Re:Ask HN: My family business runs on a 1993-era text-based-...
by gruntledfangler on Wednesday November 05, 2025 @01:22PM
(#45826068)
I’ve worked at many bars and restaurants. The best ordering interface I ever used was at Pizza Hut circa 1999. It was a monochrome TUI (orange). It was ancient-looking even then.
The speed was incredible once you got proficient. Once you got the muscle memory down you could punch in any single pizza order in less than a second. Even something complicated like different toppings on the halves was NBD. Pizza Hut was always coming up with these ridiculous gimmicks and the system could accommodate them seamlessly. Just incredible.
This system probably quietly saved the company millions in its time.
The speed was incredible once you got proficient. Once you got the muscle memory down you could punch in any single pizza order in less than a second. Even something complicated like different toppings on the halves was NBD. Pizza Hut was always coming up with these ridiculous gimmicks and the system could accommodate them seamlessly. Just incredible.
This system probably quietly saved the company millions in its time.