Home > News > Creative Restaurants Put Technology on the Menu

For years, we’ve been admonished to abandon our personal electronic devices before sitting down to dinner at a restaurant. But now, it may be more likely that when you take a seat at your favorite place, they’ll put an iPad in your hands.

Using iPads for point-of-sale (POS) functions such as ordering and menus isn’t entirely new, but the way restaurants are creatively leveraging the technology can be.

At the one end of the technology spectrum are restaurants like Stacked in San Diego that have jumped in with both feet. Diners order on the iPad, building their own meals like burgers and pizzas, and then pay for their meals by swiping credit cards at the table. Large chains, such as Au Bon Pain, are using iPads for ordering, and small independent establishments use them for orders and cost management functions.

But creative establishments are leveraging their investment in the devices for more than just orders and payment. They’re using them for gaming and social media connections in the dining room.

“Our vision was to give the consumer ordering and payment independence,” says Aaron Gabriel, of HubWorks, an Idaho-based firm that develops software applications to increase profits and enhance customer experience for the hospitality technology industry. But HubWorks platforms have gone a step beyond POS functions, allowing customers to play games and connect with social media.

The entertainment angle includes something for everyone, Gabriel says. Rather than using crayons and a tic-tac-toe placemat, kids can play games on the iPad. Sports fans can check sports scores and use sports apps. Social media usage is currently pretty basic, limited to Twitter access and Facebook check-ins, but Gabriel foresees using social media platforms to mine data and tie into purchasing trends.

The social media side is exactly what Carmine Sprio, a well-known chef in Albany, New York, wants to highlight as he opens his latest restaurant, Carmine’s Brazilian Grill, a churrasco steakhouse.

While well-established in other parts of the country, the churrasco concept – as well as the use of iPads in a resturant — is new to the upstate New York market. Sprio’s servers will use the iPads to explain the restaurant’s ordering and serving concept to customers.

“They will encourage customers to take pictures and post them to Facebook, sharing their dining experience,” says Jim Gile of WSG in Saratoga, the firm working with Sprio on the technology.  “Restaurants already do a lot of communicating through Facebook,” Gile adds, so this is a natural extension.

Sprio’s aim is to combine the best of a restaurant experience and new technology, not to make the dining experience less personal.

When the iPad first emerged in restaurant dining rooms, some predicted that servers and sommeliers would go the way of telephone operators and gas station attendants who pump gas.  (The same predictions probably accompanied the birth of Automats, which were rendered obsolete in part by modern fast food and drive-throughs.)

But the reality is that people still need to be part of the process in restaurants: someone has to deliver the food and drinks, get you more water, or bring a clean fork.

Also, at a certain level, dining out is more than just food: it’s an experience – entertainment – and at the high end, diners don’t want a do-it-yourself dinner.

In fact, high end restaurants are finding the technology to be a fast track to better customer service. CUT Las Vegas introduced its iPad wine list in the summer of 2011, but drink orders are still taken by servers.

Tim Wilson, Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group’s Director of Beverage, says putting CUT’s entire beverage menu into an iPad-based system has enhanced the guest experience. Response has been great with 95 to 99 percent of the customers enthusiastic about the change, Wilson explains.  CUT was the first restaurant in Las Vegas to institute the SmartCellar electronic wine list system. Diners are often disappointed when they order a wine, only to have the server return to say it ‘s sold out. “We have a lot of high-end or esoteric wines. Now, when they sell out we can take them off the menu with the click of a button,” Wilson says.

Rather than diminishing customer service, the technology allows servers and sommeliers to answer diner’s questions and spend more quality time with the customers. “Our staff love it,” he says.

Photo Credit: Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group