guests have the flexibility to add more dishes and drinks to their order over the course of their visit, as it’s all linked to one single order in the system. Guests can also pay immediately using the QR code at the end of their meal. The ques- tion is all about control and flexibility,” says Gibbons, who reveals that 18%-22% of transac- tions include interaction with a QR code.


WORKFLOW WINS


Customers are certainly in control in the res- taurants of Inamo as the tables also function as interactive screens on which menus are displayed and orders can be placed by din- ers. Although Noel Hunwick, co-founder of Inamo Restaurants, says it might be a stretch to suggest orders going straight through to the kitchen is classed as automation but it is definitely using tech to boost the efficiency of the running of the restaurants. In the kitchens the company also uses Checkit, which partly automates the check- ing of temperatures of ingredients for hygiene purposes. “There are still manual elements involved but it takes away a lot of the legwork. For a hygiene check we can just hand over the records that have been automatically created,” he says. Hunwick indicates that the next stage for


orders hitting the kitchen is for Inamo to potentially move away from printed tickets to instead having a digital display with smart capabilities that can snap orders together for the chefs – which is tougher for sharing plate venues than for traditional starter and mains restaurants. “It could also be tied to stock control and prep times – sushi rolls take longer to prepare – and indicate when to call-out and group the items,” he says. Neil Miller, chief customer officer at Itsu, recognises the challenge of this interaction between front of house and kitchen and one simple action he has taken is to replace word- ing on the screens with images of the dishes. “When an order is fired through to the


kitchen it’s prepared and in 90 seconds it’s on the counter. We’ve done a lot of work on the navigation and the use of pictures because for the team in a busy kitchen reading screens takes time and is stressful,” he explains. These orders are delivered direct from the


44 | Technology Prospectus 2024


“Once staff get into the habit of letting robots do the work around the dining room, they are ready to service


their tables better” Stefano Bensi, Softbank Robotics


restaurants kiosks, employees at the coun- ters, and also via the app, so they need to be managed carefully across the channels. This is magnified by the recent introduction of order- ahead on the app, whereby customers can select a time for collecting their order from a selected restaurant. These need to be automatically sent through to the kitchen at the relevant times and mixed with the on-demand orders. The kiosks have become a feature of many


Itsu stores and have reduced waiting times as well as created upselling opportunities. They have also been adapted to enable control to be handled centrally, which means that screens can be configured differently according to regions and the food preferences in those areas. “We’ve changed the software and the point of sale for this overhaul. We’re making constant changes to the kiosks and using data to help optimise them,” says Miller. For Nick Liddle, vice-president of commer-


cial at Vita Mojo, this highlights the growing recognition by restaurants of adding automa- tion into the various channels they now operate, centring on reducing the complexity of han- dling data. Previously menus were held solely on the point of sale, but with the introduction of kiosks, home delivery, apps and various other channels, the menu has had to be replicated many times. This is laborious and the solution is to automate this by holding a central menu and surfacing it on the relevant devices and channels, tailoring it where required.


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