Who doesn’t love to trigger the taste buds, especially when the restaurant is ambient and filled with heart-melting delicacies?
Be it, men or women, we all love to take a break from the kitchen once in a while and taste fine food made by great chefs in various eateries and restaurants in the city. But, unfortunately, a pandemic broke out on Covid 19, making the restaurant and hotel business worse and seeing a huge fall in quarters 2 and 3, especially.
The sales of restaurants declined a lot from what was expected. Yet, it turned the dice all of a sudden in the last quarter when the pandemic was in control more or less and social distancing rared in a few states.
The hunch is people started ordering food online when they got tired of eating homemade food. And started visiting restaurants, cafes, and eateries augmented with good themes, music, and technology which made the dining journey easy and clutterless, backed by delicious cuisine.
It looks like people try to enjoy good food whenever, wherever possible. And then, the year 2021 has brought so many changes to various businesses worldwide, and the restaurant industry started to rise all over again. So people’s way of thinking and lifestyles have changed, too, in the last 1 year.
One trend that was noticed in the crowd was that people are more interested in dining in technology-enabled restaurants now than ever. The emergence of coronavirus has helped in making it a reality. And these 5 restaurant technologies have been trending that you might have witnessed in 2021.
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Let’s discover the 5 Restaurant Technology Trends to Witness in 2023
- Online orders and selection through online apps
Due to this pandemic, the need for social distancing has been mandated worldwide; all the restaurants were closed most of the time back in 2020. In addition, strict restrictions have been imposed on dining in service whenever it is allowed by the government.
So, better online ordering and food tracking systems have been developed to see if the food is being delivered on time or not. Food delivery apps like Zomato and Swiggy have become the solutions for all who are not in the mood to cook. These digital businesses help restaurants in staying connected with their customers.
All the mentioned food ordering and delivering apps do have certain offers that get the customers attracted and happy after claiming that deal. However, these apps compete with each other. And so, the industry is becoming better each day. Even the customers feel safe ordering online.
- Rise of contactless payment mode
Due to the emergence of the pandemic, everybody has a fear of getting contacted with the Covid virus while being near to others. Sanitization is the only solution after every act with the chance of such contact. Now since everything is digital, payment is easy with just a click.
It is estimated that this technology payment mode will increase to a triple amount than the present numbers worldwide, and this option will benefit at least 34% of the customers.
This mode being safer and hygienic, they are more convenient to many. However, if you wish to start up your career in the hotel industry and maintain profitability in the future in the coming year, you should keep the option for online payment.
Bringing in new technology ideas for appealing and engaging more guests with contactless payment options has been fruitful.
- Robotic self-driven cars to deliver food
The food delivering robotic vehicles have become a great attention-grabbing trend that is being followed after the emergence of this pandemic. These vehicles do the job perfectly without spreading Covid. They are excellent for contactless delivery. They are effective for both customers and operators as they need less cost of labor and can scoff off from tipping to waiters or delivery drivers.
Delivering food in driverless cars is thinking for the near future business, as the impact of the virus keeps continuing. It is said that robots will be introduced in the future and robots will do all the work.
As the technology moves on and gets smarter, mostly robots will be introduced in getting the food delivered, as not much time is needed for a robot to get things done. It is time-saving in many ways.
- Virtual Presence of Restaurants
People love tasting different foods from different cultures. They also want to know the taste of foods that they have never heard of. Many hotels provide a variety of foods in every city. The hotel industry is vast almost everywhere globally. But now, the restaurants do not need to be present physically.
They can be present only virtually, too. Even physically existing restaurants need to have their virtual presence through the food delivery apps for better sales. These virtual restaurants provide people with a great opportunity to support the food delivery era, making new ideas and bringing out thinking that is out of the box.
The kitchens have to be active and know how to put them and advertise them on social media to become popular.
The restaurant should have an engaging website with a catchy name and a tight partnership with food delivery apps. The restaurants have to be highly rated and recommended on those platforms, too.
- Wireless waiter calling system
Great experience and customer satisfaction are the keys to success in the hospitality industry. As we all know, a waiter plays a vital role in the restaurant business. As the name suggests, this calling system runs on the latest wireless technology that enables every steward to fulfill their orders way before time
They have a transmission range of around 70 to 100 mts that can be operated well in open areas and are 100 percent handy.
It can be carried within the hotel where you are situated. You just have to sit there, press on the button that is provided for the service you want from them, and by that click, they will get the alert on what the customers want. The service will be fast and without any hesitation. Automatically the waiters will know which table needs the service or the food delivery.
The buttons on the system include services like bill, drink, call and cancel. If you want to order a drink, you have to click on the drink, and they will be ready to take your drink order. If you want to cancel the order, click on cancel, and it will automatically get the order canceled.
To pay the bill, press the bill button, and the bill will be counted. It will be at your service where the payment can be made easily. Wireless waiter calling system is efficient for the hotel industry for fast service and serving the satisfaction to their customers.
Finally, all restaurants will be live and mobile in the future, as people don’t have to fear being affected by Covid. This is a convenient and reliable technology that will be easy for both customers and people working in restaurants.
For the past 2 years, after the emergence of the pandemic, though the hotel industry has faced loss, technology connected to it has been advanced and boomed to offer safety to its customers. As their styles and methods have all changed since 2020, there are no signs that they will fall short.
Like restaurants, companies are even more thinking of building up this automated solution to keep the food fresh and healthy. They are also constantly modifying the technology to make the customers happy and satisfied.
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Why is a technology oriented restaurant getting more exposure?
As technology rises, it helps provide staff with the knowledge of better guest service. The payment mode is made simple and easy with smartphones, which are available to everyone now. You have to scan the QR code, and then the payment is made in no time.
As there has been a growing emergence of mobile applications and various automated processes, this new technology of the hotel industry has resulted in cost reduction and food production optimization. With the help of the mobile application, which is being known how to use, the menu and price of the food are shown online.
So, those can be viewed from anywhere, at any time. The customers can have the facility to track the food coming to their doorsteps from the smartphone itself. Getting reservations through the POS system is a great beneficial option for both restaurants and their customers.
It is a great deal for the customers in getting digitally connected to the physical world while maintaining social distancing. As trends change, people and their lifestyles also get modified with time.
Even when the government has started deciding on the beginning of people to dine in, staff has to make sure all the seats and the place are fully sanitized after every use of every customer. These restrictions are too tough to maintain and have a great chance of failure. The result can be life-taking.
Take away
The presence of the Covid pandemic has lightened up the ideas of many in making changes of technology that can help the businesses in gaining profit even after getting adversely hit by the pandemic.
The experience will be new to many who wish to make a boom in the hotel industry and bring in new and safe ideas for promoting their businesses. Robotic hotels may appear for the upcoming generations, which can be a great help to foodies in this pandemic era.
These technologies are not only helping the businesses but also the customers who are tired of cooking and bored of eating the same home-cooked food. So changes at the plates are nice sometimes.
It helps people to get rid of the monotonous life of lockdown, too. Though the Covid pandemic is a big threat to humanity, technology has appeared as a Saviour. It is expected that we will observe more changes in it pretty soon. Hoping for the best is always better than finding no hope around the world.