E la Carte has picked up a new national partner in their mission to dominate the tableside table market, with Johnny Rockets signing on to incorporate their self-serve tablets at 200 of their national locations. Rockets will join Applebee’s as family dining chains working with E la Carte. Johnny Rockets ran a brief pilot test of three months to establish customer interest.
And interest their was, as the test restaurants enabled with tablets saw an 11.2 percent improvement in table turn time. Ideally tablet ordering frees up servers to offer a better customer service experience by releasing them from the difficult and onerous task for running paper ticket back to the kitchen. Early data also indicated that though servers are theoretically doing less work, tip rates are actually going up.
Johnny Rockets required a unique customization–the chain wanted to use the tablets to also eliminate the table top juke boxes, which E la Carte was able to accommodate, reports Tech Crunch.
E la Carte has also seen strong interest from investors. Intel Capital and Romulus Capital, as well as Y Combinator head Sam Altman, and TriplePoint Capital have all kicked in to the $35 million the company has raised so far.