OpenTable to Test Mobile Restaurant Payments in San Francisco

Reserve a table and pay your tab -- all without talking to anyone or using anything but your smartphone or a computer.

OpenTable, the online reservation service, is testing mobile payments in 20 San Francisco restaurants, according to tech news source FastCompany.

The technology will allow diners to "pay and take off without having to flag down a busy waiter," according to OpenTable, which says it won't take a cut of the check. Rather, restaurants which allow the mobile payment will simply be charged the interchange fee already applied by credit card companies.

Details about tipping and splitting checks will be worked out, company officials told the tech website.

The move towards mobile billing "shouldn't be surprising" given OpenTable's $11 million purchase of mobile payment startup JustChalo in June, FastCompany reported.

No word on the restaurants included in the pilot, but the pilot program could be expanded to other eateries by the end of the year and to other markets in 2014, according to the website.