The Evolution of Takeout: PickPad’s Innovative Solution
Remember the days when picking up your coffee at a café meant simply listening for your name to be called out? Sure, there were the occasional mix-ups, but it was a straightforward process. However, in our current post-pandemic world, with delivery giants like Uber Eats and DoorDash dominating the scene, this seemingly simple task has become a bit more complicated.
Enter PickPad, a Chicago-based hardware startup that’s aiming to streamline this process. At CES 2025, they unveiled their novel solution—a small, square device designed to make takeout pickups smoother and more efficient.
- PickPad is a modular “smart pad” system.
- It integrates seamlessly with a restaurant’s P.O.S. system.
- Automatically displays customer names on its base for easy identification.
“We are excited to pilot our technology with a local Chicago café,” said Founder and CEO Yaro Tsyhanenko to TechCrunch. “Our system is offered as part of a HaaS package, priced between $9 and $19 per pad monthly.”
{Yaro Tsyhanenko, Founder and CEO of PickPad}
The price depends on how many pads a location adopts and whether they choose an annual or monthly payment plan. Although the current production cost stands at around $100 per pad, Tsyhanenko is optimistic about reducing costs as manufacturing scales up.
Looking ahead, PickPad envisions developing full shelving systems that can fit into an Ikea bookcase, creating an automated cubbyhole setup for order pickups. This innovative approach could revolutionize how we pick up takeout orders in the future.
