"Your Waiter Today Will Be a Computer"

[EV_Ares]

While still a blip to most restaurateurs, DIY ordering terminals could have customers across the country ordering from a touchscreen
by Kerry Miller - BusinessWeek

Imagine a restaurant for the MySpace generation—one that doesn't force diners to leave behind their digital life when they step out into the analog world. That's the idea behind uWink, the latest restaurant business from serial entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell, founder of video game company Atari and the kiddie arcade/pizzeria chain Chuck E. Cheese's (CEC).

Instead of speaking to servers, diners at uWink order using a table-top touchscreen that doubles as a video-game console. (The most popular games so far? Trivia and Truth or Dare, Bushnell says.) Runners bring food to the tables, and a floating cruise director-type is around to answer questions and facilitate multitable team games.

The first uWink (UWNK) Media Bistro opened at a Los Angeles-area mall in October, 2006, and Bushnell, 64, says he hopes to open a number of uWink franchises across the country within the next six to eight months, though the public company wouldn't specify how many.

But is do-it-yourself ordering more than just a gimmick? And could it spread to other casual-dining restaurants? Gabriele Piccoli, a professor at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, thinks so, noting that we now use kiosks to get cash, check out at the grocery store, and check in at airports and hotels. "It may not be these guys who succeed, but the concept is here to stay," he says.

While self-service ordering hasn't exactly taken restaurants by storm—the National Restaurant Assn. (NRA), an industry trade group, says 3% of casual-dining operators currently offer it—there are signs that the industry might be warming to the idea.

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http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jan2007/sb20070123_902747.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories