uWink serves up diner entertainment, advertising, and gaming, all while waiting for an order to be delivered.

The NY Jets beat the (previously) undefeated Tennessee Titans this weekend, and I spent a good 4+hours in an American sports bar watching the game with fellow Jets fans.  After a quick glance around at all the tables, necks craining this way and that to see the game, I thought to myself (and I knew it was myself, as I recognized the voice), “Why not have individual monitors at each table?  Why not give people the choice to watch what game they want to watch while at their table?”

A quick search this morning brought up a VERY interesting concept and company doing just that…and more!  UWink.com is a self described entertainment and hospitality software company.  They think they’re on to something quite unique, and they’re not alone.  The recently won Hospitality Technology Magazine’s 2008 award for overall technological innovation.

The technology is seemingly simply enough: uWink restaurants have individual touch screen monitors placed at each table, where customers can order food and drinks, view movie trailers, take surveys and quizzes, and, yep, you guessed it: Play Games.  The software allows for the delivery not only of your cheeseburger (yes, you can haz), but targeting advertising, and monetization of customer game play via microtransactions.  Diners pre-purchase game credits and can have them included in the bill.

uWink’s software allows customers to select from over 70 single and multiplayers games, all at tabletop level.  Now, thanks to a partnership with Volanté Systems, uWink is branching out beyond it’s own doors, and can offer the same technology, prepackaged to any restaurant (presumably with a LAN network).  This integrated point-of-sale and backoffice system is open source, features peer-to-peer technology, and handles credit/debit processing.  In other words, literally, a plug and play microtransaction monetization module for restaurants everywhere.  According to uWink, their systems have resulted in larger than average checks and margins, labor savings, increased customer loyalty, increased transaction speed and accuracy, and reduced lines.

Just WHO had this brilliant idea?  To me, this is just the icing on the cake: Nolan Bushnell.  If you play games, are over the age of 25, and ever owned an Atari and/or forced the parental units to take you to Chuck E. Cheese’s, you should know the name Nolan Bushnell.  He’s co-founder of the original Atari enterprise, and the man behind millions and millions of quarters and animated dancing mice.  For the past 30 years Nolan has been pumping out successful business ventures, and something tells me he’s well on the verge of a revolution with uWink.

While Nolan and co.  are enjoying running a restaurant chain, they see the future of the company in licensing out the technology to other restaurant owners and operators both nationally and internationally (uWink is available in 11 languages).  Given Nolan’s track record, I’d bet on the man behind Pong to do it all over again.

uWink currently has two restaurants in the Greater Los Angeles Metro area:

6801 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA

and

6100 Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Woodland Hills, CA

Along with one Mountain View, CA (Wanna bet that Larry Page has been there?)

401 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA

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