No waiting for the check: PayMyTab allows servers to process credit cards securely at table

One of the biggest problems for restaurants these days are chargebacks, or getting stuck with the bill when a customer disputes it.

If the transaction is not done securely — meaning that the embedded security chip card is “swiped” or run through the machine, instead of “dipped” — the credit card processor could chargeback the bill to the restaurant.

But PayMyTab, a tablet developed by South Florida technology innovator Tom Holmes, aims to solve that problem, and local restaurateurs say it’s the best solution to come along in some time. That’s because PayMyTab is an at-table payment system that prevents a chip card from being swiped like a traditional magnetic-stripe card.

Processing the chip card at the table also protects the customer because the server doesn’t disappear with the credit card to run it through a card processing machine, Holmes said.

Tim Petrillo, co-founder of The Restaurant People in Fort Lauderdale, uses PayMyTab at his Boatyard restaurant, and the tool will soon be introduced at his other Fort Lauderdale-area restaurants including YOLO, S3 and Tarpon Bend Food & Tackle.

PayMyTab “came along and quickly solved a significant issue for the restaurant business,” Petrillo said, adding that his company has gotten stuck with the tab for a customer’s bill more than he’d like to admit.

Frank Zaffere, business partner with Paul Flanigan in the Quarterdeck restaurants and a new Fort Lauderdale restaurant, Good Spirits, said most systems still require the server to take a chip credit card away from the customer to process it on a special chip machine. “It’s unbelievable — there were no solutions in the restaurant business that made any sense,” he said.

So his restaurants are getting ready to implement PayMyTab by training servers on the new tool. PayMyTab’s platform is “brilliant,” he said.

Merchants became responsible for chargebacks from credit-card disputes as of October 2015. Holmes said chargebacks have been a big problem for restaurants, with some having as much as $2,000 to $3,000 a month in chargebacks, he said.

Holmes said that if a credit card charge is disputed, the restaurant can call up the customer’s specific bill on PayMyTab’s information system to correct the information.

With PayMyTab, servers bring the tool to the table when it comes time to settle the bill.

There are other at-table payment devices out there — at Applebee’s and Olive Garden, for example. They are terminals designed to sit on the table and may allow customers to play video games, Holmes said.

Some finer dining establishments don’t like the look of a terminal on the table, Holmes said. “We can get the same coverage without an ugly device deployed on every tabletop with three to six tablets in the hands of the servers,” he said.

There is at least one competitor, California-based Clover Network that also has a mobile device that can be used by a server at the table.

Due to large-scale data breaches and card fraud, U.S. card issuers have moved to microchip-enabled cards that create a unique transaction that can’t be used again, according to CreditCards.com, a credit card site owned by Charlotte, N.C.-based Red Ventures. Traditional cards with magnetic stripes are prime targets for counterfeiters, who convert stolen card data to cash, according to the site.

PayMyTab has other features as well. If a customer wants to evenly split a check with others at the table, the tool allows that. The tool also keeps track of the customer’s spending at the restaurant; and gives the customer the opportunity to provide an immediate review of the restaurant experience.

Petrillo said he likes the immediate feedback from a customer. The tool “provides more information to make better decisions. We could run our top 20 percent guests and search the common things that they order,” he said. As a result, the restaurant may decide to change a menu item — or not.

“We built the whole system around trying to make the whole dining experience as frictionless as possible,” said Holmes, who has launched the PayMyTab tablet and the related DinerIQ information and marketing platform for restaurants. The tablet also helps restaurants turn tables faster, because servers don’t have to run back and forth with the check and the customer’s credit card to process elsewhere.

Holmes became an entrepreneur, following a career that included the position of chief information officer at Boca Raton-based mobile wallet and messaging company 3Cinteractive and vice president of information technology services at Deerfield Beach-based automobile company JM Family Enterprises.

Last year, Holmes was joined in the business by local entrepreneur Sean Guerin, most recently CEO of the Strikers’ soccer team in Fort Lauderdale but best known as co-founder of U.S. Imaging Solutions, a Davie-based sales and service provider for major printer brands, which was sold to Tampa-based Dex Imaging in 2013.

As a Fort Lauderdale native and former chairman of the board of trustees for Broward College, Guerin realized he could help with his community connections and introduced Holmes to major restaurant operators.

PayMyTab is being used or is in the process of being launched in 250 restaurants across the country, Holmes said. Restaurants pay a one-time charge for the tablets, and then a monthly fee for service. The company expects to end the year with more than $1 million in annual recurring revenues, he said. There was no significant revenue in 2016, as PayMyTab was still being developed.

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