iPads popping up in dining rooms across the USA

The era of high-tech kitchens is fading, but it seems as though gizmos are now colonizing the dining room. Stacked: Food Built Well, a food chain from Southern California, has announced that iPads will be replacing menus and waiters as a means for customers to order their meals. As USA Today reports, a burger-hungry diner can sit down, select the bun, meat and toppings by dragging items on the iPad, and a runner will bring the creation to his or her table. Theft will be checked by an alarm that sounds whenever an iPad is carried out the door.

Turns out that Stacked isn’t the first restaurant with iPad ordering. We know that Toronto’s E11even has been using iPads to show off their wine list, and, according to USA Today, the devices are becoming more and more common in North American eateries:

Others have tried iPads. Restaurants by Delta Air Lines gates at New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airport installed iPads at tables that let guests custom-order meals. Bone’s Restaurant in Atlanta uses iPads for its wine list. Co-owner Richard Lewis says wine sales jumped 20% since the iPads were added six months ago. Someday, they’ll be at all restaurants, Lewis says. “It’s the future.”

At this rate, when we’re old and grey, we can tell our grandchildren about these old-fashioned slips of paper, known as menus, that we had to consult before asking for food from non-robots.

• iPads replacing restaurant menus, staff [USA Today]