Digital whizz launches one-stop dining app to speed up table service
A NEW one-stop restaurant app is positioned to bridge the social distancing gap required by restaurants to ensure a safe, secure but still pleasant experience of eating out in the coronavirus era.
AtlaCarte has been in development for the past five years and its developers hope it will be the perfect problem solver for the myriad measures that the food industry is being forced to adopt.
It allows customers to order deliveries, pick-ups and bookings but crucially, with diners limited to a 105-minute stay, it allows them to preorder and have their food arrive at the table as they do.
Onur Simsek, the Dublin digital whizz behind the project, is confident that his app offering will ‘blow the competition out of the water’.
‘There are so many apps in hospitality that do different things: one does booking, another does delivery, another does promotion and another takes care of payment,’ he said.
‘So AtlaCarte was designed from the ground up to be the only app which is a complete solution.
‘In business terms, it’s called a super-app as it provides all of the different functionalities that you might require.’
Dutch-born Mr Simsek cooked up his idea after a frustrating dining experience at an Irish bar in Brussels.
‘I used to work in Brussels for the Human Rights Council, and I was frustrated and hungry when I went to this Irish pub called The Michael Collins and I had to wait half an hour before the waiter came and another half an hour before the burger arrived,’ he explained. ‘This was back in 2012 and they were famous for their burgers and they still are, so I started thinking how cool it would be if the burger was there waiting when I arrived.
‘Then, no joke, on April 1, 2013, I got a job offer from a big tech company in Dublin.
‘So, everything I did when I got to Ireland has been working towards developing this app.’
So, assured of his app’s success, he has secured the backing of some global tech giants. While only newly launched, AtlaCarte has already signed up several restaurants across Ireland including Jaipur Restaurant Group, which includes Jaipur in Malahide, Co. Dublin; Indie Spice Grill in Sandymount, Swords and Naas; Taphouse & Kitchen, Co. Dublin; White Rabbit Bar & BBQ in Cork; Boruma Gastro Bar, Co. Clare, Ladurée, Dublin; Broyage Bar & Bistro; Hilton Hotels, Dublin, and Mimosa Bar de Tapas in Co. Carlow.
It has also received the seal of approval from the Restaurants Association, with CEO Adrian Cummins saying: ‘AtlaCarte is an app that’s long been needed within the Irish restaurant and food services industry, but as we enter post-Covid times, where social distancing will need to be maintained for the foreseeable future, its arrival is more apt than ever.’
In pre-pandemic times, Mr Simsek met some reluctance from restaurants who felt that they had no real need for a gobetween gastro-app.
He added: ‘At the time, restaurants didn’t see the need for this feature but now, with the pandemic, there is a demand for pre-table ordering.
‘Obviously the world has radically changed overnight with eateries having to navigate new ways of providing the same standard of service to their customers.
‘So, you can book your restaurant, select anything from the menu, pay for it and it would be there when you arrive and also keep ordering when you are there.
‘We do deliveries, booking and pick-ups – but our main feature that nobody else has at the time is pre-ordering and ordering to tables. It was designed for this.
‘But what is really going to blow everyone out of the water is we have group table chat so you can chat with your table and order together,’ Mr Simsek said.
‘The only app that is a complete solution’