McDonald's has been testing self-service kiosks on-and-off since at least 2004. There must be some barrier to adoption that's holding it back.
That, plus most quick service restaurants do a majority of their business in the drive-through now. Ever see a line of cars out to the street and then go inside the store? Empty counters.
True, and there's an element of the McDonalds crowd that would be uncomfortable with touchscreens. I was thinking chains like Luby's, Bob Evans, Applebees, etc, more than fast food. There's a labor issue at work here, too. You're not cutting into labor with sit-down restaurants like you are with fast food. Just making the existing labor more efficient.
A McDonald's outside of Orlando was experimenting with self-ordering in 2003. I saw it in action when I was working on a tablets-at-the-table start-up. It worked well. In the Midwest, Sheetz "gas station" (quotes because it's so much more) has done self-ordering for years using a system from Radiant Systems.
That, plus most quick service restaurants do a majority of their business in the drive-through now. Ever see a line of cars out to the street and then go inside the store? Empty counters.