One question has to be asked, “why doesn’t every restaurant have a digital menu board?” Well the answer is simple, it comes down to cost, restaurant owners think they need 6 or 7 digital boards to get the menu across to customers, the fact is they don’t!
One of the easiest ways is to have one for the promotional menu and one with the regular menu on, so customers can see everyday items but are tempted with the promotional items too.
Some restaurants run commercial quality LCD displays that are designed to run 24 x7, these are then housed in a special HDTV enclosure, these protect from fat and steam in the air attacking the internal electronics of the TV display and causing the displays to fail.
Commercial Flat Screen Vs. Consumer Flat Screen.
Commercial flat screens are designed and manufactured for continuous use, compare these to consumer flat screens you can buy from Costco and you will realise that the manufacturers warranty is void if used as a menu board. Consumer LCD’s have a much shorter lifespan than Commercial displays.
Just remember that most restaurants open at 6 or 7 am and run till midnight, so you need a signage solution that can cope with this sort of lifespan use.
One restaurant that has a major success is Mitchel’s Baguette”, who use digital menu boards to tempt passers by into their deli and enhance their customers experience. The folks at Mitchel’s are so dedicated to enhancing customer experience they spent $6,000 in new wallpaper and they commented on how for less money the digital signage menu boards had a bigger impact on consumer impact!
They used the menu boards for day parting, this allowed them to promote breakfast, lunch and dinner items at the right time of the day, increasing their sales substantially.
Things to think about before deployment.
When ever you are planning a deployment you must first think of the placement of the digital menu board, then you must think about the mounting hardware then powering it.
Placement is normally predetermined, as the digital menus are a direct replacement for static old menus, normally behind the cashiers or where the lines form, but they must be in high traffic areas.
Mounting solutions are weight and screen size specific, so research them and get the correct product for the jobs.
Another article brought to you by LCD Enclosures Global – anything else is a compromise.