As a late night out at the local bar slowly becomes an early morning, lines begin to form around the register of every tavern, lounge and bar in town. Customers wait impatiently to pay their tabs and so they can finally make their way home while employees wait for it all to be over so they too can start to clean up.

Dash, a new mobile app, now offers logical escape route and solution to this madness. Developed in July and released in early November, the IOS app offers a new payment option at restaurants and bars.

The Dash app lets you pay your tab or check via your smartphone; thus alleviating what could potentially be one of the most stressful parts about going out.

Originally based in New York City, Dash has started to spread to cities across the country, including Kent.

Bar manager Robert Finch said Water Street Tavern offered a trial period for the Dash app, in which they offered the option to use the app within their bar to see if it would spark the interest of their customers.

“We started using the app about six weeks ago and it was originally a month long trial period that the app gave you $10 free to spend when you opened a new account,” Fitch said. “After that, the owner made the call to keep running the app after the trial period”.

Made for the tech savvy generation, Fitch said Dash offers convenience for both the customer and the bartender.

“On a Friday or Saturday night when it’s one in the morning and it gets jam packed in here and you don’t feel like sitting around or waiting in line to pay your tab, it completely takes care of that for you,” he said.

Dash also will close out your tab for you automatically at the end of the night and even pay a tip amount that you can pre-set.

“It really lends itself to the age group and their use of phones for everything around here at Kent. Now, we just have to wait and see if other places will pick up using the app,” Finch said.

Dash ran smoothly for Water Street, Fitch said — except for the occasional Wi-Fi issue — and the bar will continue to use the app.

Finch said there’s been a pretty strong interest in the app and good amounts of people have signed up for it since the trial run started.

To help the app grow in acceptance and make it more user friendly, the Water Street displays little signs that give customers instructions on how to download the app and check-in on Dash.

“It really helps everybody, it frees employees up but also helps customers have things go a little smoother while they’re out at the bar enjoying themselves,” Finch said.

Contact Jenna Kuczkowski at [email protected].