I've noticed that over the past year, almost everywhere - even in small neighborhood cafes - they're asking you to pay for your order through your phone before they bring the dish out. It used to be only in fast food places. Is this normal or just a way to save money on waiters?
It's not really about saving money on waiters - it's more of a mixed situation. On one hand, prepayment through an app actually does reduce the workload on staff and eliminates the hassle of settling up after service, especially when there are lots of customers at once. On the other hand, for cafes it's mainly insurance: they're guaranteed to get paid and won't have to deal with counterfeit bills or people who "forgot their wallet."
Plus, during and after the pandemic, contactless payments just became a habit, and payment systems with integrated processing got way simpler and cheaper. Now it's not some exotic thing like fast food places do - it's the standard. Whether that's okay depends on what you prefer, but technically it's already become worldwide practice :)
Another thing is that prepayment reduces the risk of non-payment, which is critical for small cafés: if customers used to be able to leave without paying, now that's out of the question. Plus, owners can see the cash flow in real time and figure out faster which dishes are selling and which aren't. So it's not just optimization - it's a shift to a more transparent and secure operating model :)
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