NYC restaurant completely reliant on iPad
When you go to De Santos, a high-end Italian restaurant in New York City's West Village, don't expect to be handed a regular menu. Instead, your waiter will bring you an iPad 2 on which you can select your meal. Inc.com reported on this innovative restaurant that is using iPad 2s, a custom app, and the Square card reader to reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction.
As of August 1st, De Santos -- located in a building that was once home to such music and literary geniuses as Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, and Edward Albee -- became the first restaurant in the Big Apple to be run completely on iPads. Not only can you order your food and drink on the iPad, but at the end of the meal you'll swipe your credit card on the device to settle your tab (De Santos uses Square to accept your charges).
You might think that US$500 menus are ridiculously expensive, but the owners say that the system will save money by streamlining food ordering. The iPads send orders directly to the kitchen over Wi-Fi, and customers can see the full "specs" of every dish on the menu. The system uses a custom point of sale system created for the 8 iPads in the restaurant, and the development and installation costs were about $18,000. That compares very favorably to traditional restaurant point of sale systems that normally cost a minimum of about $30,000 to install.
Since every transaction is entered into the system in real time, the owners of De Santos can monitor the restaurant remotely from an iPhone to view data about how sales are going. They can see how many orders are placed for what items, how many credit cards are used, and more. Co-owner Sebastian Gonella says that "You really have control over what happens in the dining room," which reduces costs for the restaurant.
The key feature might be the iPads themselves. Sebastian Gonella noted that "The customers love it. Who doesn't like an iPad? They go nuts." Once word gets out about how well the iPad-based system is working, we're sure to see more restaurants adopt the devices.
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When you go to De Santos, a high-end Italian restaurant in New York City's West Village, don't expect to be handed a regular menu....
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Currently using POS lavu not currently happy!
As we speak I have a line out the door and we are taking orders by hand!!!
James
Now in final stages of developing concept for our new restaurant, and already reached a decision to use IPAD eMenu system – which gives the diner a great, user-friendly, interactive ability to place orders, play games, chat with others – endless options. This technology is the way to go. you can download the demo at the appstore, just look for "emenu 4 restaurant"
http://www.emenu-international.com/iPadMenu
Now in final stages of developing concept for our new restaurant, and already reached a decision to use IPAD eMenu system – which gives the diner a great, user-friendly, interactive ability to place orders, play games, chat with others –endless options. This technology is the way to go! you can download the demo at the appstore, just look for "emenu 4 restaurant"
http://www.emenu-international.com/iPadMenu
If you are looking for POSLavu- and Apple-certified help with this iPad POS solution for your NYC area restaurant, give Digital Reality a ring at 646-415-8840. We are currently the exclusive certified distributor for NY/NJ/CT.
We are happy to answer any questions about POSLavu, PCI compliance, secure enclosures for the iPad and other topics mentioned here.
As the original iPad POS for Restaurants, POSLavu is the beautiful, elegant, and cost-effective alternative to Micros and Aloha.
This system is POSLavu, the original iPad point of sale for restaurants. We were the very first in the app store and continue to develop the most cutting edge POS solutions. If you want a sleek, wireless, cloud based point of sale for a restaurant, club, bar, coffee shop, mobile food truck etc, check out POSLavu.
August 23 2011 at 7:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAlso you can play Angry Birds while you wait for your food :)
August 23 2011 at 6:18 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWow. This seems pretty cool. Of course, being a bit of a clean freak, my biggest is concern is how they keep them clean. ;)
August 23 2011 at 6:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replythe original article is here: http://www.inc.com/articles/201108/the-birth-of-the-ipad-only-restaurant.html
Editor missed ALOTs of the facts!
This restaurant is NOT running on CUSTOM App.. the app is available on the APPSTORE the app is called POSLAVU. here is the link : www.poslavu.com
This restaurant is NOT using square!
Nice article but facts is all wrong!
KenjiO, the iPad (like all iDevices since the 3GS) has an oleophobic screen. Heavy grease (like my daughter's hands after eating) wipes off easily with 2-3 swipes of a clean, dry, cotton towel (or my jean pant legs).
August 24 2011 at 2:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI hope they have good cases to go with the iPad 2 :)
August 23 2011 at 4:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyGimmick. While on business in Germany a couple of weeks ago we were taken to a restaurant where they also were employing tablets as menus, although not in this case the iPad. The biggest problem was that each diner had their own menu and you had to use it to order. The problem with this was that as a table you needed to do the equivalent of synchronising watches so that everyone placed their order at the same time, else you got your food at different times. I honestly didn't think that it added anything to the eating experience and I don't think the investment will pay back over time once the novelty has worn off. I'm not sure how well the iPad will hold up over time for reliability but there was definitely problems in this place such that the IT guy was having to make his rounds to fix menus. That's not really what you want to see when you go for dinner.
August 23 2011 at 1:15 PM Report abuse Permalink -2 rate up rate down ReplyLook on the iOS app store and you'll see apps listed as 'gimmicky' and other apps listed as 'amazing'. It's all about implementation - don't blame the hardware, blame the software and human-hardware.
In your situation, all they had to do was link the orders together (numerous ways to do so), and then have the kitchen time things in such a way that all orders arrived together (the same thing they do using the regular waiter-delivered method).
Taking it to the next level, the tablet implementation could allow for customers to make special timing requests, dietary requests, etc. without having to worry that the waiter will mix it up. I want my screaming child to get their meal as soon as it's ready? I'll request that. Oh, and I can't remember if I mentioned my food allergy to the waiter - pull up the order details, confirm, and then notice a beverage recommendation next to my meal... hey, look at that, I can place the order immediately rather than trying to flag down my waiter who (appropriately) has most of his attention devoted to that newly seated table. Rinse, repeat...
So a completely unrelated product... different software... had nothing to do with this article? Yeah.
August 23 2011 at 4:42 PM Report abuse Permalink -1 rate up rate down ReplyJust ate at Stacked here in California last weekend and it is also an iPad run restaurant. Was very easy to use and the food was good too.
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