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The surprising history of the restaurant menu

Lobbyists can pick up the tab for legislators. Some legislators welcome the favor, others decline.
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A table at a restaurant.

We've started noticing something when we've been going out to eat.

These days, instead of handing out a menu in the traditional plastic-coated paper, some restaurants are handing us iPads.

Chili's Grill and Bar has been testing tablets that allow diners to order their drinks, desserts and pay the bill without having to flag down a waiter. It's been so successful in the 180 or so test restaurants that the company plans to install tablet menus at most of its 1,266 restaurants in the United States.

In Ann Arbor, the Real Seafood Company recently began using tablet menus.

And that got us wondering about menus and going out to eat. What does the way a society eats at restaurants say about us?

Listen to full interview above.

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