They DO already in much of Europe. Every single restaurant in Norway operates this way. It's fantastic. You pay and go on your own time and you don't worry about your card getting skimmed. Nothing not to love.
At Chili's (an American chain restaurant) they have these payment devices on each table. I can't stand them. First, they take up space on the table that can get quite crowded with all the plates and glasses that tend to accumulate during the meal. Second, they play constant ads (great, now each table can have a TV! What a wonderful distraction). Third, I've experienced about a third of the time, the device isn't working properly, or breaks down partway through paying (my coworkers and I now treat the device as if it'll shatter if you so much as look at it wrong). And fourth, it seems to take longer to pay when the check is being split vs. the waitron [1] taking our cards and processing the payments given the verbose nature of the UI.
And finally, I don't know if a skimmer has been added to the device by previous customers. It is left on the table.
Or, if you don't want to sound like you are describing a robot using a term Merriam-Webster describes as “vaguely disparaging” [0], you could use the gender neutral term almost universally used in the industry, “server”.
Thanks. In South Africa "waitron" is standard, and I hate it, and most people from outside the country just have a "wut" reaction. "Server" is much better.
That's not what's proposed. This would be a terminal that is carried by the waiter to your table, not one per table like in Chilli's/Red Robin/Applebees.
I know Clover has a similar terminal that I've seen used in restaurants around Seattle, and if you go to a restaurant outside of the US, you'd likely see what's being proposed here.