Alitalia restaurant chooses a wide range of Epson products

Today, a successful restaurant needs more than excellent meals, good service and a feeling of well-being.

This is because companies are increasingly using dining out as an opportunity to inform clients about new products and solutions, as it has a much better success rate than in a normal daily environment. There is nothing that promotes goodwill more than a first class meal. An excellent Saltimbocca, for example, may be enhanced with a product presentation using lifelike, flicker-free images from a projector.

Excellent kitchen – top quality IT infrastructure

Stephan Bittner, partner of the Alitalia restaurant, located in Hamburg, is familiar with this approach from his years of work for an IT training company. He said: "Our clientèle consists mainly of corporate customers, who like to use our location for events with customers or employees. It was therefore clear to us from the outset that, in addition to good food, we also needed to offer a particularly high-quality IT infrastructure."

For a long time the central Hamburg quarter was primarily used as pasture; today it is a popular location for businesses and it is not often frequented by the public. Is this a good place for a restaurant?  "Yes," says Stephan Bittner, "because, in order to meet the needs of our customers, parking spaces for the cars of the companies and their visitors are more important than walk-in customers who pop in to buy a pizza as they are passing by."

In order to ensure a high-quality menu, he secured the assistance of three professional Italian chefs and, for the IT equipment, Stephan relies entirely on Epson, as he trusts the company's wide range of products.

Bespoke wallpaper design

The wallpaper plays an essential part in the impression a room leaves on the observer. As bright wallpaper makes the room bigger, and dark makes it feel smaller, north-facing rooms should use warm and friendly colours, and south-facing rooms should be papered in cooler pastel tones. If, as in a restaurant, the room is large and divided by partitions, alcoves and fittings, then the space can be enhanced by an appropriate wallpaper.

In the Ristorante Alitalia, the wallpaper was printed with an Epson large-format printer from the SureColor SC-S series – using a pattern of their own design. The key factor in the decision for the printer was, in addition to the quality of the output and colours, the durability of the print. Colours should not fade or smudge from water or sunshine or being touched by guests. If a wallpaper with an appealing design inspires customers, a faded one would have the opposite effect.

Epson’s WorkForce à la Carte

The same is also true for the menus. A top-class restaurant like the Alitalia changes its range and, therefore, menus at weekly intervals because we eat with our eyes. A menu must always look new and fresh; it shouldn't be tattered or have faded colours. Epson's WorkForce Pro inkjet printer was perfect for this because, in addition to being smudge-proof and water-resistant, the inks also score points for their colour durability. So, if a few drops of a Venetian Rocco Rosso land on the menu, the print on the menu won't run or become illegible. Even the wine labels have been printed with a personalised design. An industrial label press, Epson's SurePress L-4033AW, has made this possible.

3LCD technology in harmony with fusilli

As lots of corporate events with presentations are held in the Ristorante Alitalia, two of Epson's EB-1776W series projectors have been installed.

"As our guests frequently also want to hold presentations, they appreciate efficient, pre-installed IT systems," explains Stephan Bittner. "As the room is quite large, as well as ensuring high brightness and natural colours for the projection, a wireless connection was also important."

This is no problem thanks to the Epson iProjection application. This makes it possible to display data from any mobile device on the projectors. And, if guests would like to take a copy away with them after the presentation, then Bittner can oblige, as the restaurant has Epson's DiscProducer PP-100N, which produces perfectly printed and burned multimedia DVDs while the guests are still busy enjoying their pasta.

Receipt printing from Epson

Each till displays the service and price next to each other for both the client and the company. In order to carry out this function it must be reliable, with a clear and high-quality display. And it prints good quality receipts too. Epson has been the world market leader in receipt printers for many years and Ristorante Alitalia trusts this expertise. In addition, Epson's TM-T88V receipt printer is extremely economical. For example, it has a special function which automatically optimises the line height on each receipt, therefore saving paper. The printers are also ENERGY STAR-qualified.

"Through years of using Epson products at my training company, we are convinced of the quality of the solutions and, therefore, have no concerns about relying completely on Epson's products. If you look around our restaurant, you can clearly see how varied and wide-ranging Epson's range is."