As restaurants use technology to make service more efficient, and delivery companies turn to robots to bring food to customers, Inamo is staying focussed on the guests. Finn Scott-Delany talks to chief executive Lee Skinner about the concept’s unique approach to technology.
One of the most prominent pearls of conventional wisdom heard in 2016 was that for the modern, often millennial diner, eating out was all about speed and convenience.
With a culture of now, now, now, waiting for the bill was an irritating bugbear time-pressed guests were no longer willing tolerate.
It’s a problem that operators have begun to address, and one that inspired the founders of Inamo to conceive their innovative restaurant concept more than 10 years ago.
The format, which is characterised by guests self-ordering at the tables, and an ever increasing platter of projected entertainment, has moved well beyond the simple problem they first came up with in Wagamama all those years ago.
But the idea of giving guests curative control over their experience remains at the heart of the small restaurant group’s ethos.
“There’s the efficiency side of things in running multiple sites, and technology has definitely made that easier over the years,” Lee Skinner explains. “But the reason Inamo was created was to give guests control over their experience.
“You can have paying at the table and paying online but that is more for the benefit of the restaurant than the guests. At Inamo once guests have sat the table we have no control. They control the table service, the background, what games they play, whether they watch the chef cam and see what’s going on in the kitchen.
“It’s not just about making it easy for the team. Some of it is about efficiency - we’re restaurateurs because we want to make a profit - but we also want to give guests a great experience and that’s the core of what we’re doing.”
While how to use the technology requires explanation, freeing up the waiting team from taking orders inevitably allows them more time to interact with guests.
Skinner says the three-site group has proven popular with families whose children can be kept entertained by games, as well as first dates looking for distractions and ice breakers.
The restaurant and technology sides of the company have now been split into separate businesses, but the new concepts are protected by patents and can be fairly rapidly turned into reality.
“There is no one else doing this,” Skinner said. “We own all the IP globally. There are people doing similar things, but not to the level were doing here. We’re pretty much a market leader, in terms of projection based technology.”
Yet while technology is inevitably Inamo’s USP, it would all be for nothing if the food and dining experience was not up to scratch.
“If you come to a restaurant you want great food, there’s no point in having great tech if you can’t back it up”, Skinner said. “We are known for tech, but we should also be able to deliver a fantastic dining experience.
“What we do is no fad; this has got some traction behind it. I think we’re still ahead of the curve but we need to work hard to stay there because the tech changes so quickly. It’s great to be known for tech but we need to back it up.”
Staying ahead of the curve means constantly coming up with no ideas and rolling out them out each quarter.
“We have a list of about 20 things we’d like to do and some of them are wacky and will never happen, but that’s brainstorming,” he said.
“Anything new we want to put on the table we can generally do within eight to ten weeks.
“We have just launched Inadoodle, which allows you draw over the table with a clicker and draw graffiti onto a brick wall.
“Six months ago it was a dream on a piece of paper and we managed to make it work. It’s a very entrepreneurial way of doing things.”
It’s a far cry from the restaurant’s origins, when the smart phone had not even come to market.
But while chefs meddle with diners’ senses and the likes of Just Eat experiment with virtual reality, Skinner says Inamo is confident there is plenty yet to do in projections.
“The world of technology changes every day”, he said. “Who’s to know in the next 12-18 months were its going to go. Perhaps visualisation is the new way to go.
“We’ve talked about robots, but I don’t necessarily think we want a robot coming up to the table. It’s a bit of fun but not the reasons guests come to restaurants. I think there’s still a lot we can do putting things on tables.
“People want to see new things, if you’re going to invest in a beautiful new restaurant you need to show you’re evolving, you’ve got to show something a bit different.”
One challenge for the latest site in Camden is how to make the most of the technology outdoors, after police refused license for its use in Inamo’s large terraced area over fears it would be stolen.
While a disappointment, with summer a long way off the solution is not urgent, and you can count on the brainboxes at Inamo to come up with an ingenious solution.
