Restaurant Pagers

The primary aim of this website is to present you with all the information you might be looking for regarding restaurant pagers.

Initially, you may be asking, just what is a restaurant pager? And how is this going to help me run my restaurant?

Well, this nifty little device can come in all shapes and sizes, and carry out a variety of different functions too. Essentially, a restaurant pager will carry out two main tasks in a restaurant. Communication between wait staff and their customers, and also just between the staff themselves.

Used to its full potential, a restaurant paging system should lead to a dramatic increase in productivity in your operation – thereby justifying what can seem an exorbitant initial outlay. Of course, no two systems are alike, so hopefully this website will help you decide which is best suited to your operation.

I’ll note here too that the face of restaurant paging is no doubt in for some fairly dramatic changes in the near future too, predominantly with the increasing use of cell phone and Internet technology. These are areas I’ll be looking to explore in further posts.

I’ve set up this site to help those that may be looking to buy a restaurant pager system. Hopefully I can help make the process a little easier for you and you can make an informed decision before you hand over the cash. So, on this website, I’ll attempt to try and cover everything related to restaurant paging systems. Eventually this will include pager reviews, tips on maintenance and just about anything in general that I feel may be relevant.

If you like to know a bit about me, check out the about me page. And feel free to drop me a line if you want to say hi or perhaps have some feedback (good or bad).

If there’s something specific that you’re looking for on this site, try using the search box.

And if you have any questions, again please feel free to contact me, or leave a comment. Hopefully myself or one of the other readers will be able to help you out with your restaurant pager query!

In any service industry, and the restaurant trade is no exception, our livelihood depends on being able to deliver a quality product in a timely manner.

That’s why I’m so passionate about the use of paging systems in restaurants.

In fact, it’s not just restaurants that can use them. If you’re involved in any sort of food or beverage operation, then I’m sure you can see the benefits that a paging system would bring to your business, and your bottom line.

Anyway, what I’m intending to briefly cover here is what sort of benefits restaurant paging would bring to your business.

To simplify it, increased staff productivity and efficiency leads to happy and content customers.

Wait staff that find their workload easier and more efficient to carry out are happier. And they pass that on to your customers. Again, it’s a win-win.

And as we know happy, content customers return. And they tell their friends. And then we have a restaurant that is humming.

However, upset, discontent and grumpy customers are likely to never return. And they won’t just tell their friends about the bad service they had at your establishment, they’ll tell their hairdresser, doctor and even the mother-in-law they despise so much.

So it’s important we can recognise the things we can put in place as managers/owners to eliminate those bad customer service experiences.

And where do most of those bad experiences come from? Guests waiting too long for meals or too long to be seated.

So the biggest improvement you can make to your restaurant, outside of the kitchen (and I’m assuming you have top-gun chefs – if not, get in that Gordon Ramsey guy!), is getting your wait-staff to work smarter.

So a restaurant paging system could be the right step for you?

But what to look for?

Obviously, budget is a huge consideration, but you also need to consider the scope of your restaurant operation and exactly how you want your staff to utilize a new tool.

I.e. how many staff do you have? If you only run a restaurant with a dozen or so staff, there is no point buying a restaurant pager system that’s designed to handle 32 portable pagers.

How do you want the pager to communicate with staff? Is a simple vibrate enough, or do you want something that delivers a message as well, i.e. Table 12 mains ready.

Do you want managerial supervision of the pagers. For example, some systems have a Manager’s Pager that receives alerts that can be custom-set for all sorts of reasons, i.e. wait-staff pager not answered after a set period.

Just like any business expense, there are many tangibles to consider. First and foremost though, should be the improvement of service to your customers.

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.