Have you recently gone to a restaurant and found no physical menu, only a digital one you have to access with your phone? That's increasingly becoming the norm in Charlotte and across the country. The Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter recently looked into the growing amount of technology in restaurant service. The Ledger's Tony Mecia joins WFAE's Marshall Terry to talk about that and more in business news.
Marshall Terry: So, I've had to pull up a menu using one of those QR codes more and more since the pandemic, it seems. Are the days of the analog menu gone?
Tony Mecia: I don't know that they're gone for good. You know, now what we're seeing is a lot more technology really being introduced for the whole customer experience, not just ordering, but paying bills, making reservations. And it's sort of changing a little bit of that restaurant experience for those who want it. There's a new survey by the National Restaurant Association that shows that younger diners, in particular, are more open to using their phones to pay, for example, at the table and doing a whole host of other.
Terry: Well, what does this mean for wait staff? And what other tech-driven changes are coming?
Mecia: Well, restaurants that we talked to, they said that they see a number of advantages. That it helps speed up service. For example, a server — instead of taking your credit card, going to run a credit card and then taking it back to you waiting for you to sign it — if that can all be done at the table on the QR code, that frees up their server to do other things. The survey by the National Restaurant Association showed that younger diners, in particular, are interested in things that maybe we haven't even seen yet. Things like reserving a specific table online as well as even ordering on your phone before you get to the restaurant so that your food arrives just about the same time you do so. Those are some of the technological advances you might be seeing in the coming years.
Terry: We're sticking with this topic for a moment. You report Charlotte restaurants are serving high-end beef like never before. Just how high end and what's behind it?
Mecia: Well, certainly higher end than I'm accustomed to, Marshall. Some of these restaurants are really getting into this Wagyu beef, which is a very high-end beef from Japan. The restaurant Counter in Charlotte recently had a $750 per person dining experience, which they sold out of very quickly. Stake 48 has $125 Wagyu appetizers and the restaurant Hestia in the AC Marriott in Ballantyne, it has a 60-ounce Tomahawk steak. It's $400.00, and it serves four to six people. So this is really, sort of, restaurants say, sort of, meeting this customer demand for the more luxurious and extravagant types of dining.
Terry: All right. On now to a new survey that shows that small businesses in Charlotte are more optimistic than their counterparts elsewhere. Something in the water here?
Mecia: Yeah, a new survey by U.S. Bank showed that 99% of small business owners surveyed in Charlotte said that they were optimistic about their future, and 98% describe their businesses as successful. These are higher than national averages. I think it has to do with that Charlotte kind of can-do spirit. Also that Charlotte — it might be a good place to start a business. You know, we're growing, thriving. And as we mentioned before, you have a lot of people spending money on things like high-end beef.
Terry: Finally, you report air taxis could soon be a reality. I can already see it on my phone — that screen where you have to rate how well your pilot did.
Mecia: That's right. Imagine, you know, waiting there for it to connect with somebody to come pick you up in the helicopter. Ben Gable, of the architecture firm Gresham Smith, which does a lot of work with Charlotte Douglas International Airport, gave a speech to Charlotte Rotary this week. He said there's a trend at airports of something called vertical takeoff and lift. It's basically an air taxi that picks you up at the airport and drops you off downtown. The Tampa, Florida, airport, for example, is experimenting with air taxis. We contacted Charlotte airports, and they said they have no immediate plans for it. So I guess that experience you're going to have to wait a little bit, Marshall, before you take that into downtown.
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