Restaurant Pagers

California-based restaurant technology company Servisensor has recently announced the launch of its waitstaff calling system, the ServiceLight. What’s unique about this pager system is that it allows restaurant customers to communicate with the staff, as opposed to systems that are designed for communication between staff, or from staff to customer. It’s much like the little attention buttons that you find above your seat in passenger jets.

Essentially, the ServiceLight is a table-top device powered by four AA batteries with three colored lights on the top. One for Service, one for Refill and one for Cheque. Being portable, the device is left at the table with the menus when guests are seated. So the concept is quite simple in that the restaurant customer presses the relevant button when their table needs attention, thereby illuminating the button and notifying staff or managemet.

Whilst I love to see innovation in restaurant operations, I do feel that staff and management should be sufficiently intuitive to know when a table needs attention anyway, and this probably isn’t a device that you will see in many five-star restaurants anytime soon.

However, for those restaurants catering in other markets and where efficiency in table management is crucial, Servisensor could be on to something with their ServiceLight. The unit is brandable as well, so there is potential for selling advertising space here I guess.

At $100 per unit though, this does mean a significant capital outlay for even medium-sized restaurants, particularly if they have already invested in other pager systems.

So how does a restaurant paging system work?

Well, first of all, there are a number of different pagers that you can implement in your restaurant operation. I’ll cover the two most common I’ve encountered in food and beverage service.

The first and most basic of these that I will mention here is what is typically called a Waiter Page or Waiter Call system. This is the system that you would use for communication between staff in your restaurant or food/beverage service operation.

The main part of this setup is a desktop transmitter that is normally stored at your  kitchen. Most of these are ruggedly built, so they can be stored near high temperature areas and are also water resistant.

The transmitter often incorporates a recharging cradle for the portable pagers as well. The other element to this is the portable pager that the wait staff will discreteley carry during his or her shift.

Basically, once a meal is ready to be served, a page is sent from the transmitter by the kitchen brigade to the wait staff looking after the relevant table. The pager will silently vibrate, alerting the staff member that one of their tables is ready to be served.

Another increasingly common use of paging systems in restaurants is the Restaurant Coaster Pager.

This pager comes into use when all tables are full in your restaurant, so waiting guests are given a pager (many look similar to regular bar coasters, but a bit bulkier, hence the coaster pager name). They take this with them and head to the bar and enjoy a leisurely drink whilst waiting for their table to be ready. When the table is free, frontdesk simply pushes a button on the master transmitter. The “coaster” will beep, vibrate or flash (or all), alerting the customer that their table is ready.

Apart from the coaster design, I’ve seen some  units designed to allow a small printed advert to be inserted in a perspex holder. This is an ideal way to advise specials of the day or promote a new wine!

Many pager systems also allow a “manager’s pager”. This can be configured so that a manager or maitre’d can be informed when meals are being sent out and tables are being seated without needing to be anywhere in the vicinity.

Most restaurant pager systems in todays market work on a UHF or RF frequency, and have an extensive range that will penetrate many walls.

Depending on your budget, they can send anything from a simple alert or a detailed message to the receiver.