tagged w/ Food Service
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"Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-United), a New York-based national nonprofit restaurant worker organization, wants to raise and index the federal minimum wage for tipped workers to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage.
"They say the hike is needed to provide a livable income. Tipped workers, the group says, are more likely to fall into poverty than those who receive minimum wage. Servers rely on food stamps at nearly double the rate of the general population.""Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-United), a New York-based national... more
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http://wikiwig.com/2010/08/vending-machines-that-accept-payment-through-your-fingerprints/
next_generation_vending_machineNext Generation of Vending and Food Service will introduce a vending machine that accepts payments via fingerprints. When in Japan, we can pay to use the phone, this one with just a fingerprint, which certainly would never have left at home. To make your fingerprints registered, you are required to register your fingerprint on the credit card company that works with these vending machines. So far, the company has launched 60 of these vendors as fruit machines in the US trials and after the end of 2010, their new vending machines will determine whether the fingerprint is successful or not. According to you, whichever is more convenient, to use fingerprints or phone for payment transactions. They were also testing vending machines that use eye scanner, which means our eyes as a means to pay.http://wikiwig.com/2010/08/vending-machines-that-accept-payment-through-your-fingerprin... more
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Move over McDonald's; 7-Eleven and Subway are the new leaders of the franchise world.A look into the top franchises,separated by industry.Move over McDonald's; 7-Eleven and Subway are the new leaders of the franchise... more
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Germany likes to call itself the "Land of Ideas" - and over the centuries it has certainly had plenty of them. It was Germans who invented the aspirin, the airship, the printing press and the diesel engine.
But Germany has surely never produced anything quite as weird as the automated restaurant.
I say "restaurant" - but it actually looks more like a rollercoaster, with long metal tracks criss-crossing the dining area.
The tracks run all the way from the kitchen, high up in the roof, down to the tables, twisting and turning as they go. And down the tracks - in little pots with wheels fixed to the bottom - speeds food.
Supersonic sausages, high-pace pancakes and wine bottles whizzing down to the customers' tables with the help of good old gravity. One pot is spiralling down so fast, it looks like an Olympic bobsleigh (but it's only Bratwurst).
What's more, at the 's Baggers restaurant in Nuremberg, you don't need waiters to order food. Customers use touch-screen TVs to browse the menu and choose their meal.
You can even use the computers to send e-mails and text messages while you wait for the food to be cooked. But all this may not appeal to those who like traditional waiter service.
Up in the kitchen, it is man, not machine, that makes the food. They haven't found a way of automating the chef, just yet.
Everything is prepared from fresh. When it is ready, the meal is put in a pot and given a sticker and a colour to match the customer's seat.
Then it is put on the rails and dispatched downhill to the correct table. Manna from heaven, German-style.
The restaurant is the brainchild of local businessman Michael Mack.
"I wanted to come up with a complete new restaurant system," Michael tells me, "one that would be more efficient and more comfortable".
Replacing waiters with helter-skelters and computers is fun for the customers. It also makes financial sense for the restaurant.
"You can save labour costs," explains restaurant spokesperson Kyra Mueller-Siecheneder.
"You don't need the waiters to run to the customers, take the orders, run to the kitchen and back to the guests."
The restaurant has not completely done away with the human touch. There are still some staff on hand to explain to rather bemused customers how to use the technology.
But what do the punters here think? Do Germans really have the appetite for automated mealtimes?
"It's another art for eating. I like it!" one man raves.
"It's more for young people than old people," a woman tells me. "My mother was here yesterday and she needs my son's help to order."
Watching all this food raining down on the restaurant makes me ravenous. I decide that it is my turn to test the system. I order steak and salad on the computer and wait for it to appear. A few minutes later, a pot glides down to my table with my "fast food" - and it is delicious.
As I finish the meal and prepare to leave, one final thought crosses my mind. An automated meal doesn't only save the restaurant money, but the customer, too.
After all, in a restaurant without waiters, there is no need to leave a tip... Germany likes to call itself the "Land of Ideas" - and over the centuries it... more
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These fifth-graders were part of a program started by Spoons Across America: the Dinner Party Project, which was designed to teach kids about cooking, nutrition, meal planning, food safety, and etiquette.
"It sounds like a recipe for chaos: 20 fifth-graders in a school cafeteria kitchen on a muggy Saturday afternoon, preparing an ambitious seasonal menu for a guest list of 120. But at the Bridge School here late last month, everything was running like clockwork. The children were lined up, wearing aprons, ready to cook dinner for a crowd of parents, grandparents, siblings, and school and community leaders."
These fifth-graders were part of a program started by Spoons Across America: the... more
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When dining out, a significant percentage of what we pay for is service. But what does good service actually mean and how do we evaluate it?When dining out, a significant percentage of what we pay for is service. But what does... more
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khsing
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added this
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4 years ago
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