Core77

E La Carte: Tablet-Based Restaurant Ordering

By Rain Noe - April 22, 2011

in Tech

I have trouble believing it "took an hour" for a bunch of MIT PhD students at dinner to split the check, and that they got it wrong the first time, but that's the alleged event that inspired Rajat Suri to launch E La Carte, a tablet-based restaurant menu app. After working on it for two years—which included doing research by actually getting jobs waiting tables to observe how people order—Suri and some guys from MIT are ready to launch it.

The app goes way beyond splitting the bill; what they've developed is a full restaurant menu that shows you the food and is apparently so compelling that in early testing it's increased overall sales by 10%. Check it out, and be sure to peep the competing laser-projection/motion-sensor technology shown at 1:18:

o

Favorite This
Q
2

Comment

Comments

elad12

13 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Old new touch screen menus- e-menu is already working in hundreds of restaurants in UK, Spain, Russia, Holland Israel and many other countries. those digital touch screen menus are not new and there where many articles about the pioneer company in this field - Conceptic check
http://www.emenu-international.com

There is also IPad e menu version : http://www.emenu-international.com/iPadMenu

Cool app
!Report as spam
Justin Murray

13 years ago

Z

Z

Reply

Wow, these guys ACTUALLY got jobs waiting tables to conceptualize this thing? Now that is going above and beyond.

This reminds me a lot of a product that I conceptualized about 7 years ago after working in restaurants my whole life and studying industrial design. I thought I would hang on to the idea and use it in my own restaurant one day once I graduated, but lost motivation when I found it in use in a restaurant in Sydney, Australia roughly 2 years ago.

My least favourite part of being in design is spending hours, days, months dreaming up and refining an idea, holding on to it, only to have it stolen away and made famous by someone else not only once, but multiple times.

The moral of the story here is, protect your intellectual property.

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2008/09/02/wagaya-japanese-at-haymarket/

!Report as spam