Royal Casino

Waiters and waitresses at the Royal Casino’s main dining room in Las Vegas use handheld, radio-frequency devices to take diners’ orders and relay the orders to the kitchen. The data entry devices weigh just a few ounces and open like a wallet to reveal a keypad and a small screen. The devices are connected by radio signal to the dining room’s computer. As diners place their orders, the device prompts the waiter through the order. For instance, if the customer asks for a sirloin steak, the system asks the waiter to choose a key corresponding to the desired degree of doneness (i.e., rare, medium rare, and so forth).

When the customer has completed ordering, the waiter hits a key to indicate that fact. The system prints or displays the incoming order for cooks in the kitchen. When the dining party has finished its meal, the waiter indicates this fact by pressing the appropriate key on the handheld device. The system communicates, over conventional wiring, with a point-of-sale (POS) computer at the cash register station, which prints out a guest check. At this time, the system also records the sales event data on the host computer.