MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - With convenience top of mind in all aspects of our industry, both in retail and foodservice, Google has launched a feature to trim a little more time for consumers. The internet giant unveiled a feature showing wait times for area restaurants on its Google Search to minimize one of the biggest deterrents to going out. The application will be added to Google Maps next, and News Source Tech Crunch reports that grocery stores are next.
“To see wait times for nearly a million sit-down restaurants around the world that allow walk-ins, just search for the restaurant on Google, open the business listing, and scroll down to the Popular Times section. There you’ll see the estimated wait time at that very moment,” Google writes on its blog, Keyword. “And by tapping on any of the hour bars, you’ll see the estimated wait for that time period. You can even scroll left and right to see a summary of each day’s wait times below the hour bars–so you can plan ahead to beat the crowds.”
The box shows labels such as “busy,” “usually busy,” “usually not busy,” etc., along with the wait time, based on anonymized historical data, similar to how Google says it computes its previously launched Popular Times and Visit Duration features.
Available for both Mobile and Desktop, consumers will be able to plan ahead for their eating out and–ideally–help themselves and restaurants prevent those hour-plus waits.
While the company did say collaborations with supermarkets are next, it didn’t hint as to when the feature will hit checkout lines. However, the availability of high-traffic shopping times could give brick and mortar one more step in the race against online shopping as consumers look–as ever–for the quickest, easiest way to get their produce into their refrigerators or onto their kitchen tables.
For the same reason self-checkout has become a regular installation, could this be grocery shopping’s next partner in line? Continue to read as our team looks to bring you the latest on this and other developing produce industry news.
