TGI Fridays Uses Oracle & MasterCard Tech For Bar Tab Ordering And Payment Service

Restaurant chain TGI Fridays has created a mobile service that allows customers to order and pay for drinks without the need to queue.

TGI Fridays developed Bar Tab, a function within MasterCard’s Qkr! payment app, to eliminate the need for queuing.

Also helping party-people swap queuing for relaxation is digital payment service Masterpass and Oracle Hospitality’s restaurant management platform, that underpins the orders and payments made through Bar Tab.

Boozing via smartphones

With Bar Tab customers can manage their tab through a designated four-digit PIN that allows them to manage payments and split bills securely, preventing someone from grabbing the smartphone and ordering 20 Jaegerbombs and 50 chicken wings ‘just for jokes’.

While Bar Tab is hardly a revolution in technology meets hospitality and revelry, it does indicate the ongoing surge of digital transformation among traditional organisations, whereby they aim to adopt technology with a real operational or customer benefit, rather than simply plough data into the cloud.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve the unique Fridays experience for our guests,” said Jeremy Dunderdale, head of business solutions at TGI Fridays UK.

“With Bar Tab, we’re able to offer our diners the freedom to settle their bills on-demand, with this quicker and more convenient payment platform. Enabling self-service payments also allows our team members to focus on engaging guests in more meaningful ways – which is what we’re all about at Fridays.”

Oracle Hospitality’s Dale Grant, senior vice president of food and beverage at the database firm, sees Bar Tab as not simply making like easier for customers but also a means to reduce losses for TGI Fridays from customers who sneak out without paying for their traditional tabs.

“By implementing Bar Tab, TGI Fridays can now offer its customers a quicker, more convenient experience that empowers staff to provide more welcoming bar experiences while reducing the number of unpaid tabs at the end of the night,” he said.

TGI Fridays is not alone in its mission to reduce queuing, with the National Theatre having also developed a mobile app and web service that essentially facilitates queue jumping.

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