Nihonbashi restaurants in Sri Lanka just after nine days of the launch of the iPad revolutionised the history of traditional printed menu cards by introducing the new touchscreen device, as the menu.
Today, almost four months later, guests at Nihonbashi are enjoying the new way of ordering food with the iPad menu; pictures, descriptions and prices all in “the palm of your hands”. “Describing an original dish without a picture is tough and hard copies are time consuming and expensive, and it also makes things easier for customers who have trouble reading the menu’s fine print as they can enlarge it,” says Dharshan Munidasa, the owner and founder of Nihonbashi.
Pads also allow custom- ers to browse the menu and daily specials, see what the dish looks like, view tasting notes, helps to select and suggests the best wines to complement the dining selections and best food pairings, place their comments and take part on surveys and lucky draws at the restaurant. What’s more, while the or- der arrives customers can also browse the internet, watch movie trailers, read a book, check emails, or any other activity, mak- ing full use of their time and kids love playing their favourite online games.
The iPads will also be used in the administra- tion aspects of Nihonbashi operations as communica- tions between team mem- bers and idea sharing will become easier, faster and more descriptive owing to pictorial representation, and all this without paper contributing positively to the environment.
Dharshan added that a special POS application will also be developed for this very purpose at a later stage to speed up the efficiency level of the res- taurants and as a means of better knowledge and resource management.
