When Seasons 52 opened on Sand Lake Road over five years ago, it was on the cutting edge of new technology. Waiters used hand-held devices to send orders directly, and electronically, from the table to the kitchen.
There were some glitches — servers would put the devices in their aprons without locking the keypad and would inadvertently send food orders to the kitchen. In those early days, it wasn’t unusual to see plates of food on the serving line sit there for long periods of time.That’s because they hadn’t been ordered.
So I wasn’t surprised when I visited that original Seasons 52 and saw a waiter using an old-fashioned pad and pen to take an order. But it turns out the Dardeneers haven’t given up on the technology completely. Seasons’ leader, George Miliotes, told me the restaurant was preparing to change to a different manufacturer for the devices. The old handhelds cost somewhere around $1400 — each! The new ones about a thousand less. So, until the switch-over, waiters without devices were left to, um, their own devices.
