In the United States they never bring the terminal to the table. I remember the first time I went to Canada being surprised when the waitress did that.

Not never, but definitely its the default. I certainly prefer the terminal wherever its offered.

If there was a way to avoid that last step, it would probably save restaurants a lot of time. Guests could leave sooner as they wouldn’t have to wait around for payment.

The alternative is to pay on the way out. Requires a single terminal at the exit (or just anywhere, s.g. at the bar). It works perfectly fine. Cafes and restaurants across Europe do this more or less as the standard, the more fancy ones bring the terminal to the table.

I don't know about "Europe", but in France it's pretty common to get the terminal at the table, even at "non-fancy" random eateries.

Sure, you could pay on the way out, but that's often painful. Many others are having the same idea, so now you have to wait around, lining up in a place that wasn't designed for people to wait around, bothering waiters who need to run around serving clients. It's usually less of a hassle to just wait around at the table for the waiter to bring the terminal to you.

My pet peeve with the terminal at the table thing is that, despite card payment being extremely common in my area, the waiter will not bring a terminal over when you ask for the check, you'll have to wait some more.

Because they have that tipping ceremony - they take your card to the back office, swipe it there and return to you with a paper check and a pen to scribe the tip amount. Also they only very recently introduced paywave cards.

Tipping is part of the terminal flow. You touch your card or mobile device, choose the tip, then choose how you want your receipt. (This is in southern California, where terminals exist but are still rare.)

As a Canadian travelling to the US for the first time in 2+ years due to COVID, I had a very odd experience in the Minneapolis airport. My meal was clearly done, I'd said I was ready for the bill, but 10 minutes later... nothing. I flagged down the waitress, and she was equally confused that I was still at my table!

I was expecting a wireless terminal, or at least a "come to the cash when you're ready". Wireless units were probably at 75% adoption in early 2020, and went to 100% when things started to reopen as a (perceived at least) way to minimize intermingling among patrons. When I mentioned I was surprised the credit card wasn't wireless (and also did tipping on paper, not in the terminal), the waitress said she'd never even seen a wireless terminal before!

Growing up, tech in Canada always seemed to lag behind the US, and it's weird to see it the other way around.

OK but being able to just pay and not waste a waiters time is basically only upside? Sure, if you have a special case you can still ask, but for most people it's just like "OK going to give the money now". No needing a waiter to come run over to the cashier to deal with you on top of everyhting else

> OK but being able to just pay and not waste a waiters time is basically only upside?

Yeah, that’s a nice positive aspect. Personally, I don’t think it out-weights the negative ones. Too many bad experiences with badly designed digital menus.

> Sure, if you have a special case you can still ask, but for most people it's just like "OK going to give the money now".

My experience (around here, so obviously YMMV) is that waiters don’t know how to handle exceptions in these restaurants. When you have to escalate to the manager just because you have issues with the menu and the waiter hasn’t been trained properly (of course they haven’t: training costs money), it removes any positive aspect.

> No needing a waiter to come run over to the cashier to deal with you on top of everyhting else

In these cases I just walk to the bar to pay and everything is fine. It is considered rude in some settings, but then these settings are also when waiting for the bill is not acceptable.

This is easily solved by requesting customers to pay at the bar. I don't know why many restaurants still have waiters running back and forth with a payment device or the card.

In fairness, that civilised solution is extremely slow. If you have a meal with 10 people want to pay separately... that's a lot of wasted time just waiting for a card machine.

I was pretty shocked when I first went to America and they just took all of our cards into the back. Hilariously insecure but you can't say it wasn't more efficient.

App payment seems like a good solution.

Currently the only reasonable option seems to be for one person to pay and then split the bill on Monzo - that does work well but some people don't have Monzo still.

Historically the laws around credit card fraud in the US was more consumer friendly, and so the risk to letting your card out of sight was low enough people didn't care.

Laws have changed over the past 20 years, but the culture around how we treat cards has not.

Anecdotally, I've never heard of anyone having a problem getting the charges refunded on a card that's been used fraudulently, regardless of the state of the law. If people were actually losing a lot of money to this type of fraud, I am sure the culture would change, but right now it doesn't seem to be a major problem.

Where does that refund money come from though?

Credit card companies or their insurers I suppose. They must figure it's worth it to pay out in order to maintain their reputation as a secure payment method.

In civilised world you pay when you order at the bar (unless it’s real fancy place)

Around here it’s the contrary. Paying when ordering is only on the low-end or when speed is a selling point. In any other setting you pay when leaving.

Making customers pay upfront is a huge “we’re too cheap to pay for waiters so the customers have to do their jobs” warning sign. They are the kind of places where you’re expected to clean the table when you leave. Ok when all you need are calories quickly, but definitely not pleasant places.

I’m so used to it it’s now bizarre I need to have waiter walk to my table 5 times for a 1 euro coffee. It’s also supremely slow and I keep forgetting to pay.

Pay up front is a sign that either crime is so high in the area that they don't trust you to eat and then pay (as opposed to walking out the door); or a sign that inflation is so bad the price will change by the time you are done eating. Either way not the type of place you want to live.

Sure, Melbourne and Auckland used to be number 1 and 2 cities in the world. Now the cost of living might have pushed them down the drain!

Or it's a sign that they want you to be able to eat there on your lunch break. I've certainly written off restaurants that made me wait a long time to pay.