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May 03, 2005
The Digital Restaurant Menu
I was sitting in Chili's restaurant two days ago, enjoying a nice lunch with my family whom had come to visit me for my recent graduation from here, and there was a nice full-page picture of the spicy barbecue chicken salad. I found myself thinking that it looked quite delicious. I immediately thought then that i had decided that many of the pictured items seemed delectable, unfairly competing against their non-photographed brethren. I understand that the restaurants cannot show pictures of every single item on their menu, or else they would be giving each diner a thick book to peruse though. Or can they?
What if restaurants offered, instead of a paper menu, an interactive kiosk-type screen embedded in the table, in front of every customer? That way, the customer could sit down, look at the screen, and see full-size color photos of every item on the menu. They could even see additional details (oooh, metadata!) about the item, including price, description, and nutritional information. This way the restaurant would not have to print hundreds of menus, never have to update the prices with little stickers, and never print new styles of menus. The customers could even order their food via the screen (altho i recommend keeping waitstaff, just because it's good to have a person there, and customizations are easier to do via a human).
I agree this would be quite a techy approach to what is a classic human behavior (perusing a paper menu and telling your order to a waiter/waitress), but it would provide more info to the customer while being cost saving to the restaurant. Has anyone ever seen a place like this? McDonald's already has something similar (touch-screen kiosk things for ordering fast food)...
Posted by MaTT at May 3, 2005 01:18 AM
Comments
I have always said that I enjoy ordering food more by picture than by description! Chinese restaurants with the large, backlit pictures (like China Gate) have almost got it, except they make the food look better than they could ever hope to serve it, with elegant garnishes, etc, and so its not quite right.
Posted by: Rachel at May 3, 2005 10:12 AM