Since the iPad’s release, we have seen several restaurants replacing printed menus with iPads, which provide a good solution to build an interactive experience for customers and save on the cost of paper and ink with a constantly updating menu that’s also cool to use. Digital menus, however, might become a thing of the past as soon as Stacked: Food Well Built launches its restaurant chain, heavily based on iPads to order and design meals.
As USA Today reports, the co-founders of Stacked aim at placing 100 iPads per restaurant atop every table, allowing diners to order meals using static menus or design their own burger, pizza or salad through the iPad’s intuitive multi-touch interface and a custom app built specifically for the restaurant chain. The setup:
The iPads at Stacked will be in metal frames that sit about 3 inches off the tabletops. Folks wanting to order burgers will select the type of bun, meat and toppings on the iPad by clicking and dragging icons. The burger stacks visually on the iPad screen. Ditto for pizzas and salads.
Oh, and what if you try to steal the iPad by carrying it out in your bag? An alarm will go off. This sounds like a really clever implementation (do they have custom doors with iPad recognition?) and marketing technique, although the founders claim they won’t market their chain as “the iPad restaurants”. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how the iPad will further integrate with restaurants, coffee shops and bars in the next years. iPad cash registers are already in place in New York City.
