Wahaca introduced its QuickPay app to speed up the most frustrating part of eating out for customers – paying the bill.
Co-founder Mark Selby said after first piloting the new technology last year with Flypay, the group was increasingly moving towards being as cashless as possible.
He said the app, which allows users to pay the bill via their mobile phone, was a speed-led innovation to improve the customer experience.
“For us it’s all about making customer journey that much better.
“Our focus is on speeding up the journey while not taking away their enjoyment.”
Speaking as part of a panel discussion at MCA and Restaurant Magazine’s HOSTECH UK conference, he was joined by Alex Wreatham, founder of Charlotte’s Group.
Wreatham explained that his restaruant group’s move to cashless was about saving administrative time for staff, which gave better value for money to customers.
He said: “A big thing for us was looking at cost savings. With the minimum wage gong up and rates rising, we didn’t want to compromise on ingredients. We looked at what we could do reduce costs, and we were spending three hours a day counting takings.
“With no cash you just walk over to the main terminal and hit end of day and then you can have a beer which is quite a big win.
“It’s a genuine benefit for guests watching our incidental costs and allowing us to deliver the best value.”
Meanwhile Neil Sebba, finance director at Tossed, told how introducing ordering terminals allowed staff to concentrate on making the food to order.
He said: “There’s a labour constraint in making food and manning the till, so by allowing guests to order themselves we can move labour onto production.
“People are dealing with a computer but it’s a pretty computer and they seem to like it. The only thing restraining throughput it is that people take their time because they’re not under pressure, and there’s no queue behind them so we’ve had to maximise number of terminals.
He added: “It allows us to really focus on what we’re good at, and worry about other things.
“We’re rolling it out because it’s the right thing to do, but what the impact is on the bottom line? It’s too early to say.”
