Google has unveiled a new tool to help users skip long lines when waiting for a table at a restaurant – by adding waiting time information to search results.
The new feature has started to appear within the existing popular times graph that Google displays within business information in search results. Now a new live counter will give users an estimated time they’d have to wait to get a seat.
According to the tech giant, more than a million restaurants around the world will have their live wait time shown, with users also able to tap on other bars in the time graph to see estimated wait times for other periods of the day.
The feature appears to already be going live for some users.
“When it comes to a saucy bowl of pasta or a perfectly cooked steak, people are willing to wait in (long) lines for a taste of their favourite comfort foods,” Google’s Quang Duong said in a blog post.
“Rolling out soon, wait times on Google Search (and coming soon to Maps) shows you the estimated wait at your favourite restaurants. Now you can decide whether that cronut is really worth an hour wait or plan ahead to get your fix at a time when you can avoid a wait entirely.”
