One more margarita!

Cheers to new tech for a faster table turn and a happier guest

Photo via Unsplash

Every time a restaurant technology company sells itself on turning tables faster, I bristle. Not because turn times aren’t important — because they are, and they can make a serious difference to a bottom line — but because I love restaurants and the restaurant experience. Honestly, I don’t want to be rushed. 

Sometimes, I want a second margarita. Sometimes a third. And when service is lagging or the wait is long or my two young children are fidgeting and ready to get out of there, those multiple margaritas are the first things to go¹.

Bryan Solar, chief product officer at SpotOn, a growing point of sale provider for restaurants, feels the same. 

“My cousins own Mexican restaurants, and they always talk about the second margarita,” he told me recently. It’s good for the margins; if enchiladas cost $10 and a margarita costs $5, selling a second margarita grows the ticket by 33 percent. But a margarita that lands on the table with an appetizer or entree might arrive too late for multiples. “You need that first one to hit the table as soon as possible,” Solar said. 

Under Solar, SpotOn just introduced a new feature to help.