The Menu Goes Digital

Diners interested in ordering a Prime New York Strip or other meaty morsels at Cast Iron Chef Chop House no longer need a physical menu when placing their orders.

Thanks to local entrepreneur Greg Morehead, there’s now a solution for that.

Morehead, CEO of a company called 5 Star Business Group and a former Dixwell alder, has developed contactless menu software called ​“Tap the Tent.” He debuted the new tech on Friday at Cast Iron Chef Chop House at 660 State St. alongside the restaurant’s owner, Attilio Marini.

Marini said he’s spent the past few weeks trying to figure out a way to safely reopen under the state’s Phase 2 guidelines while still providing his customers with the ​“experience of going out to eat and interacting.”

Morehead’s Near-Field Communication (NFC)-enabled table tent chatbot allows for just that.

Morehead got the idea from his own recent experiences of going to restaurants and watching the servers quickly wipe down their menus.

“It got my engine spinning,” said Morehead. He said it took him around a month to develop the app. The Cast Iron Chef Chop House debuted 50 table tents on Friday.

Here’s how it works:

While at their tables, customers must tap their smartphone on the table tent.

The NFC software is compatible with the Apple iPhone 8 model and later models, as well as with Android devices.

For the earlier Apple iPhone models without NFC compatibility Morehead also provides a QR code to scan on the table tent to access the virtual menu.

Once clicking ​“get started,” customers can select dishes from the menu.

After looking through the menu customers can select their food choices in the chatbot. The selected food choices will be put in a basket order. When the customer taps ​“order” they will be shown their selected choices and can read them off to the server.

Tap the Tent can additionally be used for membership opportunities for restaurants and customers, Morehead said.

Once the table tent is accessed on a smartphone, the interaction happens in a chatbot on Facebook messenger. By tapping the tent and clicking on get started, the customer can view the menu, offers, and specials for that restaurant. The customer can optionally give consent to staying updated on coupons, daily deals and updates on the restaurant; and can give the restaurant’s system access to their contact information (name, number, email) to be added to the restaurant’s subscription list, which distributes coupons, daily deals, and updates.

“It’s that easy. Once they hover, they’re subscribed. No extra work to get connected with restaurants,” said Morehead.

For customers without a Facebook account, Morehead is working on making the innovation compatible with WhatsApp in the future.

Marini said he has no doubt that Morehead’s idea and work will improve his business. He said with uneasy customers fearful of dining in and his restaurant capacity cut to 50 percent, he is depending on Morehead’s innovation to ​“get us ahead of the game.”

“Whatever Greg brings up, I just go with it, because I trust him. We all know safety and sanitation is the new norm now,” Marini said.

Morehead said depending on a restaurant’s needs, he can adjust the system to send the orders directly to the restaurant’s point of sale (POS) system and kitchen, so no server is needed. Marini’s only request of Morehead was that his servers are still needed for the dine-in experience.

During the pandemic, Morehead helped Marini get started with carry-out services, which the restaurant previously didn’t offer. Morehead made a carryout chatbot amidst Covid for customers to safely place orders.

In a previous tech venture, Morehead established a chatbot program at Cast Iron Chef Chop House that offers promotional discounts for customers’ birthdays.

Before Morehead introduced this program to Marini in November, the restaurant had no list or subscribers. By the time the pandemic hit New Haven, the restaurant’s customer list had about 1,200 subscribers.

Now the restaurant and future restaurants interested don’t have to worry about sterilizing their current menus or spending extra money on disposable menus, Morehead said.