New iPad App for Food and Beverage Professionals Takes Menus from Paper to Fully Digital in Less than an Hour
Uptown Network has released F&B Easy Menu, an iPad app that empowers food and beverage professionals to easily transform paper menus to fully digital and then update them across the business in real time.
Uptown Network is an innovator in using iPads and iOS to help the most prominent hospitality brands operate more efficiently and deliver engaging guest experiences that help build brand loyalty and increase revenues. Its solutions include iPad wine lists and food and beverage menus, virtual wine lockers, product inventory software, social media photo boost and kitchen management software for hospitality businesses.
As per the company release, “F&B Easy Menu provides an effective, affordable solution for digitally transforming menus. It’s easy to implement and operate for F&B professionals, enabling hospitality brands of all sizes to improve their guest experiences with iPad menus and reduce paper consumption.”
Hospitality brands have rightfully been focusing tremendous attention on sustainability and technology—everything from eliminating plastic straws to engaging the guest experience. However, an effective solution for eliminating paper menus hasn’t been available outside of enterprise IT solutions, limiting its benefits for restaurants and the environment.
F&B Easy Menu is the culmination of almost five years of R&D and collaboration with hospitality industry leaders. Highlights of the app include:
- Transformation of any paper menu into an iPad interactive menu in about an hour. No coding or software skills are required. As F&B professionals check boxes and upload images, all of their iPad menus change in real time.
- The menu integrates with the restaurant’s web site in real time, so if an item is 86’d it disappears from the restaurant’s web site also.
- An iPhone app is available to 86 items in about 15 seconds, with F&B Easy Menu redrawing the menu on all the iPads and web sites in real time.
- More than 100,000 curated, cloud-based beverage tasting notes on wines, microbrews, waters, cordials, tequilas, cognacs and other items allow for rapid creation of beverage books, with the check of a box.
- The resulting menus actually look like menus, not apps. Guests can use the iPad just like they would a paper menu (without the need for reading glasses or penlights) or choose to use it interactively.
- Menus can easily be translated into any language.
Jack Serfass, CEO and co-founder of Uptown Network said, “We really believe that iOS and iPad give us the best environment to deliver tablet menus to the hospitality industry. We couldn’t be the company that we are without our Apple Business Solution Partner relationship. Their support and superior device experiences bring hospitality brands to life. Using messaging technology allows menus to be shared across any smartphone. We are also already engaged in what iOS is ’bringing to the table’ with augmented reality for F&B.”
An advanced capability that integrates iPad menus live with the restaurant’s web site and viral sharing on smartphones is in open beta testing and is currently being offered for free.