Inamo - An(other) Interactive Restaurant

Generally the clever use of interactive technologies by a brand serves predominantly a marketing function - increase the level of engagement that your customers have with your brand. But sometimes it can provide an operational efficency function as well. Think of airline ticket check-in kiosks. When you can implement technologies that both increase your sales AND decrease your cost of doing business then you’re building your ROI from both sides. Such is the promise of restaurant automation if executed well.

The restaurant business is one of the last bastions of the labor-intensive services sector. It’s still driven almost exclusively by good old fashioned manual labor. Sure, the adoption of front-of-house computer automation has increased efficiencies in recent years, but overall it’s still a fairly manual process. I should note that from our point of view, that’s a fairly good thing. What we evangelize here at Operand is interactivity. And despite what some think, interactivity is not synonymous with digital technologies. The process of talking to a waiter, maybe getting recommendations about what’s good, and perhaps exchanging some small talk, is a deeply interactive process. And if the waiter is doing his or her job properly, this interaction should engage the patron with the restaurant’s brand fairly deeply.

But the largest component of cost for just about any business, certainly for any service business, is the cost of their employees. That’s why people get laid off in recessions. So there is certainly a compelling financial case for restaurant automation if (and only if) it can be made as engaging as the conventional restaurant experience. And if you could manage to make it even more engaging, then that’s a double win. If nothing else, digital interactivity can offer restaurateurs the promise of a consistent customer experience.

Anyway, I say all that just to express my reasoning for why forward-thinking restaurants will continue to experiment with interactive experiences for diners. We’ve seen a number of really interesting examples of this already. Of course there was the interactive karaoke restaurant in Times Square that Operand developed and produced in 2007. There was the uWink restauraunt in Hollywood. And there was the Clo interactive wine bar, also here in New York.  Add to that list Inamo.

Inamo is a pan-Asian restaurant in London that uses projection touch technology to present an interactive menu to patrons. In terms of technical execution then, it’s very much like Clo. In addition to ordering food using a menu projected onto the table, the interactivity developed for Inamo allows diners to customize their booth’s ambience by projecting virtual tablecloths and other elements. And perhaps they expect a lot of first dates at Inamo - you can even summon a cab to make a fast getaway.

Anyone who reads this blog even semi-regularly knows that we at Operand are extremely bullish on the future of touch surface technologies for public spaces of all kinds. It’s always nice to see emerging technologies like this employed in concert with a keen design sensibility, as has been done at Inamo. We’ll be watching with interest to see how all of these interactive restaurants perform in the marketplace. But whether they succeed or fail, we are certain that many more innovators will follow in their footsteps.

posted by josiah at 1:34 PM