Glimpse Group

Apr 21st, 2021

How AR and VR Are Shaking Up The Restaurant Business

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are fast becoming useful tools in many industries. You’ll see them used in real estate, marketing, entertainment, and more. However, you may not expect to see them in the restaurant business. Here’s how these technologies are being used, and how they’re improving the experience for customers and employees alike. 

Assisting Health Conscious Diners

These days, a regular diner is going to be more aware of what’s in their food. They may have allergies, need to avoid a food type for health reasons or have concerns about where their food comes from. Restaurants are already working harder to give their customers this information, but they aren’t able to have all that information available at a moment’s notice. 

That’s where AR comes in. Using their phones, a diner can scan a menu item and get all the information they want. This can contain anything from allergy warnings to food sources and calorie info. You just couldn’t cram all this in on a menu, so you can include it all through AR. 

Also, a  study was made with the purpose to explore the effects of how AR applications can help people with intellectual disabilities, identifying potential food allergens before they consume or buy them.

Delivering Experience Marketing

VR is already being used in creating experience marketing with many different food brands. For example, Gunn Beer created a specific VR video that their customers could experience while drinking their beer, to get the full experience of the product. Patron Tequila has also been using VR to allow customers to see the creation process. 

Restaurants can use experience marketing for their own dishes, too. They can create videos that make you feel as though you’re eating a meal in the perfect setting. For example, wouldn’t you want to eat Mexican food in an authentic Mexican setting? This experience will be enough to draw in customers, just so they could try it. 

Visualizing Dishes

When ordering something off a menu, you’re not sure how much you’re going to get until it arrives on your table. AR gives you the chance to actually visualize that dish before you order it. 

‘Companies like  Qreal are offering 3D models that can be accessed through AR’ says technology blogger Adrian Pope from  Writinity and  Last Minute Writing. ‘This makes it easy for the customer to get a good look at the meal before they order it, so they can see exactly what they’ll get.’ This will bring many benefits as it will attract more customers while offering an excellent experience. 

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Training Staff

AR and VR have been highly useful in training staff across many different industries. In the restaurant industry, it’s no different. These technologies can help train multiple team members at once, in all kinds of practices. For example, VR can help chefs practice making new dishes without using up ingredients. It can also help wait staff visualize meals, so they can be more knowledgeable when talking to customers about them. 

Entertaining Waiting Guests

No one likes waiting for a table at a restaurant. There are only so many tables available though, and as a restaurant owner, you don’t want to lose that business. What do you do? In some cases, restaurants have started using VR games to entertain guests as they wait, keeping them in the building until a table is available for them. 

Business writer Celia Green from  Draft Beyond and  Research Papers UK says, ‘This is an ideal use of VR, as it’s such a novel way to keep customers in the building for longer. It’s already been used by big chains like Chipotle to run custom-built games for them. We’ll be sure to see other restaurants use VR too as it becomes more widespread.’

These are just a few ways that VR and AR are changing up the restaurant industry. Right now we’re only seeing the start of these changes. In a few years, the technologies are going to be a lot more common. With so many benefits, it’s easy to see why. 

Ashley Halsey is a professional writer, currently working with  Assignment Help and  Gum Essay s. She enjoys traveling to attend business courses, and has been involved in many projects around the world. When she isn’t working, she enjoys traveling, reading, and spending time with her two children.