The Waiting is the Hardest Part: PaidEasy Picks up SmartLine

January 28, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

Going out to a restaurant and waiting for a table can really throw a crimp in the evening.

Those little buzzers that are handed out during rush times to let patrons when a table is available don’t make things much better; forget about leaving the restaurant with one, and it’d be a good idea to wash your hands after handling one.

SmartLine makes that a little simpler by offering a digital equivalent, and mobile payments system PaidEasy has picked up on that, acquiring the company and connecting the waitlist to its payment systems.

The new connection between SmartLine and PaidEasy essentially allows users to find out when a table is available, and then eventually, pay for the meal from the same system.

Better yet, SmartLine also comes with a feature known as CharityWait, a system that—thanks to some agreements with restaurants—essentially allows diners to skip the wait for a table with a sufficient charitable donation to whatever charity the restaurant prefers. The restaurant doesn’t actually profit from that donation; it goes directly to the charity in mind.

Several major restaurants already use CharityWait, including Chez Lucienne, Jado Sushi and Kotobuki, and chances are these restaurants will also be taking payments from PaidEasy before too much longer thanks to this connection.

As PaidEasy founder and CEO Gregg Jackowitz notes, “The acquisition of SmartLine will allow us to offer more services to our partners. Aside from just the mobile payments side of the business we are working closely with our partners to offer them a full end-to-end solution for the ‘walk-in’ customer to capture them from discovering where to go, joining and even skipping the wait—to payment and re-engagement.”

PaidEasy currently works with over 100 restaurants in the New York City area, and SmartLine works with 150 restaurants throughout three different continents. Thus, this is a situation that works well both ways; PaidEasy can bring the SmartLine system—and CharityWait—to its current lineup, and it can also bring its mobile payment services to those who already have SmartLine.

That’s a nice market expansion, and one that should be profitable for PaidEasy.

Waiting for a table at a restaurant has never been a pleasant pastime, but with SmartLine and PaidEasy, waiting shouldn’t be near so tough any more…and neither should paying.