Digital Display Installed at Red Sky Restaurant & Lounge

Screen shot of Digital Display showing the menu at Red Sky Resaurant & Lounge located in Boston, MA.

This week we installed a digital display in the store front window of the Red Sky Restaurant & Lounge (www.redskyboston.com) located in Boston, MA. It combines the food video and food beauty photography created earlier with information about the restaurant, including their menu, function rooms, and daily specials to produce a dynamic experience that will catch the eye of potential customers as they pass by the restaurant.

Located directly across the street from the famed Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Red Sky gets a ton of foot traffic passing by the restaurant as people visit the large array of shops, food, and entertainment. With 44 pushcarts, 18 full-service restaurants, and 35 food stalls, this is a highly competitive food-selling situation. Patrons love to look before they buy, but full-service restaurants typically only display a paper copy of their menu in the window. This leaves it up to the customer’s imagination as to whether the food is compelling and desireable. With the digital display, people can not only actually “see” the menu, but they instantly realize their food is prepared to order with fresh ingredients.

Digital Display in window at Red Sky Restaurant & Lounge in Boston, MA.

After installation, it was great to see people become transfixed watching the display. Between the food video, motion graphics and text, the experience is very up beat and interesting. After asking one of the patrons what they thought of the display, he responded “I think I want a burger!”

Installation Details

To install the display, a Hannspree 23″ full HD LCD display, a custom bracket was fabricated by NAB Tool & Die to mount the display directly to the inside of the window. They also fabricated a custom shelf that was mounted at the top of the window close to the ceiling to hold the Blu-ray player. For convenience & absolutely no maintenance, the Blu-ray disc was authored such that the video would play instantly upon power up and then loop continuously. No fumbling with the remote or teaching the staff how to select the correct video. Simply powering up the player launches the video.

Custom bracket and shelf fabricated for the display and Blu-ray player.

Tuning the Content

The content for the digital display was chosen specifically to enhance food sales. By showing the customer how great the food is we expect to influence them in a positive way to make a food purchase they were perhaps not planning to do. For instance, if someone had it in their mind that they wanted to have wings before coming to the restaurant, upon seeing how great the Seared Ahi Tuna looked they might upgrade their appetizer order. Similarly, someone already hungry for an appetizer might see the burger or steak tips and upgrade to an entree instead.

By showing how the food is freshly prepared without the use of microwaves or frozen products, the customers instantly form a positive bond to the food which creates a strong desire to try it. The deal is sealed by elegantly photographing the plated product. Who can resist that wonderful piece of bacon or the melted cheese oozing down the side of the burger?

Surprizingly Affordable

With the aggressive pricing of HD displays and Blu-ray players, installing a digital display becomes a very attractive, realistic proposition for almost any sized business. For well under $1000 you can have a 50″ LCD or plasma display that will attract attention from across the street and draw people to your store front. By creating custom content, anyone can have their own commercial running 24/7 to sell your product or services even when the business is closed.

Digital Display installed at Red Sky Restaurant in Boston, MA.