On-premises restaurant communication system and method

A restaurant communication device for communicating within a restaurant, said device comprising:

• means for mounting the device on a dining table in the restaurant;
• means for storing in the device, a table identifier for the dining table;
• means for receiving a customer number from a customer;
• and
• means responsive to receiving the customer number for sending a message to a central food-service counter in the restaurant, said message including the table identifier and the customer number.

A method of providing a table location where a particular customer is sitting to a food server located at a central service counter in a restaurant having a plurality of tables, said method comprising the steps of:

• mounting a communication device on each of the plurality of tables in the restaurant;
• storing a unique table identifier for each of the plurality of tables in the communication device mounted on each table;
• providing the particular customer with a data token on which a customer number is encoded;
• reading the particular customer's customer number with a data input device at a particular communication device mounted on one of the plurality of tables;
• sending a message from the particular communication device to the central service counter in response to reading the particular customer's customer number, said message including the unique table identifier and the particular customer's customer number;
• extracting by the central service counter, the unique table identifier and the particular customer's customer number from the received message;
• determining a table location from the extracted table identifier;
• and
• providing the food server with the table location for the particular customer.