Johnny Rockets Restaurants To Roll Out E La Carte’s Tablets To 200 Locations

In the race to become one of the top tableside tablet providers, Silicon Valley-based E la Carte has just scored another notable restaurant deal to follow that of the Applebee’s win from last year: the company says today that it’s preparing to install its tablets at over 200 U.S. Johnny Rockets locations starting next month. The deal was struck after a relatively brief, three-month trial period where the restaurant chain tested E la Carte’s tablets alongside competitive solutions.

During the pilot, the restaurants saw an 11.2% improvement in table turn time – one of the key factors restaurants are looking at when considering a tablet investment. The idea is that customers can order from their table without the server’s involvement, as orders can be sent directly to the kitchen. Servers can then focus more on making sure guests are happy, instead of running back and forth with paper tickets. And even though servers may have to do “less work,” tablets that suggest tip amounts have been shown to increase tips.

In the Jonny Rockets deal, the company was specifically looking for a solution that would allow customers to pay from the tablets as well as replace their original tabletop jukeboxes with the new devices. E la Carte ended up working with the restaurant chain to develop a jukebox solution. (The company recently opened up its platform to third-party developers, allowing social media jukebox app Rockbot to appear on the E la Carte tablets. California chain The Melt is now using Rockbot, we previously noted.)

E la Carte’s Presto Platform competes with other restaurant apps like Tabbedout, MenuPad, iMenu, Ziosk (which won Chili’s), and others.

The company announced last month another $35 million in funding from Intel Capital and Romulus Capital, as well as Y Combinator head Sam Altman, and TriplePoint Capital. E ;a Carte also has deals with Genghis Grill and other undisclosed chains.