The concept of contactless dining wasn’t the driver for creators of an app meant to improve your dining experience at restaurants.
But once the Covid-19 pandemic hit, TableTab founders Greg Kulchyckyj and Shehryar Malik realized it was time to restrategize.
The duo of Tufts University graduates set out to improve overall efficiency at restaurants for both customer and server. The application they launched in August 2019 created a platform for restaurants to offer a clickable menu for seated customers to place their orders and pay simultaneously, cutting down wait time and increasing turnover inside the restaurant.
“Why Covid created the challenge for us, though, was because no one really cared any more about the efficiency, they just cared about staying alive," Kulchyckyj said. "It wasn't about your incremental sale. It was about a fundamental sale.”
As restaurants began to close and coronavirus cases started to climb, Kulchyckyj and his co-founder used the time to understand what the industry needed. They decided to purchase the domain contactlessdining.com and essentially rebrand their product as a solution to an immediate need.
“The great thing about this product is that while it can have short-term benefit in creating a safe dining experience, it can also have the long-term benefit of creating high-margin experiences that restaurants can trust; that they can keep their margins high in these challenging times,” Kulchyckyj said.
Malik said that before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the company had to prove why its product belonged in a restaurant. At the beginning of their journey over a year ago, both Malik and Kulchyckj tried to pitch their concept to a Harvard Square business.
“When [the general manager] got the idea that people were going to order and pay through their phones, he essentially laughed at us and told us to get the hell out,” Kulchyckyj recalled. “But at the same time, we looked around [and] people were either taking pictures of their food, they were texting, they had their phone out scrolling or it was on the table.”
Now, restaurant owners and general managers are seeking TableTab out as limited contact and interaction becomes an essential safety measure. The general manager of that same Harvard Square restaurant recently reached out as a potential customer.
Even before they began approaching businesses with their concept, Malik, Kulchyckyj and a third partner realized the potential of incorporating technology into the industry to better improve overall customer experience.
A simple trip to a restaurant could take longer than anticipated, which means less orders placed if the waitstaff is busy and uncertainty on when your check will arrive.
“And then there's another experience where [you’re] waiting to pay, and only to order the Uber in like 30 seconds,” Kulchyckyj said. “So it just felt like there's a real disconnect here between what makes a good guest experience for our generation, and what restaurants can currently offer with the conventional workflow that they've relied on for the last 50 years.”
Catering to the instant-gratification generation while improving workflow has always been at the core of TableTab's product. The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t changed that.
The company brings in revenue by charging each user $1 per transaction. Most customers are made aware of the contactless dining option through a QR code that leads them to the app. Instead of seeing a PDF of the menu, the customer can place their order and pay instantly.
This also cuts down on the back and forth between a waiter's table and the restaurant's point-of-sale system.
“Most of their job right now is about going between a point-of-sale system and the table. All they're doing is punching that in and you have to verbally give the order … That job is not about hospitality, [and] it needs to be improved,” Malik said. “So from us, all of those things kind of combined, we can actually improve the way the front of the house is run by using a technology that can kind of handle it.”
Kulchyckyj said TableTab also handles the hard work of populating each menu into the app, which can then be modified to reflect daily specials or offers on the restaurant’s end.
The company's technology is currently deployed in 10 dining establishments in Washington, D.C., New York and the Boston area.
TableTab is in the process of closing a fundraising round and expects to build out its team of three over the next quarter.
“If Covid has done anything, it’s been able to sort of push forward innovative solutions, and you sort of see that in times of struggle for any industry that's when the most innovation happens,” Kulchyckyj said. “So that's the role we're trying to play here, where we can spearhead the recovery of the restaurant industry through the technology that we have to offer.”
