In Canada, I haven’t seen a credit card taken by the waiter for payment since maybe the late 90s. However, the dozens of times that I’ve gone to a sit-down restaurant in the States, I have not once had a waiter bring the machine to the table. Having the machine brought over is much faster and convenient, and allows the customer to be sure of what is charged, so why hasn’t this caught on?
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Registers/readers last a pretty long time. So a place that only has one of them probably just hasn’t needed a new one in a long while.
Portable things can be misplaced. If you are going to get a portable system, you have to train employees so it is available when needed, and/or have extras. (obviously places do have portable systems without issues within the world. But this is a factor that would be considered by whoever decides to change systems, and if they perceive their employees as largely incompetent, it may be a significant factor).
Portable systems require having wifi to run them. If the business didn’t run wifi when they last upgraded their card readers, then they would not have upgraded to portable.
Placing a check on the table and waiting for them to look at it and place down a card, or to pick it up and walk to a register leaves the hospitality message of “take your time” while looming right there at the table with a reader in hand and the customer knowing you have other tables to attend to does put some urgency to the process. The general approach with most restaurants here is to make the customer feel like they can do as they please.
I think the first one I listed is the primary though. Just plain no need to upgrade since this option was reasonably reliable. There are quite a few chain restaurants for dine-in experiences that now have digital menu screens with built in card readers at every table. But there are still franchise locations of those same restaurants that just have the one register up front for you to stop on your way out, or the waiter may take your card from the table if you leave it sitting out for them and they have time.
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