What do you see when you drive down a city street? Restaurants. From fast food to fine dining, places to eat are not in short supply, so restaurants must get steady business.
Patrons want convenience, speed, and an excellent experience because their lives are busy, so you need to be efficient in operating. One of the best ways to do this is by taking advantage of modern technology in all aspects of your establishment. By using the latest innovations and digital assets, you improve efficiency, gain flexibility and scalability, and save money simultaneously.
That sounds great, but what tech is available, and how do you implement it?
Here are some ideas for tech-savvy restaurants.
Digital Menu Boards
We start with the most significant puzzle piece: a visual representation of your business in-store. You can use printed signage with colourful displays, but what grabs attention is screens with dynamic content.
Digital menu boards are electronic displays of your menu. They are a focal point for your patrons when making ordering choices. Having screens mounted around your restaurant allows people to make quick decisions without getting a menu or speaking to staff. This allows for better, more convenient, and comfortable decision-making.
Having a digital menu board simplifies altering the menu as your choices change. It works perfectly for seasonal items added or price fluctuations. These are easily updated and typically come with templates to build your menu and make alterations quickly.
Digital menu boards also increase customer engagement. These boards provide all the information customers need to make their dining choices before standing in line or waiting around. Communicating with your customers is key to increasing your business and providing a memorable experience.
Self-Service Options
Life has never been more fast-paced, and people looking to order food want to do it quickly so they can get on with the rest of their day. Anything you can do to save them time benefits your bottom line.
Self-service puts more control into your patrons’ hands and allows them to speed up the ordering process. This can be done in several ways, including:
- Table side tablets
- Scan to order
- Restaurant ordering apps
- Digital menu kiosks
You can also add queue and pickup displays to inform people about food orders. Your customers will love having all these tech options to improve their dining experience and appreciate that you are staying ahead of the digital curve.
AI Inventory and Purchasing
Restaurants must ensure they have the ingredients and food items to meet patrons’ demands, but it can take time to order the right amounts effectively. This often leads to unused supplies or shortages that impact your business. The answer is to turn to AI technology to monitor your inventory.
AI mimics human behaviour as it compiles and analyzes data and uses algorithms to learn and make predictions. For food services, this makes things much more efficient, as the software can track purchasing data and historical inventory to recommend purchasing in real time so you buy only the supplies you need.
This allows you to have all your menu items available every night and reduce spoilage or expired food. Ultimately, real-time tracking of inventory and purchasing saves money, reduces supply chain issues and manages perishables.
Contactless Payments
Having tech payment options gives diners more variety and can speed up the process so they are more satisfied with their experience while turning over tables faster for you. Here are some contactless payment options to consider:
- Near field communication (NFC)
- Quick response (QR) code payments
- Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID)
- App payments
- Digital Display Kiosk payment
This is how commerce is transitioning, so if you adopt these types of payment options, you will attract more people who enjoy using their tech devices for all their purchases.
Kitchen Display Systems
Kitchen displays are another digital menu board installed at the back of the house to replace paper tickets. They are more efficient and eliminate manual communication or order errors.
Chefs can monitor incoming orders in real-time with clear details so final dishes are accurate and timely. Kitchen display systems integrate with POS machines or other digital ordering platforms so orders come in immediately, and staff can serve food quicker.
These are some great ideas for tech-savvy restaurants. The world is changing fast, and you need to keep up with technological advancements in your business to be relevant. Take these ideas on board and become the most innovative and tech-savvy restaurant in town.
