Spend less of your time waiting at lunch

Lunch time in Hong Kong has always been a bit of a challenge. There are just too many people and too few food outlets. More often than not, I spend most of my lunch hour waiting in line trying to buy takeaway food.

What if there's a way where you don't have to stand in line to place your order or to pay? What if all you have to do is to stop by and pick up your order at a designated time? This is my suggestion for a scheme that requires a mobile phone and it works as follows :

1. You do a one time registration of your mobile phone number with the food store by sending it an SMS, it will send you a PIN number as confirmation.
2. At around lunch time, you send an SMS to the food store, and it will respond with a message : "1 - for same as what you had last, 2 - for the Daily Special, 3 - putting in the item code from the food menu yourself (for ordering from inside the food store or from the food menu on the food store's website)"
3. You make your choice, replying via SMS.
4. The food store will respond with an Order # and an estimated pickup time
5. If you respond with the PIN number you got when you registered your mobile phone with the food store (Step 1), the order will be charged to your phone bill. Alternatively you can skip this step and pay when you pick up your order.
6. You pick up your lunch at the estimated pickup time, quoting your phone number and the order #.

This will eliminate most of the queuing up : to place your order and even to pay. It should eliminate most of the cash handling at the food store as well, cutting down administrative costs and increasing security (less cash carried in-store). You and I can then spend less time waiting in lines and more time relaxing during our lunch hours!