For what it's worth, I spent some time googling some countries that I know are chip and signature to see how things work. South Korea, for instance, tends to use a
pay at the front model; however,
contactless payment with NFC seems to be uncommon.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything about Singapore other than
this that claims the employee runs the card for you. This could very well mean that pay at the table is still done, though. (Maybe someone who's been there can clarify?)
Sounds about right. I think pay at the table
is growing in the US, however, albeit very slowly (and quite possibly will never be the majority of restaurants). A hybrid "take card away" system with a POS station at the front for takeout/contactless is probably the most likely result eventually, assuming mobile wallets become popular enough.
That said, any restaurant using Toast probably won't support contactless any time soon simply because they never integrated contactless into the hardware they're providing. Your best bet is anywhere using Clover or one of the Ziosk units, or possibly an airport using SSP America for their concessions if you're going to fly through one at some point.
Eh, they could go pay at the front if they wanted. I suspect a lot of people wouldn't like that either, hence why it's not common.
However, if PIN were ever made mandatory, I could see a significant number of those adopting that model fairly quickly as it'd be less trouble/expense than buying terminals all over again. And if enough places do it, customer objections would probably diminish quickly as it'd be unavoidable (unless one wants to stop eating out).