Restaurant, bar customers gobble up table-side technology

There’s no need to track down a waitress at Touch lounge on Church Street in downtown Orlando. Instead, you can just order your drink by pressing some buttons on the table.

Customers can also use touch-screens to play games, flirt with a hottie across the room via text message and consider drink suggestions.

Tabletop high-tech is still relatively rare at restaurants and bars, but analysts expect it to become more common in the near future.

“Technology is increasingly just an extension of our everyday communication,” said Rick Van Warner, president of Orlando-based retail and restaurant-consulting company The Parquet Group. “It’s not thought of as impersonal as it used to be. It’s just become normal.”

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