Ziosk at Red Robin: Round Two

One of my first blog posts a couple months ago was about my first experience with Ziosk, the tabletop ordering and entertainment system in use at a few restaurants around the country, including Red Robin where I found it.  At the time I found the device promising, but ran into a couple drawbacks, namely that many of the features Ziosk advertises on its site were not available at the Red Robin I ate at.  A few days ago we returned to Red Robin for lunch while out shopping, and I decided to do a more thorough review of the device, and see if it had improved since my last experience.

For those who are not familiar with Ziosk, it is a seven inch Android tablet attached to a stand, that the host/hostess at Red Robin puts on your table when you are seated.  It is designed to assist the server in taking orders and drink refills, as well as acts as an on-table entertainment system.  They have been rolling out in certain Red Robins and Chili's, as well as some other smaller restaurants nationwide.  At Red Robin at least, you can order alcoholic drinks, appetizers, desserts, play games, and choose and vote on the music playing in the restaurant.  It is a pretty cool little device, and is an easy distraction for younger children.

Ziosk Tabletop Media System Walkthrough

I had actually forgotten that Red Robin used Ziosk when we decided to eat there, but I immediately remembered the moment I walked through the door.  Last time I got a couple pictures of the device and played around with it a bit, but this time I wanted to do a more thorough review of it.  Since I was somewhat familiar with it, I was able to get a few videos of how it works without looking like a bumbling fool trying to navigate my way through.  For those who have never seen one or used one, I put together a short walkthrough video that just steps through most of the menus and gives you a feel of what Ziosk does and does not do.

Ziosk Doesn't Let Me Order My Entree

You can see from this video that Ziosk automates much of your restaurant experience, though is missing a couple key areas.  While you can order appetizers and desserts, entrees are only available to order from your server.  I am not sure if this is due to a Ziosk limitation, Red Robin's point of sale (POS) computer system, or is intentional to ensure the servers stay involved with your order, but it is frustrating to me.  I am generally a private person, so the less involvement with the server the better. (no offense to servers, I just like my own little family bubble and try to limit the involvement of other people)  There is really no technical reason entrees can't be included on Ziosk, and I prefer seeing my order on the screen to verify it is in the system correctly.  It makes custom orders easier, and I can (and so can the restaurant management) narrow down the point of failure when my order comes out wrong.  I suspect entrees were left out in order to make servers feel like their job was still safe, even though it would probably take five minutes to upgrade all the Ziosks in the restaurant to include entrees.

Ziosk is also a Tabletop Entertainment System

In addition to taking your order, Ziosk offers games and music.  You can see the games main menu in the video, though I don't bother to pay the two dollars to play them because I am not paying two dollars to play games I could easily play for free on my phone, especially when I am eating lunch with my family.  The game aspect is interesting, though, because it does offer the ability to distract your children if necessary, as well as the potential to play trivia and other competitive games with other tables and/or restaurants.  I'd expect this to be added in the future as Ziosk becomes more widespread and familiar.

As you can see from the music tab, Ziosk also acts as the restaurant jukebox, allowing you to view the current song playing, like or dislike it (along with seeing the song's popularity at the restaurant), and pick a new song to play (for 99 cents).  It is moderately useful if you want to know the name of the song playing, and being able to choose the music is nice, even though 99 cents is pretty expensive.  It would be nice to be able to download the song playing to your smartphone via iTunes or Google Play Music via a QR code or other means, but the Android platform does make those kind of features easy to implement in the future.

One major complaint I had last visit that I had again, was the inability to order or refill soft drinks via Ziosk.  As you can see from the previous video, there is no option for soft drinks, only alcohol.  I had hoped that after our server entered our beverage orders into the POS computer we would gain the ability to request refills on our soft drinks, but alas, that was not the case.  You can see my failure to request drink refills in the video below.


I realize this can be filed under first-world problems, but it is annoying when you want a drink refill and your server is nowhere to be found.  I really like the concept of being able to tell your server you are thirsty anytime, anywhere.  I can only hope that this feature will be added in the future.

Ziosk Does Let You Order Appetizers and Dessert

Since we ended up ordering our appetizer via our server (she asked before we were able to put it into the computer), and entrees cannot be ordered on Ziosk, I was not able to show the ordering process for these.  I still wanted to show a quick walkthrough of the ordering process, so I was forced to suck it up and order some dessert.  Below is the process of placing an order for dessert.


It is a very easy system to use, and offers all the customizability you could want, letting you pick toppings to remove, as well as the number of spoons to include.  You don't get to see it in the video, but the light on top of the device turns blue when the order is placed, and turns off when the server grabs it to bring it to your table.  It is a very nice touch, and at least for me, makes me more comfortable when I have an idea what is going on with my order.  If my blue light goes off and my food doesn't arrive soon thereafter, I know they gave it to the wrong table.

Ziosk Bill Pay System is Great

The last part of the Ziosk experience is paying for the bill.  This is probably my favorite part, because I cannot tell you how many times I have waited ten minutes or longer for my bill to arrive at the table, pay the tab, get my card and receipt back, and leave a tip.  This part alone saves me several minutes per trip, and also gets me out the door faster, which is good for the restaurant too.  My feeling from using Ziosk to pay for my order, especially the tipping process, is that I end up tipping more via Ziosk than I do on paper.  I think this is due to something psychological when I see the slider bar for setting a tip, but I can't be sure.


The only issue I have with the ordering system is the receipt.  Last time I used Ziosk I ran into an issue when tearing off the receipt from the machine.  At the time there did not appear to be any sharp part to help tear, nor did Ziosk appear to pre-tear the paper to help.  This time, it was exactly the same.  You can see my difficulty at the end of the video, with part of the receipt printer actually coming loose from the rest of the device at one point.  I know this is a really minor issue, but the devil is in the details.  Those little nuisances can make the difference between a product everyone loves and one everyone loathes.