Eatery jumps on digital bandwagon

Ipad menu becomes new attraction for diners

Up until recently, the antique furniture at Qin Restaurant and Cafe in Beijing, including the timeworn tea sets and the seven-string zither called guqin, has given customers the sense that they were eating in ancient times.

But that feeling of antiquity for diners has now given way to an attitude of hipness after the introduction of something very modern and sleek: an Apple iPad menu.

At Qin Restaurant's iPad menu, all dishes are sorted into different categories, such as entrees and cold dishes. On the menu, prices are listed to the right of the photos of the dishes.

If the customer presses the photo of a specific dish, the digital menu introduces the dish and gives details of ingredients and flavors. You can also use the iPad to order your meal.

"The iPad menus surprised me a bit, and I would love to recommend this restaurant to my friends and family for a little fun," says customer Wang Yatian, who says it was his first time at Qin Restaurant.

Wang originally came to the establishment on a recent Friday to hang out with his friends and have some tea and snacks. But Wang says that upon seeing the newfangled menu, he and his three friends could not stop playing with the iPad.

"All the dishes look very delicious on the iPad, which made me want to order some dishes for an early dinner," Wang says.

Without consulting the waiter, Wang ordered four cold dishes, six hot dishes, rice and four plates of dessert with tea. The meal cost around 630 yuan (68 euros) for the dinner, which Wang said was a little expensive for his liking, but he added "it usually cost more to experience new things".

The iPad has become a popular gadget for Beijingers, who can be seen playing games or reading a document on the device while they sit on a park bench or as they ride public transit.

"But it's my first time to experience the new use of iPad as a menu, which heightens the whole service at the restaurant," Wang says.

But the iPad menu has meant more for the restaurant than simply being a purveyor of trendiness.

Zhang Lichang, manager of Qin Restaurant, says the new menu has reduced costs since they started using the device in November. Zhang claims one color-printed menu costs at least 1,000 yuan.

If the menu comes with special design aspects or materials, he says the costs of a menu could be more than 3,000 yuan. Restaurants often need to make new menus every year.

"But one iPad is only 3,999 yuan, which is the new fashion and can be used longer than a year," he says.

Prior to buying the iPads, Zhang was worried about making changes on the menus. He had been accustomed to printing out new pages for the menu and stuffing them into the menu. If a dish was no longer being served, he pasted a piece of paper over the photo of the dish in the menu.

"It did not look that pretty on our menu books if we made changes, but it won't be a problem for iPads," he says.

The 10 iPads, which were bought in November, are still working today.

"We only need to recharge the devices every day, and it only takes a few minutes to update our menu without costing extra money," Zhang adds.

Zhang said the iPad improves on efficiency. When costumers finalize their ordering and press the "order" button, their orders will be sent to the kitchen, the bar and the storage room.

"It reduces the chances of making mistakes, and it also helps us to collect our customers' information, such as the most popular dishes and the storage situation," the manager says.

With the iPad menus, a waiter can serve six tables at the same time, while they could only work on four tables with regular menus.

"Customers won't get bored when they are waiting for their meals, because they can play games on the iPads now. The new technology helps elevate our restaurant into a higher class," he adds.

The usage of the iPad as a way to order food at a restaurant has become a trend in the Chinese catering industry.

Restaurants in many cities such as Beijing, Chongqing and Hangzhou have started using the iPad or other tablet PCs.

"The catering industry has a big market but it is also one of the less developed industries in using technologies, and most restaurants still depend on pen and paper, and managers' yelling and waiters' running," says Guo Jiasu, general manager of Pingxin Technology, a company that develops tablet-PC software for ordering food.

"When the iPad got popular, more people were interested in tablet PCs, which makes our business better too," Guo says. "The digital ordering system existed using mobile Internet devices for a few years, but the iPad makes the applications come to more restaurants."

The company supported the ordering system with 3,000 tablet PCs during the Beijing International Beer Festival from July 18 to Aug 17.

"I believe the wireless ordering system will become a core competitiveness in the development of catering industry," Guo says.