Why Every Restaurant Is Installing a Kiosk Right Now

Walk into any major fast-food chain this month and you’ll see it: the gleaming touchscreen kiosk where a cashier used to stand. The global self-service kiosk market is valued at $14.52 billion in 2025 and projected to grow at 12% annually, reaching $25.64 billion by 2030.This isn’t a gradual trend, it’s an industry-wide scramble.

The pandemic rewired how people want to order food. Nobody misses waiting in line or repeating their order three times over background noise. Rising consumer preference for contactless interactions is adding roughly 3.2% to market growth, making it the single biggest driver. Gen Z and Millennials now actively choose restaurants with self-ordering options.

But the real catalyst is money. Restaurant operators deploying two ordering self-service kiosks report labor savings that cut payback to well under a year. When wages keep climbing and workers are hard to find, a kiosk that never calls in sick starts looking like the obvious choice.

Plus, the machines are surprisingly good salespeople. AI-driven upselling prompts embedded in software lift average tickets while pairing cost relief with incremental revenue. Technology has caught up to the ambition. NCR Voyix’s Halo Checkout uses computer vision to identify up to 20 products at once, eliminating barcode scans and compressing checkout time. Other systems analyze your face to guess your age for alcohol purchases, or remember your usual order before you finish typing it.

The United States leads adoption, but the real action is happening overseas. Asia-Pacific is forecast to deliver the highest regional growth rate at 18.10% through 2030, driven by urbanization and smartphone wallet usage. In India, kiosks double as “digital grams” extending banking and government services to rural villages. Japanese systems now cook, bag, and dispense food autonomously—no humans required.

November brought fresh developments. According to industry reports, AI-driven automation in urban US markets saw early adoption, with QSR operators enhancing drive-thru and self-service kiosk experiences to boost operational efficiency. Voice ordering, facial recognition, and multilingual interfaces are moving from pilot programs to standard features.

Not everyone is thrilled. High maintenance and upgrade costs can add 10-15% of initial outlay annually, eroding savings for small chains that lack in-house IT. Cybersecurity worries persist—unattended machines make tempting targets for card skimmers. And some customers, particularly older diners, still prefer talking to a person.

The industry’s response has been to make kiosks a subscription service rather than a major purchase. Providers like Eatery Club price kiosks at $150 monthly plus hardware, turning capital equipment into an operational expense that eases entry for independent operators.

What’s clear is that the kiosk isn’t replacing the restaurant—it’s replacing the friction. Staff freed from order-taking can focus on food quality, problem-solving, and the kind of service that actually requires a human touch. The breakfast rush still needs people. They’re just doing different work now.