4Food: Restaurant adds game mechanics to lunch | Hacker News Reader

4Food: Restaurant adds game mechanics to lunch

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

29 pointsjmtame10 comments

There is a bar by my office that has something similar to this. The drink prices scroll across a ticker and go up or down based on whether people are ordering them or not. It is interesting to watch and see how high certain drinks will go, as well as how low some drinks must drop before people start buying them.

I love these. Nothing beats having 100 strangers in a bar work together shouting "Don't buy sambuca shots til they drop to 70p!!" and then just as it does everyone screams "BUY! BUY! BUY!" and chaos ensues...

There is a prisoners dilemma type problem where people don't want to wait in a 100 person queue so they will go to the bar and order at 80p, but thankfully the lag on the pricing is enough to mean this isn't an issue and it still drops to 70p. I would love to remove the lag and see if people notice and react much differently...

this is kinda interesting stuff.

"...Here’s how it works: I create a burger, call it “The Bits Burger” and broadcast it to Twitter or Facebook. Each time someone orders my special creation, I get 25 cents credit in the restaurant and my burger rises up the leaderboard. The more customers order my burger, the higher it goes and the more credits I get, until I’m eating free..."

Now, how to game the system...

You couldn't really game the system without ordering your own burger, which would cost money.

In reality I expect that the leaderboard will probably see large turnover anyway, because most people will be interested in designing their own burger to try to get on the top rather than buying something from the leaderboard themselves.

It might stabilize with enough of a community around it, you might even see some sort of hotelling's beach situation between the leading meals.

If it or anything similar takes off, it would be interesting to watch any memes develop.

I believe "Wendy's" has a poster in some of their establishments explicitly mentioning that their burgers have 256 permutations.

How free form are the possibilities in ordering? (also naming...)

256? As permutations go, that's nothing.

Permutations or combinations? For instance, does it count as a separate instance if the lettuce is above or below the patty?

This is why America's doomed.

Could you explain your position a little more?

This place doesn't seem so bad. In fact, some aspects of it are downright clever. A quick browse of the 4foods website gives a picture of a fast food company that might actually be able to serve healthy food, unlike most of the competition.

Because you can plan your food online beforehand, you can 'design' food which is more healthy than anything mcdonalds would be willing to give menu space for. Not to mention you don't have to rely on their people to come up with healthy options.

Always take what these companies say with a grain of salt, but here are a few quotes from their site.

"Fresh, local produce is transformed into our menu offerings in the Community Kitchen Commissary-a vocational training center."

"We upgrade food that people already eat-burgers, nuggets, fries, salads and teas - transforming them into new menu items that are convenient, and almost infinitely customizable to our guests' lifestyles and cultural preferences. Our food is measurably healthier than existing products."

"Our restaurants are designed to function as community hubs, as they satisfy local appetites in healthy, customizable ways."

It uses social networking to spread, crowd-sources the meals, has a new take on transparency as far as ingredients are concerned and - very importantly for something you are going to spend money on - sounds like fun.

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