Wait, how else do you pay if they don’t bring the card reader to your table?
Most restaurants in the US take your card away to charge it.
Standard practice in the states is still they bring you the bill on a platter / in a booklet, you review, haggle with friends, etc. and then encompass your payment method within and they take it back to the POS terminal at the bar/server station and bring you back a receipt to sign.
That said I have been to bars in philly that are using tablets as order pads linked to the POS and/or using Square headphone jacks for payment like how you described with them bringing it over to you. Its still pretty rare though and if a place is using a tablet for ordering and payment its much more likely for it to be handled at a cashier either at time of order or when you are leaving and then they have the swipe/scan/chip reader there and the tablet flips/twists over to you to sign and enter a tip amount.
Many places in Portland, OR are moving to the international standard, using Square like mentioned above, or moving to make people pay up front, before or after eating, instead of taking the card. I’m assuming other Metro areas are probably moving in that direction, though Portland could be weird in this too.
Okay.
I can’t remember the last time that happened to me. Between me and my girlfriend, the last time we can remember someone taking a card away was me, when I ate food in an airport in America a few years ago.
These days my main credit card wouldn’t even work without me typing in my PIN, so the wait staff would have to bring the machine anyway.
I keep forgetting comparable America is to a third world country in so many ways.
I never encountered the “they bring a payment processor to your table” in my entire life until I went to Costa Rica in 2009. Never once.
This is America.
I also have to sign every transaction’s receipt overseas, since American credit cards don’t have PINs. And my American AMEX doesn’t have contactless, so I can’t even use it in the London Metro…
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It’s interesting how strange that seems to most Americans unless it’s fast food. There is ONE place in LIC that does that, and it seems like no one ever understands and they have to keep explaining how it works.
Granted, I’d never encountered this until I went to London the first time. It’s not really a thing in the US except for fast food and a handful of fast-casual places. Never at a “nice” restaurant.
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Aha!
My credit card is the opposite. It won’t authorize a payment without a PIN. Signing a piece of paper won’t work.
Total tangent, but the MBTA is introducing a similar system (though it’s been delayed) and I’m v. hype.
(Especially because IIRC the CharlieCard machines all run XP)
My AMEX has been contactless since 2007
And who could forget the importance of Dusseldorf?! It’s how you get to Essen!
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Basically all of Portland’s fast-casual, that aren’t a national chain, operate that way and many “nicer” restaurants are moving in that direction too. I wonder if this is related to that fact that is Portland is weird in general or that servers here have the same minimum wage as everyone else.
A lot of chain sit-down restaurants now use Zoosk terminals that are placed at each table. Depending on how old they are they’ll take anything from Credit Cards to Apple/Google pay.
I think you meant Ziosk, though paying with a dating service could make splitting the check quite interesting.
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Thank you, didn’t remember the name and really didn’t want to spend the energy looking it up.
Speaking of Deutsche cities writ large, Berlin was hands down the best I experienced 18 years ago with München a close second. I would really like to go back with my wife, but international travel is on hold whilst home improvements are afoot.
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Spoken like a man who’s been to Dusseldorf!
Scott should be smacked with a cheesesteak for wanting to live anywhere in NJ over Philly.
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