday's restaurants, in Orlando, Fla., and Houston.
It has boosted sales in Orlando by reducing the duration of the average customer's visit, said Jeff Gaskin, one of the restaurant's managers.
"It's probably the next best thing to sliced bread," he said.
However, Stella O'Neill, waitress for a restaurant chain in Chicago, said that while pagers would be helpful during slow periods, they'd be a nuisance when it was busy.
"We have an express lunch where you're trying to get every lunch out within 15 minutes. It's chaotic enough without people paging you all the time," she said.
A system designed for 40 tables and eight servers costs about $6,000; for 100 tables and 20 servers, about $11,000.
Restaurants from McDonald's to the trendiest eating spots have embraced wireless communications in recent years. Hosts and servers converse via headsets, kitchens use pagers to tell servers their orders are up, and waiting customers are issued beepers to let them know when their tables are ready.
Wired service buttons were standard equipment in diners 40 years ago, along with remote jukebox selectors, said Millard Phelps, an industry analyst.
by CNB