Wisconsin Restaurateur taps handheld-POS link to relieve service stresses of scattered floorplan

(Note: This article was published in the Nation’s Restaurant News’ June 17 edition alongside an article titled “Palmable, pocketable POS devices are maneuvering ever nearer to the mainstream, some developers and foodservice users say”, by Mitch Irsfeld)

Handheld point of sale devices are more than time savers for Todd Dukes, owner of Argus Food and Spirits in Madison, Wis. He said the wireless units made so much sense for his operation that they drove him to install a complete POS System with Backoffice Management capabilities.

Dukes’ problem was the physical layout of his 180 seat bar and restaurant, which is located in a historical building near Capitol Square. The kitchen is located downstairs in the back of the building, while the bar and main seating area are upstairs. The outside patio area is off first level in the front of the building.

The restaurant’s most profitable day part is lunch, but the government and financial workers that frequent Argus Food and Spirits are typically on a 30 minute lunch break.

“Our customers would come in and sit down and it was taking 12 to 15 minutes to get them their orders” Duke explained. “We are located in the oldest commercial building in Madison, built in 1847 so we have little to work with and can’t change things”

While a standard POS system with fixed stations would have provided other benefits on the management and control side, they would not have sped up the ordering and delivery process significantly.

“In order to make it work the old way we’d need so much staff that we couldn’t turn a profit” Dukes said. “Now we are able to cut back the staff to where it should be, and we are still faster”

Dukes had reseller Bi-State Cash Register Corp. install the ASI POS and the ASI Handheld system from Action Systems, Inc. and provided 3 of his servers with the mobile devices. Alex Malison, chief executive of ASI said Dukes was offered no special pricing as an early adopter, but he added that ASI did send out a representative to verify that all components were installed correctly.

“After just two weeks of operation we are down to between 6 and 9 minutes, and we are not even proficient at it yet” “We’ve been able to eliminate the time running and table stacking where the waiter goes from one table to the next and then another before running all three orders downstairs”

“Sending orders directly to the kitchen with the handheld units also has smoothed the flow of orders coming there”, Dukes said.

“A server would take other server’s tickets and drop them in the kitchen so that would drop 5 to 6 tickets in the kitchen all at once”, Dukes said. Now that each table gets sent automatically, it distributes the workload, and it makes us even faster in the kitchen. Suddenly the little details improve—the food looks better; the plates look better.

With the handheld units in the mix, Dukes saw the time was right to invest in a full POS system, and largely because of the handhelds, he expects the system to pay for itself in two years.

Dukes noted that he is not the only beneficiary. “The servers are all very excited about it because it takes a lot of the management out of their job, so they can focus on the customer and increase their sales and tips” he said.