Even Julia Stewart, the CEO of Applebee's parent company DineEquity, doesn't like waiting for the check.
It's a good thing, then, that she ordered 100,000 tablets for Applebee's restaurants with which patrons can not only pay checks without waiting for the server, but also play games and place orders.
(Read more: Olive Garden joins burger brigade with Italiano)
The tablets should hit the tables and bars at the company's more than 1,860 Applebee's franchises in the U.S. by the end of next year, Stewart told CNBC on Tuesday. She said the move toward tablets was not a "labor play" and that the company still plans to have food servers for every table.
"Customers have been telling us for some time—even myself ... I don't like to wait for the check," Stewart said Tuesday on "Squawk on Street." "That was the first sort of pain point we heard of, and we had this unique opportunity with technology to make a real difference."
DineEquity plans to use Intel Presto tablets specifically designed for restaurants.
—By CNBC's Jeff Morganteen. Follow him on Twitter at @jmorganteen and get the latest stories from "Squawk on the Street."