Not Your Average Joe’s Makes Better Than Average Mobile Payments Push

March 31, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

Not Your Average Joe’s restaurant is an East Coast chain of restaurants, offering a range of meal choices from pizza and burgers to salads and full entrees along with desserts.

Not exactly a huge new change in the standard restaurant scene, but Not Your Average Joe’s has recently brought out a better than average mobile app, and the results have been worth taking notice of.

The push began when Not Your Average Joe’s chief marketing officer, Rob Gotti, noted that almost all its patrons—about 95 percent—turned to smartphones, which in turn represented something of a mandate to Gotti: open up the system to allow users to use those smartphones to pay for a meal.

A quick download and users get access to an itemized check, which allows them to pay for the full check outright or to pay parts of it, making it easier to split a check.

Plus, users can reorder items already ordered—appetizers and drinks in particular—without having to get a server’s attention.

The app works how many of these apps do usually; diners place orders with a server, also providing a four-digit number from the app at the table.

The server then inputs the order as normal, adding the four-digit code to the ticket to tie it into that user’s experience, allowing the user a note of control over the whole thing.

Sounds great, but it’s easy to wonder why Not Your Average Joe’s isn’t taking it to its fullest extent; such a system could be used to place orders in advance, so why have the server get involved at all?

Why not just let the diner take over the process altogether instead of having that human circuit breaker in there?

One big reason is public perception; Gotti notes that Not Your Average Joe’s puts a priority on hospitality, and that generally requires a human presence.

The app isn’t meant to replace servers, Gotti notes, and that may explain the somewhat half-hearted execution.

Going as far as mobile payments might go can be a problem; no one wants to be “that place that isn’t hiring any more because it’s all robots”.

Still, with the average check value for the app about 13 percent up over non-app users, it’s a safe bet that Not Your Average Joe’s—among others—will carry on with app use.