They've been superior for a while. We had touchscreen kiosks at a Jack-in-the-Box (cheap burger chain) at near my university back in 2007.
It was a pilot program, and the CEO said they found that young people preferred to wait in line for the kiosk rather than place their order with an actual human, but older people preferred the opposite, so they decided to wait before rolling it out to all their locations. I think touchscreen devices are finally omnipresent enough that the older age demographics can handle ordering via a touchscreen.
A more sinister take would be that the larger restaurant chains anticipated minimum-wage increases, and timed the rollout of touchscreen devices to coincide with the rollout of minimum wage legislation, so their lobbyists can make the argument that minimum wage increases cost jobs, because they're still going to have to pay the cooks in the back and the people to keep the place clean.
It was a pilot program, and the CEO said they found that young people preferred to wait in line for the kiosk rather than place their order with an actual human, but older people preferred the opposite, so they decided to wait before rolling it out to all their locations. I think touchscreen devices are finally omnipresent enough that the older age demographics can handle ordering via a touchscreen.
A more sinister take would be that the larger restaurant chains anticipated minimum-wage increases, and timed the rollout of touchscreen devices to coincide with the rollout of minimum wage legislation, so their lobbyists can make the argument that minimum wage increases cost jobs, because they're still going to have to pay the cooks in the back and the people to keep the place clean.