• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, August 6, 2013

Waiter, check please? Waiter? Hello? The most popular online restaurant reservation service OpenTable will try to cut the frustration and wait times out of live service for diners with the new meal payment system through its existing mobile app. CEO Matthew Roberts told The New York Times that later this year the company would begin testing in its app a system that allowed diners to pay for their meal in the restaurant instead of asking for the check. The system would be tied to the establishment's in-house computerized ordering system so that the diner could see everything on the check, confirm and pay.

Roberts told the Times that the process would be very straightforward for the diner and simply be a part of their existing reservation app rather than require any scanning or code-entering. OpenTable would not charge restaurants extra for the service over and above its existing reservation fees and equipment. The new feature comes after the company’s June purchase of JustChalo, which has been testing a restaurant payment system based on its own technology. The first OpenTable pilot will begin in San Francisco by the end of the year.

According to the report, however, one of the biggest hurdles in mobile payments in a restaurant is distinguishing the paying from the non-paying customer. Paying your dining check by app requires that the staff be alerted that someone on their way out the door has already paid. Roberts quipped: “The last thing you want is a server to chase somebody out of the building.” Some sort of alerting system needs to be devised that alerts the servers and staff that a customer has already paid. Sounds like another opportunity to put mobile devices in the hands of waiters and waitresses.

OpenTable said earlier this year that it had booked 34 million diners in North America in the first quarter of 2013, with 36% who had made the reservations via devices. The company says it has processed more than 60 million mobile reservations since it began offering the service in 2008.

This is the same problem that many of us already encounter with mobile self-checkout in the very few retail stores that allow it. In my Apple Store, for instance, I can use the Apple Store App to make my purchase, but I leave the store holding my phone up to the greeter on my way out to verify the purchase.

One thing that self-checkout schemes do not consider is or manage well yet is that strange awkward situation. Now the consumer is obliged to show proof of payment in order to get out of the store or restaurant. That may seem trivial, and perhaps it is in the end. But it is an odd dynamic to convenience the consumer with a streamlined checkout process, only to add an uncomfortable wrinkle around having to get clearance to leave. 

"Stop Crime" photo from Shutterstock.