With BUNKR, Robin Vromans tried to bring technology to the guest. What he learned: the real gains are behind the scenes.
With BUNKR in Eindhoven, Robin Vromans opened the first AI restaurant in the Netherlands. The idea was to bring restaurant technology to the front of house, putting the whole tech experience in front of the guest. His conclusion after that experiment is a striking one: he doesn't believe in it.
"It really taught me to keep it behind the scenes," he says. That isn't a rejection of technology. It's a choice about where it delivers the most.
Behind the scenes, you decide what counts
According to Robin, the back of house is where you, as an operator, decide what really matters to you. That's where technology should do the heavy lifting. He names three things:
- data you can actually use
- cost prices for your dishes and cocktails that are spot on
- visibility into everything happening in your business
It sounds less exciting than a screen on the table. But if your cost per dish is off, you don't know where your margin is. And without usable data, you're running on gut feeling.
Front of house, it's all about your guest
For anything guests use themselves, Robin sets a different bar. Think of your reservation system, or the receipt someone wants at the till. The question then isn't what's technically possible, but what suits the people you serve.
In a casual, accessible concept, technology can be more visible. Guests spend less and have different expectations. In a restaurant where people spend around a hundred euros a night, he says, it fits a lot less well.
What does this mean for your restaurant?
Start by asking what kind of place you run and what your guests expect. A fast, casual concept can make good use of technology at the table. A place where the evening itself is the product is better off keeping it out of sight.
Either way, the real payoff from technology lies behind the scenes: in numbers that add up, in data you can read, and in time you get back for your guests.
That's how After The Table works too. The helpers do their job behind the scenes, via WhatsApp, so you can keep your attention on the floor.
Topic:Technology
Video transcript
I still find that a really difficult subject, because what we try to do at BUNKR is bring the whole tech experience to the front of house, but I don't believe in that. It really taught me some lessons in just keeping it at the back of house. And in the back of house, that's where, as a hospitality entrepreneur, you can really define on what subjects you really find important.
So, make sure that your data is usable. Make sure that your cost price calculations of products of the dishes you use or the cocktails you make, they need to be spot on. So you can follow everything what you're doing in your company.
If you look to the front of house or if you look to the guest experience, the things what we are doing is make sure that the systems we are working with and also the guests are using, like the reservation systems, but also, when people are using the POS systems and they want to have a ticket, make sure that that suits the people you are serving. So if you are going for a really easygoing concept, then tech can be more used in the front of house because expectations or maybe the amount of money people are spending in your place, it's lower, so the expectations are on a other level. If you're more looking into the high level restaurants where people are spending like a hundred euros on the evening, well, it doesn't suit that well in that type of businesses.
