New London Restaurant Has Interactive Touch Tables With eMenus and Digital Tablecloths

Contemporist has a great post on Inamo, one of the newer restaurants in London’s West End, which boasts fully interactive tables with touch technology. The tables function use overhead projectors and touch panels on the tables that work together to display things like menus, as well as rotate through a series of seven tablecloths according to the patrons preference. Customers are also able to order directly from the digital menu, reducing waiters to little more than human FAQs.

Inamo’s tables are also capable of running games and providing location-based services, like ordering a cab. Planned out by Blacksheep, Inamo also features state-of-the-art design that pays special attention to factors such as colours, spacing, and visual coherency. Sure, the tables may not render 3D models like some concepts we’ve seen in the past, but these ones actually exist in a public space. Here’s the description straight from Blacksheep:

The ‘cocoon’ projectors are set at the same height throughout within the suspended high gloss black ceiling and come in three sizes to light 2-cover, 4-cover or 6-cover tables. When customers sit down there are white spots for plates and an individual ‘e-cloth’ for each table. Customers use a touch panel to order food and drink or change their table top to one of the seven other patterns available. ‘Serving staff are available at any time to help customers to navigate their menus or answer any other queries, but the menus have been exceptionally clearly designed and should be both intuitive and fool-proof for users!’ Project Designer Benjamin Webb commented.

Check out more photos over on Contemporist. [Inamo and Blacksheep via Contemporist]