Were you expecting to see a Michelin Star restaurant? Something like Per Se? Certainly a restaurant where fine dining doesn’t even begin to describe the orgasmic experience, right? Like Alinea? Nope. Those excellent restaurants—and others of their kind—are not the best restaurant in the USA according to Yelp. That honor would go to a small shack in Hawaii called Da Poke Shack. You could eat there for less than 10 bucks.
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This billboard started life as an image of a large hunk of meat. But it was eventually consumed by flames, revealing a rather clever advertisement for a Russian steakhouse. Because after letting the public scratch their heads for a few days, the image of the uncooked steak was eventually ‘grilled’ with a series of flaming wires. Those were left to burn, leaving sear marks across its surface along with the name of the restaurant—Double Grill&Bar. Now if only burning paper and glue smelled as delicious as a grilled steak. [YouTube via Taxi]
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Conveyor belt sushi restaurants are usually only worth going to once in your life. The sushi is hardly ever amazing since it spins on the belt over and over again while the dishes you actually want might be snatched ahead of you so you never get to eat it. Not to mention plates stacking on your table, plastic covers getting in your way and the lack of personalized orders. It’s a gimmick! It’s okay though, Japan has figured out those problems with this next generation conveyor belt sushi restaurant.
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Eating at home is a joy for many reasons—not least of which that pants are not required for entry—but if you’re going to go out (and you have the cashola), why not make it an evening to remember at a place that’s as well-designed as it is delicious? Like, say, one of the winner’s of this year’s independent Restaurant and Bar Design Awards.
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The Happy Meal is as synonymous with McDonald’s as the Big Mac, but now the international fast food chain is experimenting with what it’s calling the Happy Table. It’s another attempt to lure kids in that uses simple NFC stickers to turn its dining tables into virtual interactive race tracks.
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We all know that customer reviews can be prone to, shall we say, a little positive engineering. What if you could gather genuine opinions about a restaurant, or product before you commit your cash? Well, a new system developed at the University of Rochester might be able to offer just that. The “nEmesis” engine uses machine learning, and starts to listen when a user tweets from a geotagged location that matches a restaurant. It then follows the user’s tweets for 72 hours, and captures any information about them feeling ill. While the system isn’t able to determine that any resulting affliction is directly connected to their restaurant visit, results over a four-month period (a total of 3.8-million analysed tweets) in New York City found 480 reports of food poisoning. It’s claimed these data match “fairly well” with that gathered by the local health department. The system’s creators admit it’s not the whole picture, but could be used alongside other datasets to spot potential problems more quickly. The only question is how long before we see “sabotage” tweets?
Filed under: Internet
Via: Motherboard
Source: University of Rochester
You just finished a delicious meal. You’re itching to move on to the next spot to get more drinks. Or you’re hoping to wrap up your meal so you can pay the sitter. Or maybe you just want to get the hell out of the restaurant just because. Whatever it is, you spend a snail’s lifetime trying to flag down the waitress to get your bill. Another half life waiting for her to take your credit card. And a century and half for you to get it back so you can sign the damn thing. Taking care of the bill is the most annoying thing about eating out. OpenTable wants to change that.
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This system, developed for restaurant chains, collects restaurant status data in real time, and shows app users which restaurants have seating available. The RealtimeManager software from Science Works’ was released in November 2012.
Most POS systems collect data when customers are ready to pay their bill, but this system accumulates data as the customers are ordering, allowing the restaurant manager or chain headquarters to provide smartphone users with seating availability information in real time based on the situation. This system can be integrated into the top three order entry systems in Japan, which are used by 90% of the market.
“RealtimeManager is our solution that collects data from handheld order entry systems in restaurants. This data is then tabulated to produce a ratio of available seating. A list is generated of eateries with available seats, and these eateries are listed in Yahoo search results. For users of the Hot Pepper restaurant guide website, information on the percentage of available seats is presented, so based on this data information on how many customers can be accommodated at that time is provided.”
This service, which does not require any extra work by restaurant employees, analyzes information chronologically such as order frequency, enabling chain headquarters to issue instructions to restaurants that will lead to increased orders and sales. It is also possible to have special discount coupons redeemable when there are empty seats.
“On weekend evenings, many eateries and especially Japanese-style pubs are completely full. If a customer knows beforehand which have available seating and which do not, naturally he or she will avoid ones that are full. This solution is very convenient because customers won’t have to go to one establishment after another only to be told that they are full. For restaurants, this means that customers will come when there is available seating, and they won’t come when it’s crowded. Restaurants have no option but to turn down customers if they are crowded, so this way they can inform customers beforehand, and at the same time attract customers when they have available space.”
This service is currently offered at approximately 400 restaurants in metropolitan areas in Japan, and Science Works is aiming to increase this to 1,000 establishments within the next year.
This content is provided by DigInfo.tv, AkihabaraNews Official Partner.
Via:
Science Works
Many people are uncomfortable with the prospect or even just the idea of eating alone at a restaurant. I’d like to say that I’m so confident that I can’t relate to this feeling, but I can’t, because I do. There’s just something about eating alone that feels so… lonely. Maybe movies and other media have reinforced that idea in our heads, but social designer and initiator Marina van Goor disagrees with the concept and isn’t afraid to say so.
Goor set up the pop-up Eenmaal restaurant last Thursday in Amsterdam, and what sets it apart is that it’s the world’s first restaurant that serves parties of one exclusively. Inside, you’ll find tables with a single setting arranged all over the restaurant, which means that diners can only dine alone and with themselves only.
Goor explains: “Eenmaal is a restaurant like any other restaurant, but one thing is totally different: you only find tables for one person here. Eenmaal is an exciting experiment for those who never go out dining alone, as well as an appealing opportunity for those who often eat alone at restaurants.”
It’s a fun concept, and it’s just too bad that Eenmaal was only open for two days.
[via Pop Up City]
When you’re on a long road trip, you generally eat what you can, where you can. That can mean many meals at a combination Exxon/KFC/Taco Bell/Tiger Mart. But have you ever seen a rest stop as amazing as this hybrid gas station/McDonald’s in Batumi, Georgia? (The country, not the state.) More »
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