Restaurant Uses iPads For Menus

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How do you know when a hipster restaurant is trying too damn hard? When they replace the menus with iPads.

Lucas, who operates the prestigious Pearl restaurant, in inner-city Richmond, is set to convert his restaurant to an all iPad operation with specially written interactive software that he claims will make it the first restaurant in Australia to employ Apple's red-hot tablet for both menus and wine lists.
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mmmm takeaway
droolsl.gif
then ebay :D
 
I work in restaurant POS and those things will get destroyed by idiot customers and employees.

really stupid idea by some trendy douche.
 
I'd bet 1/2 of their "menus" are stolen before the first week is over :rolleyes:
 
just going by the image in the article, it seems to be a very upscaled restaurant, which makes it ok. The customers are less likely to steal, and it's a less rowdy atmosphere, so the iPads should be fine.

I would not like it if the iPad places the order (ie: push what you want and it'll come on screen in the kitchen). This would take away the ability to custom your order (ie: well I really wanted sauteed onions on my sirloin, not mushrooms)

But if they do this for the purpose of remaining paperless, then that's pretty cool. Digital checks would work too, where you sign your name on the screen like you would sign for your UPS deliveries.
 
Azhar said:
....But if they do this for the purpose of remaining paperless, then that's pretty cool. Digital checks would work too, where you sign your name on the screen like you would sign for your UPS deliveries.
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If a tablet was designed with a stylus is was designed wrong... :p
 
I'm guessing this is going to be something temporary that the restaurant will employ--just as the iPad itself will turn out to be a temporary fascination that'll be replaced in the short term future by the next fad that somebody will market--it might even be Apple again, who knows? Right now, I see the chief advantage for the owner being the cheap publicity it will provide for his restaurant.

Can you imagine the incredible standard menu you could have printed up for a fraction of the cost of each iPad you bought? Such a menu could contain just as much info as the iPad version, be made of materials far more durable in a "dinner-plate" environment, and the owner wouldn't have to worry about how much each iPad cost and how many to buy, recharging them daily, and paying for the custom software he wants and the updates he wants to make to that software periodically.

My thought is that when many people eat out they're glad to be away from the office and free from all of the technological gimmicks they have to use in their jobs every day. Introducing the iPad in this kind of a restaurant might actually be nowhere near as popular an attraction as the owner hopes. Most importantly, there will be a percentage of his clientele who will insist on standard menus anyway, so I really doubt he will be able to replace his current menus with only iPads. I doubt this represents any kind of trend.
 
What would actually be cool is to have table top touchscreen menus where you could order your food and then play games or surf while you waited for it. It would be a lot harder to steal a table than an iPad. No Apple flavored Kool-Aid involved. :p
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
What would actually be cool is to have table top touchscreen menus where you could order your food and then play games or surf while you waited for it. It would be a lot harder to steal a table than an iPad. No Apple flavored Kool-Aid involved. :p
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I think it is called Microsoft Surface.
 
I've ran a restaurant before here in the UK. I hope their taste in cuisine is better
 
My views of the iPad being a complete POS aside, the idea actually makes pretty good sense. The investment could pay off in the long run, since it is much easy to make changes to a digital menu. Having to reprint dozens of fancy menus with every change that's introduced can't be cheap. That is assuming these iPads will not be getting dropped every day.
 
xxEIEIOxx said:
What would actually be cool is to have table top touchscreen menus where you could order your food and then play games or surf while you waited for it. It would be a lot harder to steal a table than an iPad. No Apple flavored Kool-Aid involved. :p
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actually, we have those in a few restaurants in Israel.
most notably the Burgus restaurant chain.
it's a nice gimmick, but unless you design the games to be very co-op, all you do is isolate the one playing from the rest of the table. oh, and a touchscreen is not such a great idea in a place that encourages eating greasy burgers...

also, their burgers are crap.
 
k4m4z said:
My views of the iPad being a complete POS aside, the idea actually makes pretty good sense. The investment could pay off in the long run, since it is much easy to make changes to a digital menu. Having to reprint dozens of fancy menus with every change that's introduced can't be cheap. That is assuming these iPads will not be getting dropped every day.
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i'm pretty sure reprinting dozens of menus every day for 3 years is still much cheaper than buying dozens of 499$ ipads. (and servicing them!)
not to mention the 40,000$ in purported software development expenses.

besides, how many menu changes are there in a normal restaurant?
once every season?
other than that, specials can be sold just as easily by having the waiter tell you about them specifically.
 
I like the idea of this... sorta, cept that an ipad costs like 500 bucks a pop (or something) and the chances of them being damaged are far too likely. So it's a stupid idea... if they were to do it with their own tech that costs a lot less, then it'd be a good idea.
 
This is effing genius and you know this will start a trend that anyone in the restraunt business wishes they had adopted earlier, or thought of first.

WITH that said... Im not so sure the price will be worth the whole change.
 
Unfortunately in the end it's the customer that will be paying for this.

Extortionately priced food for the privelege of seeing what i'm ordering on an LCD screen instead of a piece of paper?

I think i'd have to pass.
 
People are missing the point, or aren't used to dining in 'fancy' restaurants. The idea is genius, and I am sure they will be getting a discount on their purchases.
 
This is possibly the only restaurant I've ever heard of where the menu is worth more than the meals.
 
CryingGod said:
People are missing the point, or aren't used to dining in 'fancy' restaurants. The idea is genius, and I am sure they will be getting a discount on their purchases.
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Yeah for thousands of dollars they don't have to reprint their menus once every couple of months. IT'S MAGICAL.
 
Funny how tablet PC's have been around forever, but now that Apple has done their own, it's getting popular. The restaurant owner could have done this long ago with any old tablet he wanted to, but probably he just never thought about it until the iPad. Also, smh@ having to keep the menus charged.
 
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