SEATING SYSTEM MAY EASE RESTAURANT WAITING GAME
"You always look forDave Nielson, a waiter at the County Line restaurant on Tramway, picks ups drinks at the bar. Behind him is TableCheck, an electronic seating management system that helps keep tables full. TableCheck panels, located in the kitchen, dining room, bar and at the front of the restaurant, light up to show the status of tables. The staff can alert the hostess that a table is ready by throwing a switch on one of the panels.
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By Leanne Potts, Assistant Business Editor
It's an experience habitués of restaurants know well: You arrive at the dinner hour on Friday night and the hostess tells you there aren't any tables available.
You put your name on the waiting list that's a Bible's length, find a
corner of the lobby to stand in and wait.
And wait. And wait.
As you stand there you notice one, no two, empty tables in the dining area, piled with
dirty dishes.
No one is coming to clean them.
Your stomach rumbles.
The tables sits empty.
And sits.
And sits.
A table-tracking system called TableCheck can keep customers of busy restaurant from waiting while tables sit empty.
"It allows you to be much more efficient," said Mary Mikeal, manager of the County Line in Albuquerque which uses a TableCheck system. "People don't want to wait more than an hour for a table, and with this we can get people in quicker."
TableCheck is an electronic seating chart that lets the wait staff alert the hostess the minute a table is ready.
It works like this: A network of electronic panels are placed throughout the restaurant. Each panel has a diagram of the restaurant's table arrangement.
Colored lights on the map of the dining room indicate the status of each table: a green light means the table is available, and amber light indicates the table is reserved and a red light means the table needs to be cleared. If the lights are off, that means the table is occupied.
Waiters or busboys can instantly signal the hostess that a table is ready by hitting a light switch on one of the panels.
The maker of TableCheck, TableCheck Technologies, Inc.of Austin, Texas, says the system costs between $3,000 and $6,000, depending on the size of the restaurant. "A bigger restaurant will need more panels" said Barbara Horan, president of TableCheck Technologies.
Horan said the system will pay for itself quickly because it enables restaurants to seat more people in less time. "It keeps people moving," she said. "Empty tables cost money. The goal of a restaurant owner is to have them full as much of the night as possible."
About 120 restaurants in 35 states and Canada are using TableCheck systems, Horan said. The County Line is the only local restaurant that has installed the system.
As the restaurant industry has grown more competitive, more restaurants are using technology to help them move customers in and out faster, said Richard Buratti, executive vice president of the New Mexico Restaurant Association.
That includes beepers, electronic ordering systems and TableCheck. "You always look for that edge," he said. "With the cost of doing business going up, you have to be more efficient to keep up."
Manager Mikeal said she didn't have exact numbers on how much money the system has saved her restaurant, or how much the wait has been reduced. "We haven't clocked it, but it has definitely made a difference," she said.
"Busboys can use TableCheck to alert the hostess that a table has
been cleared," Mikeal said.
Whatever happened to just looking to see if tables are ready? "We have 44 tables, six
are on a patio," Mikeal said. "There is no way you can see them all from the
front. It takes way too long to go and look.
THE ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE - ABQBIZ
Thursday, April 1, 1999
editor Sherry Robinson 823-3632, srobinson@abqtrib.com
