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Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

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Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#31

Post by visualcsharp »

This article is hilarious and goes well with HN's recent flood of "first-world problems" stories.

Menus suck? Hardly! They: - are resistant to damage by children, spills, being thrown on the floor, etc. (when laminated) - are cheap to reproduce - are cheap to change in countless ways - are lightweight and easy-to-hold - can pack a large amount of information into a small space

I can't believe I'm having to point this out. We don't need more complexity where less is more than sufficient. We don't need complexity for complexity's sake. Oh, and I wish startups would stop considering an idea's value from only the consumer's perspective. That's just one side of the coin.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#32

Post by usaphp »

mattmaroon wrote: post #8

I suppose this depends on the type of restaurant. You're never going to see a picture on the menu of a high end restaurant. In the same way that people equate a screw top with bad wine (even though it's about 10 times better of a technology than a cork) people will always equate pictures on a menu with Olive Garden type restaurants. Also the really good restaurants base their menu on what's fresh that day, so picture…

I absolutely agree with you here. Also I would like to note that having a single tablet for let's say 4-6 guests is impractical and will take lot more time to order vs having a paper menu for each of them.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#33

Post by richardjordan »

Few (inconsistent) thoughts on this. As usual I think DMC is right on most of this, however I wonder if the average Joe is keen on logging in to a restaurant for the benefit of customized menus. I like that idea, personally, but then I don't have a shit-fit every time something happens on Facebook that brings the privacy folks out - I understand the trade-off I make for free goods. Jury's out though on how many folks will do this, and therefore how much benefit it is to the restaurant compared to how much overhead/effort is involved.

The other thought I have with this is that it's typical of a lot of problems startups are tackling right now where the information (menus) is the type of information that needs to be free and everywhere, but the startups' monetization strategies are based on locking in that information in order to lock the customer into paying.

Anecdote signifying nothing: had coffee the other day with someone at a place that served food by having people log in on ipads, choose their item, order, pay then it was ready for them at the counter. I just wanted to look up, see a board with items on it, tell a polite person behind the counter my order and wait with my coffee for food. I didn't order.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#34

Post by prostoalex »

wylie wrote: post #24
prostoalex wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential talks about refrigerator space and other constraints common to modern restaurants. Whenever you order that chicken that's on the menu together with shrimp, lobster, steak, ground beef, pork chop, pork loin, tuna, turkey, salmon, tilapia, etc., you risk ordering something that's been re-frozen multiple times, stuck in the back of the fridge (the more exotic it is, the…

Just to clarify, it sounds like you're suggesting that a larger menu will have less-fresh food. That makes intuitive sense but confused me at first.

Yeah, sorry about the verbosity.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#35

Post by hackinthebochs »

nathan_long wrote: post #23

I do not want to interact with more technology in a restaurant, but I do think restaurants tend to have stunningly bad websites. Most restaurants have either 1) a giant PDF or 2) a crazy interactive Flash experience. (Would you like to build an animated pizza? Would you like a Taylor Swift CD with your pizza?) When I come to a restaurant's site, I want to see this: 1) Location and hours 2) HTML menu with pictures Thi…

Why is flash automatically seen as bad? When done right it is a seamless experience that only the most technical could possibly take issue with. I, for one, enjoy papa john's interactive pizza order menu.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#37

Post by rdl »

Often when I go to a new restaurant for the food (vs. for a meeting, or because it's a convenient, etc.) I google the restaurant, which usually takes me to a Yelp page, with reviews written by some smart people and some utter morons with axes to grind, and then I end up trying to pick dishes based on that.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#38

Post by rdl »

prostoalex wrote: post #7
kstenerud wrote: post #3

Actually, I like menus with lots of choices. It would be nice to have more pictures, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential talks about refrigerator space and other constraints common to modern restaurants. Whenever you order that chicken that's on the menu together with shrimp, lobster, steak, ground beef, pork chop, pork loin, tuna, turkey, salmon, tilapia, etc., you risk ordering something that's been re-frozen multiple times, stuck in the back of the fridge (the more exotic it is, the…

What works to give a lot of variety is in a place like most chinese restaurants, where there are N things prepared M ways and you can get any of NxM dishes.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#39

Post by prostoalex »

caffeineninja wrote: post #16

This has been done to a degree, and it failed pretty quickly, faster than most. uWink opened a restaurant in Mountain View with tablets for ordering food and playing games while you wait. The tablets had menu items complete with photos, reviews, and it took about 15 minutes for the food to arrive to your table. Typically the waitstaff would only bring you your drinks and food. The Mountain View location of uWink was…

It wasn't tablets, it was 20-inch LCD monitors with sensors. That were in your face. To the point where if you wanted to talk to your lunch buddy, both of you had to lean to see each other's faces.

Check out Siam Fine Dining in Palo Alto that runs E La Carte tablets on their tables. Very quiet and refined experience.

Re: Deep Thoughts on the Food Tech Revolution by Captain Obvious McClure

#40

Post by sputknick »

I love this idea, and I think most of you will too. Many of you are complaining about ambiance, but how many of you use your cell phones at dinner (be honest). This will enable restauranteurs to turn over a table more quickly, and have fewer wait staff, both of which will mean more profit for them, and lower costs for us. This is a great idea and it WILL happen.
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