How to Take Advantage of Empty Tables in the “New Normal”

Any useful statement about the future must seem, at first, ridiculous, and if it is in technology the times are getting shorter.

It is a maxim of many innovators in almost every field: their inventions were seen as ridiculous. The telephone was branded a toy when it was invented, while IBM said no one would want a computer at home.

So we must learn to think like a food futurist during these uncertain times.

Fruit of the follies that life prepares for us, surely if on March 9 I told you that in the summer we would have dinner with a mannequin when we go out to eat, you would have said that it is a total and complete madness, right?

But whatever images dining alongside mannequins conjures up in your head, the concept already exists in some places.

To mention one that made headlines days ago is The Inn at Little Washington restaurant, which is using mannequins to fill empty tables now that social distance guidelines require restaurants to operate at reduced dining room capacity.

The Pandemic that we are experiencing makes us reflect at high speed on new business ideas

This is not a general trend, yet. This is what is called a “sign.”

Signs are facts about the present that we can use to make predictions about the future.

They are especially important at a time when there is so much uncertainty about so many parts of the food system, from the supply chain to restaurants and how we will get our food in the future.

So how does a restaurant that fills its empty tables with mannequins become a real trend in the restaurant business?

For that matter, do we want it to become a trend? To answer these questions, we should first discuss the consequences, good and bad, of restaurants using mannequins as surrogate customers.

Then, we could get ideas to take advantage of a situation as painful as the one we have experienced these months and it will mark our lives in the next.

Ideas that you could already apply in your restaurant using mannequins

Here are some tips to apply to a non-human companion at a restaurant table:

• Monetize mannequins with ads
• Mannequins become an extra element in the restaurant to clean and disinfect
• Creation of themed restaurants, for example, the Walking Dead type, with mannequins
• Make sure that the mannequins are inclusive from racial, gender and cultural angles, to send a message according to our day, especially to young clients
• Mannequins become robots and therefore potential diners who could talk to the diner, get orders, feedback, etc.

The list goes on and on.

As a side note, mannequins and other doll figures aren’t just in Washington. A restaurant in Tokyo, Japan has strategically placed them in their establishment and has even partnered with a clothing brand to make the mannequins as stylish as possible.

Another restaurant in Thailand uses stuffed animals, because who doesn’t want to eat in front of a stuffed giant panda?

If it all sounds a bit ridiculous, that’s the point. Seemingly ridiculous ideas can sometimes lead us to ponder the bigger implications of signals about to become trending.

Some other restaurants are installing WiFi signal boosters in the dolls so that customers have even more power and speed on their tablets and mobiles.

Don’t let the situation get the better of you: technology and a little imagination can help you make all of this an advantage over your competition.