TextMyFood lets diners text their servers

TextMyFood

A TextMyFood servers' instruction screen shows customers' text messages

​Ready for the check but can't find your server?

Don't fret. Just send a text!

A company in Massachusetts is offering a new device called TextMyFood that allows customers to communicate to their servers through text messaging. Although the service is currently used exclusively by Boston-metro restaurants and has yet to reach Minnesota, you can fill out the form on TextMyFood's website to request the text messaging service at a restaurant of your choice.

But is this a useful tool in restaurants? Does it improve service by increasing efficiency, or worsen it by making communication less personal?

TextMyFood

Chg odr 2 chzbgr plz. Thx!

​NPR weighs in on the pros and cons as a reporter recounts her experience at a dive bar that uses TextMyFood. Although it appears convenient on a bustling Friday evening when it is difficult for customers get a server's attention, some complain that the device makes the interactions impersonal.

In this day and age when college roommates fight via text while sitting in the same room, letting customers send text messages to their servers may be providing a welcome and necessary service for a whole generation of diners who feel more comfortable typing witty abbreviated phrases than having face-to-face communication.

Or is it breeding poor communicators one meal at a time?

It's a tough call.

Chk plz!