Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Does it make sense to have Tablet Menus for your Restaurant?

The trend seems to have already begun and many restaurants are already going in for Tablet Menus for their restaurants. It gives immense benefits - yet people are still struggling to wrap their heads around its use. It is a valid thought to consider when we talk of a large investment in electronic components like Tablets and server that will run the tablets. Does the system justify it's cost?

To answer that, we must look at the companies that our providing such solutions and what is the cost model they go with. You have systems by eRestro Tablet Menus ZenuMenu eLaCarte etc. which do a great job. The first two appear to be Android based systems and the third one appears to be a customized device with card reader. In my opinion they target different types of market segments because I am sure fine dines really don't want to inconvenience the guests by making them do everything on their own, specially paying at the end. However it does work excellent at self service or casual dine restaurants where it allows for people to order more as and when they like. The first two systems seem to rely more on large screens to show big beautiful menus thereby tapping into impulsive buying tendencies of buyers.

So the question still remains, should you buy a system like above? Here are a few things you must ask yourself and I believe that it should answer your question.

  1. Do I serve a type of cuisine not generally known by the local customers? For example am I serving Thai in Europe?
  2. Do I face intense competition and want to make sure that I can reprice and come up with offers and deals easily and quickly?
  3. Do I do seasonal menu items which I need to sell as and when they happen?
  4. Do I have a lot of international customers who may not know the local food or the local language?
  5. Will my customers appreciate if they get an interface to select the right wine, alcohol or cocktail drink? Because if they do, the probably 3-4 glasses of wine will pay for each system after which it just translates to profit for you. 



If you have yes as an answer to any of these questions, then you must go ahead. This system will only boost your revenues.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

eRestro - Tablet based electronic Menu for Restaurants

Know what you want to order but can't find it in the Menu?
Wished that each item had a picture with it so that you could confidently tried it?
Think it would have been nice if the Menu told you what this food is made of?
Would have liked to read Wine/Alcohol tasting notes in the menu itself?
Pissed off at the waiter/server not coming around for your second order, or you told him to be back in 5 minutes and he thought it meant 15?
Tired of looking at the same old boring paper menus in Restaurants?

Welcome to the world of eRestro which brings Tablet based electronic Menus. These Digital catalogues are capable of solving all of the problems that are mentioned above and more. Not just are these beautiful electronic catalogues but also your new facade to the Restaurant.

Here is what this system can do for you if you run a Restaurant:

  • Menu management: Minor price changes/corrections in menu card involves big printing cost, not only the cost but also involves a tedious process of getting menu printed like providing sample, making changes, again sample, then waiting for multiple copies of menu. Digital menu feature helps you to overcome all these drawbacks by allowing instant updates to your Menu.
  • Up-selling: Increase your sales by at least 10% by up selling items. Up selling refers to the process where in you are able to sell an item along with another by suggesting it to the customer. For example, you could suggest a nice cocktail to go alongside a main course item or a selection of sides to pick from
  • Deals and Offers: Introducing deals and offers viz. seasonal, weekdays, After 8:00 PM etc needs extra cost of leaflet printing. These deals and offers can be published in digital menu and easily modified on day to day basis. Which reduces your printing process overhead
  • Reports and Analysis: Total sales, food item usage, Specific beverages mostly ordered and liked by customers, all these are easily analysed by our reporting feature
  • Get over of unplanned staff leaves
  • Mute the billing errors

Monday, April 18, 2011

Fax services on Vista home premium

All the Windows Vista Home Premium users by now must have figured out that they don’t have the basic Windows Fax and Scan services. Too bad Microsoft decided to remove something that basic from an already crappy operating system. The only solution is to look for an alternate and I seem to have found a good alternate – Classic Phone Tools by Avanquest Software

You can get the full version for free if you follow the right links on the page. So far it seems to work great for me! Let me know if anyone of you knows other better Windows Fax software.

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Zinio – Magazines right on your iPad

Of all my experiences with the iPad, the best have been surfing web, reading books, and magazines. The Zinio app has totally redefined the way I get my favorite magazines! Imagine not having to wait weeks to get your PCWorld magazine delivered to your home. Having all your favorite magazines available with you and readable with almost the same or more convenience as the print media has been a dream so far – at least for me. My laptop can’t go everywhere with me but the iPad surely can. My laptop needs a wall socket after 2 hours of use so its not the best for use on airplanes, trains and airports. Its too bulky to handle as well. All of these are not a problem for the iPad.

With Zinio, I got virtually a news stand on my iPad! I can browse and purchase from a HUGE selection of magazines, not just the ones you would otherwise find on stalls. Even the prices appeared relatively cheaper than print media prices. Tell me what kind of Magazine applications are you using? Would love to know!

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Hobby Open Source Projects

As I have written on several occasions about me, I love programming. You can find the software I have written on this blog. Just made a link to a program called CopyFat with its installer and source code. I will mention here the projects I have done in the past and will eventually post them with Source Code and Installers.

  • LECIDE - Learners/Experts Configurable Integrated Development Environment
    • With LECIDE I intended to make something like Eclipse IDE much before it showed up. Obviously my effort was much juvenile and to be honest, I started by creating a Notepad clone in VB6 and ended up creating a very complex IDE with syntax coloring, instant help tooltips, multiple compiler support, and BLADE - a drag and drop GUI designer for creating C++ dialog resources. Unfortunately, the way the code was written was horrible. If I wanted to do something new with it today, I would rather jump off a building than taking a dive back into its code. This was a really big project and I won multiple competitions for it. Source code coming soon!
  • CopyFat 2.0 - File copy program
    • You can read more about it here. It was one of the most useful utilities I ever wrote. It helped me and my friends on several occassions!
  • CyberBrowser - Tabbed IE based browser
    • A pretty simple browser with Tabbed browsing capability back in the days when IE was still a single window browser. A good reference for those wanting to learn how to use the WebBrowser control in VB6. Download the source code here.
  • Winsock Based FTP client
    • While learning socket programming, I implemented my own FTP client. The important thing to note is, I didn’t use any third party components to derive FTP functionalities. The code actually talks to the FTP server by opening ports and opening parallel channels for file downloads etc. Great stuff if you are learning socket programming in VB6! Get the source code right here.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Trying out the Windows Live Writer

Now I just set up Windows Live Writer which came as a part of the Live Essentials suite. The best part I liked about it is that I can setup multiple blogging accounts in it and write at one place, but post in all the accounts. This is my first post testing out this feature. I have my other blogs at the following locations:

http://neodimension.blogspot.com

http://abhishekchatterjee.spaces.live.com

Monday, December 07, 2009

Introduction to Design Patterns @ InfoBeans/.NET Ramp up

Design Patterns are something that most developers in the Object Oriented world know as dishes given common names so that communication between developers becomes easy. Really, they are just good OOAD practices given a name. This introduction presentation just intends to be a food for thought kind which will direct the developer to be able to study more on it and explore more. Check out the presentation or download it:

 

A Journey called InfoBeans ends for me

The journey that began for me on 30th June 2006 has finally ended officially on 4th December 2009. This journey is hard to be summarized in words. I will let a few pictures speak instead of me…