Applebees Introducing In-Restaurant Tablets for Ordering Food and Entertainment

Much like the WaWas and Sheetzs of the world, another big-name restaurant chain is getting in on the order-your-food-from-a-tablet-instead-of-a-human-being trend: Applebees. Not only will you soon be able to avoid human interaction when ordering food at the chain, you’ll be able to avoid it while waiting on and eating said food too.

Applebees has announced a plan to install over 100,000 tablets nation-wide in its restaurants, across its many tables and bars – simply so that you may order food, resolve the check, and even play games in the downtime — all without ever having to interact with another person. This new tech should be in over 1,800 Applebees locations by the end of next year.

Not only is this a benefit to the people who are secretly embarrassed to order 4 trays of jalapeno poppers for their own gorging purposes, it’s also a plus to people who aren’t comfortable with casual dinner conversation.

First date not going so well? Just order another margarita and play some virtual Backgammon. Don’t even make eye contact with the pretty face in front of you. Heck, it might not even last, so why bother? You did take her to an Applebees, after all.

Another feature of this restaurant-tablet integration is that you can share what you’re indulging in with your Facebook pals. Nothing says friendship like rubbing your greasy order of mozzarella sticks on your buddy Joe’s Facebook wall – digitally, anyway.

But Applebees isn’t the only restaurant to introduce this new technology, as Chilis made a similar announcement for their restaurants back in September. Its parent company is even discussing bringing a similar system to iHOP.

So look forward to a 2014 where your Facebook wall is no longer filled with high school friends complaining about their lives, and populated more so with fluffy, delicious pancakes. And really, that’s the future we all want and need anyway.