Interactive Ordering System for a New Restaurant

Version imprimable

By Samantha Slater
 
The thought behind Gerhard Schöps’ new restaurant experience, Holyfields, is to create ‘more time to eat’ for his guests.
 
Schöps, former Marketing Director at McDonald’s, is Managing Director of Holyfields, which is based in Germany. He believes that in today’s busy world it is crucial to have an ordering system that is intuitive and fast in order to guarantee more time to enjoy a good meal.
 
In February 2010, Holyfields assigned Newroom Media to develop a special self-order kiosk for its new restaurant concept. In cooperation with Ippolito Fleitz Group, the company designed a kiosk system that fulfills all of the restaurant’s requirements. To complete the solution, the front-end software is connected to cash registry software from Hypersoft.
 

 
Holyfields’ first restaurant opened on November 1, 2010 in Frankfurt, Germany. When a guest enters the restaurant, he will be welcomed by a host at the front desk who will provide him with a wireless pager with an attached RFID tag. The actual ordering is done by selecting food and drink on a kiosk, which is equipped with a 32” Samsung LCD display, Tyco Electronics IntelliTouch Surface Wave Touchscreens and a DE7000 Digital Engine from AOpen.
 
The kiosk interface uses only Scala scripts, including some never used before, and specially developed optical effects such as transparent pop-ups. The content is managed and driven to the screen using Scala Content Manager and Scala Player software.
 
Schöps explained: “The ordering of the meals can only be done via the terminals in our restaurants. Failure or down-time would result in extensive monetary loss. The software to drive the system is, therefore, crucial. We are very satisfied with the Scala software, because it is fast and incredibly reliable.”
 
Once the customer has made his choice and is finished ordering, he holds the pager in front of the terminal for a few seconds, and the order is transmitted to the cashier system. Once guests take their seats, their meals are prepared in about six minutes. When the order is ready, the pager starts to blink and vibrate, and it displays where the guests can go to pick up their order.
 
A special function enables the whole system to control the kitchen workflow to ensure that the meals of a single party of people are all ready at the same time. After finishing their meal, the guests can pay by checking out at the reception desk. The invoice is prepared by reading the registry of the pager via a web service-based communication system.
 
The restaurant’s management can constantly update the information on the kiosks. They can make products available to choose on the screens or mark them as sold out in the database, which will automatically make these items disappear from the displays. The offerings on the menu boards also change automatically, without human intervention, based on the time of day.
 
Oscar Elizaga, Vice President Scala, EMEA, India & Latin America, commented on his company’s part in the project: “Scala is honored to be able to contribute to the innovative ordering system of Holyfields. This project clearly showcases the versatility, reliability and possibilities of the Scala software.”
 
Holyfields has already planned future developments of the system. The restaurant wants to extend the system to enable customers to pay directly at the terminal and to integrate terminal payment methods for paying instantly via credit card and cell phone. They also want to create ‘click path tracking’ so that they can understand more clearly how guests choose their meals, and they want to strengthen customer loyalty and service by integrating CRM modules. If the system knows what a guest ate the last time they were there, it could tailor its food offerings based on previous choices.
 
By 2013, Holyfields plans to integrate the new system into restaurants in Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich and Düsseldorf.