I've been working in the restaurant industry for a few years now. I started at a little hole in the wall dive but immediately realized that I wanted to keep waitressing and tending bar since that's where the money seems to be at my age. I never had a problem hand-writing everyone's orders and personally running them back to the kitchen, that is, until I started working at the brewery I work at now. At Iron Hill we currently use a computer system called Aloha. General knowledge would lead us to the conclusion that computers are usually more convenient than hand-writing in most situations today, but it wasn't until I started thinking about usability that I realized just how convenient the Aloha system is.
The place where I work when I'm not at school is the perfect definition of a neighborhood bar / grill. Almost everyone knows each other and every time you work the same people are always in their predictable seats. To be honest, a computer system would look ridiculously out of place there. However, with having all of the customer checks hand-written we tend to run into a lot of problems. To start, the kitchen staff is always having trouble reading the employees writing/ abbreviations and a lot of the time we forget to write down information that the kitchen staff needs. This then causes someone who works in the kitchen to come find you and ask you what the customer wants. Not only does this waste the kitchen's time, but it adds to the amount time that the customer waits for their food. Having the waitresses personally run the order to the kitchen creates problems as well. Especially on a busy night, you don't want to have to take the time to run back to the kitchen. When you're constantly running to the kitchen you can end up neglecting your tables and be completely oblivious to the fact that you have a new table. From what I've noticed the Aloha system has fixed these problems.
The Aloha computer system is a touch screen system that stores every table's order information and relays information to the correct area of the restaurant. After you put in your employee number a simplified map of the dining room and cocktail areas appear. You then touch whatever table you're putting the information in for and navigate through the options. Everything is broken down into convenient tabs so once you know the menu there isn't any guess work. There is a tab for everything from appetizers, soups/salads, and entrees to beers, liquors, cocktails, and deserts. Once you've entered you're tables orders you have the ability to hold or send whichever items so that you can control the time of when the food comes out. Once you hit the send button it sends the alcohol orders directly to the bar, entree orders to the kitchen, pizza orders to the pizza station, and appetizer/salad/desert orders to the back line. This eliminates the task of running to the kitchen after everything one of your tables orders and also alleviates the problem of the kitchen reading your writing or understanding your abbreviations. Another perk to Aloha is that it is impossible to forget to get a meat temp., egg style, type of cheese, etc. because whenever you select an item that needs that information the system prompts you with a list that you can't navigate away from without removing the item. No more kitchen staff coming to find you for forgetting to put how a customer would like their burger done.
The system also makes a number of other things convenient. Just by touching the screen you can automatically divide a check equally, create separate checks just by dragging items over, and easily re-order a customer's drink without having to flip through your book and guess which table the order is for. Aloha also makes payment convenient since you can slide someone's credit card right at the kiosk. It keeps track of your tips, sales, check averages, and at the end of the night there is no guess work behind how much you owe the restaurant and what is yours to take home. When you're shift is over you simply print out a "check out" slip that shows you your sales, customer transactions, and how much you owe the restaurant / they owe you.
This system has excellent usability and now that I'm used to it I never want to go back to the old-fashioned way. Since I've worked in environments that has lead me to experience both ways I see just how convenient and user friendly Aloha is. It's definitely going to be a rough adjustment going back to hand-written checks this summer, but who knows, maybe I'll be able to convince them that usability is extremely important to convenience and success.
