A table that's made to order

By Shelley Emling

LONDON—You want to eat out. You want good food, nice wine, a convivial ambience. Why let a waiter stand in the way?

This is the premise of Inamo, a restaurant in Soho, central London, where diners use their table to order.

Each table turns it into a giant computer screen. With a few clicks, diners can order from an illustrated menu, pay their bill, summon a taxi, play interactive games with fellow diners and even change the look of the table itself.

Analysts say automation is one of the key trends in the restaurant industry, varying from kiosk-based ordering in fast-food outlets to the conveyor-belt experience offered in sushi joints.

"Oddly, despite the lower level of human engagement, such innovation can foster a greater sense of fun and interactivity for diners and has the added bonus for restaurateurs of reducing labor costs," said Bryan Roberts, a research manager at Planet Retail, a consulting firm in London.

"As with self-checkout in supermarkets, such innovations provide a greater perception of convenience and efficiency and have strong appeal for today's legion of tech-savvy consumers," Roberts said.

In the U.S., the uWink franchise allows diners to order food and drink via touch screens, as well as play games and watch movie previews. There's a place on the table for swiping your credit card when you're ready to pay the bill.

The brainchild of Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari Inc., the first franchise opened in Woodland Hills, Calif., in 2006, with restaurants also in Hollywood and Mountain View.

"UWink is the only touch-screen restaurant in the United States," said Alissa Tappan, a spokeswoman for the Van Nuys, Calif.-based company. "On our touch-screen terminals are short games, word puzzles, trivia quizzes, horoscopes and a wide variety of activities.

"You can play with one other person, or even compete against other tables or the whole room," she said.

As you enter Inamo, which serves Asian fusion fare, the white, sculpted pods above each table immediately catch your eye. These pods house projectors that beam information onto the black composite-surface tabletops. A sunken circle in the corner or the tabletop acts as a mouse, allowing you to scroll through menu options and view photos of those choices before double-clicking on the meal of your choice.

A Bluetooth signal is sent to the kitchen. With "chef cam," you can view your food being prepared on the tabletop screen. Then, a real human delivers the food.

Inamo is the brainchild of two Oxford graduates, Danny Potter and Noel Hunwick, neither of whom boast a high-tech background. The idea behind the restaurant was born three years ago from the pair's frustration at struggling for 20 minutes to get a waiter's attention at a local eatery.

A physics graduate, Potter and some friends were able to adapt existing Bluetooth and projection technologies for the restaurant market.

"We are using projectors and a custom-built panel that no one else is using," he said. "The client can't break the machine or crash the system."

Potter predicted that increased automation is the wave of the future in the restaurant business.

The one downside, at least at Inamo, is that an abundance of interactivity doesn't come cheap, with lunch running as much as $40 a person.

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