Launch of eTM’s digital menu makes bacon fly at Saint Marc’s restaurant
Huntington Beach, Calif.-based Saint Marc Pub-Café, Bakery & Cheese Affinage has a brand mission of giving guests the ability to create their own service experience. As part of that plan, the company has rolled out eTouchMenu at its first U.S. location and will use the platform throughout its growth process.
The restaurant concept, which launched in December 2015, is wowing customers with its bacon bar, fresh pastries, wine on draft, extensive beer list and gourmet meats and cheeses. The concept has departed from traditional service methods through its customer-dictated approach to service. This means customers can choose whether they order through the staff or through the eTouchMenu iPad that sits on each table.
“I like guests to have the ability to create their own experience and that can mean with as much or as little human interaction as they want,” said Saint Marc CEO Thomas (Mac) McFarland Gregory III. “If a guest wants a ton of human interaction, they can have it. If they want no interaction, they can have that too.”
Guests who come into Saint Marc can order through a service ambassador, who walks patrons through the ordering process using an iPad featuring the eTouch Menu display. Guests also have the option of simply using the tablet themselves.
“We use eTouchMenu as a steering wheel to guide guests through the restaurant’s culinary experience,” Gregory said. “It’s a piece of our model that truly delivers and there is no generational segmentation in regards to who uses the eTouchMenu. It’s all about the expectation and what guests are looking for.”
In this way, Saint Marc is changing the service experience and establishing a new paradigm of guest expectations. This is on-trend with the 10-year change in restaurant service models and marks a level of engagement that is transitioning from curiosity to relevance to deployment.
“ETouchMenu is helping restaurant operators improve the guest experience while providing opportunities to increase revenue and decrease costs. Since its opening in late December, Saint Marc has continued to deploy digital features and improve its menu presentation while seeing monthly improvement in average check size,” said Scott Morrow, president of eTouchMenu. “Is this a sea change at restaurants? We think so. Through the use of brand messaging, images, self-ordering and payment transactions, we are reshaping the way restaurant operators guide their customers through the dining experience.”
At Saint Marc, eTouchMenu is designed help navigate customers through their culinary journey while dining at the restaurant. Food is delivered to the table when it’s ready as opposed to everything being delivered at once. In this way, the digital menu helps facilitate the ordering process without the need of traditional servers and supports the trend of graze eating.
“Having been in Saint Marc, I’ve seen firsthand how they have integrated the guest benefits of eTouchMenu technology within a full service offering,” Morrow said. “We are part of their long-term growth plan in the United States and believe guests are looking for more dining experiences that are self-directed. In this way, we are supporting Saint Marc and its mission to truly change the dining experience by providing guests with significantly more menu content and a choice in how and when they order and pay.”
Saint Marc Pub – Café, Bakery & Cheese Affinage is the brand’s first and flagship establishment, situated along the Huntington Beach coastline within the vibrant new Pacific City. Saint Marc offers nostalgic, Americana cuisine in a family and pet friendly environment. Ambassadors serving as personal culinary consultants offer expert advice on Saint Marc’s unique selection of distinctive food and hydration available tableside or self-selected from free-standing stations. iPads of information offering images and on-demand ordering of what guests want when they want it, free-flow bread from the bakery, over 100 cheese selections from boards to fondue, craft beers in a can, 32 wines on draught, with mixology served in Red Solo Cups and dishes served on faux paper plates – highlight just some of the enticing features and unique characteristics that set Saint Marc on a less-traveled path. To learn more, visit www.saintmarcusa.com.
eTouchMenu is a technology, service and software development company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our mission is to integrate digital technology with high guest experience cultures by designing and developing unique digital menu systems that enhance the guest experience and the bottom line for restaurant and hospitality establishments. eTouchMenu serves your unique digital menu needs to revitalize incremental revenue while engaging guests in a fun, useful and meaningful way. We develop customized digital menus that reinforce your brand and communicate with most POS systems seamlessly. Grow Revenue. Improve efficiency. Enhance the guest experience. With eTouchMenu, the future is now. For more information, please visit http://www.etouchmenu.com.
