A closer look at the latest tools of the trade and how operators are using them.
By Kara Newman
hef Russell Jackson wasn’t always a wired kind of guy. In fact, he describes his younger self as chronically late,
disorganized and uninterested in technology. But after one missed appointment too many, a friend demanded that Jackson “get it together and buy the best organizer on the market.” One high-end PDA later, he quickly became a self-described “techno-geek,” an early adopter obsessed with the latest gadgets. He never would have dreamed, nearly 20 years later, that technology would have revolutionized his restaurant. Guests entering his 130-seat San Francisco French restaurant
Lafi tte are handed an iPad as soon as they sit down (and if they have their own on hand, they can simply download an application), to peruse the wine list and cocktail menu. Although traditional printed menus are brought out for ordering the meal, at dessert time the iPads return. “It’s had a great impact,” Jackson enthuses, who has slashed
his one-time $4,000 a month printing budget in half while seeing dessert sales spike 20 percent. “No one has ever said to the hostess, ‘Hey, can I get a printed menu?’ ” From iPads to online orders, technological innovation is
rapidly changing the restaurant business in myriad ways from the reservation and ordering process to how food is delivered.
Chicago chain Wow Bao, which is owned by Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, uses online ordering (top) as well as a Facebook page (below).
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BOOKING A TABLE Few guests these days pick up the phone these days to reserve a table. One of the reasons why is that OpenTable has become the
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