Restaurant Highlight: Brooklyn Dumpling Shop

As marketplaces change along with legislation surrounding when, where and how they can serve customers, restaurants are adapting in innovative ways. For better or worse, they need to prioritize health and cleanliness even though it places a burden on staff and forces them to turn away some customers. Some restaurants are struggling to juggle these seemingly at-war necessities.

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, a 24-hour restaurant in East Village, developed a one-of-a-kind business model that not only falls in line with general guidelines aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19 but uses them to enhance, not hinder, the customer experience. Whereas so many restaurants are struggling because they have to lower people’s risk of infection, Stratis Morfogen just opened Brooklyn Dumpling Shop this summer by incorporating those precautions into the fabric of his business model.

Brief History of Automation

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, who sometimes calls themselves BDS for short, boasts that they’re the first Zero Human Interaction restaurant of its kind.

Though making huge strides in the foodservice industry, they’re actually not the first to try a service-free business model and the owners drew heavily from their predecessors when designing the shop. Automats were invented first: Old-school QSRs that served basic food and drink via vending machine, doing away with counter or table service entirely. The first one, an automat named Quisisana, started in 1895 Berlin. The trend lasted until 1991, when the last Horn & Hardart closed in midtown Manhattan.

Nearly three decades later, the concept is getting a makeover in the very city where automats died out. Brooklyn Dumpling Shop has no waiters and no counter service, just like automats; they only employ cooks and one greeter who stands by the door (in full PPE, of course, including masks and hats with a protective shield attached) to guide customers through this innovative experience.

First, customers come in beneath a metal detector and UV light, which remotely takes their full-body temperature. If the scanner turns red, the greeter guides the person over to a wrist thermometer that does a remote secondary temperature check. If that fails too, the greeter refuses that person service.

When someone passes the temperature check and metal detector, they can go up to the self-service kiosks and begin their order.

First, customers come in under a UV light and metal detector, which remotely takes their full-body temperature. If the scanner turns red, the greeter guides the person over to a thermometer that remotely scans their wrist for a secondary temperature check. If that fails too, they refuse service.

When someone passes the metal detector and temperature checks, they can go up to one of the self-service kiosks and begin their order. Learn more about why self-service kiosks links to bigger checks and improved business operations.

How to Order

BDS took the challenge of “zero human interaction” very seriously. They’ve even revolutionized ordering to support maximum social distance and cleanliness.

If customers haven’t pre-ordered on their phone before coming in, they can use the self-service kiosks which have taken touch-free to a completely new level: These hands-free devices use heat sensors to detect fingers and credit cards hovering above them. Customers don’t have to touch the screen at all to choose and pay for their entire order right there, completely by themselves.

They then wait by a wall of food lockers for their food to be done. These lockers ensure safe and secure pickup by using a three-light system: Red means that the order is in the system, yellow signals it’s two minutes from completion, and green indicates that the order is ready. By using this system, BDS makes sure that they don’t sacrifice communication with their customers because of increased technological dependence.

The lockers are even heated so that people always get their food fresh, warm and ready to enjoy.

Is It Safe?

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop’s design combats COVID-19 without sacrificing service, food quality or any part of the customer experience. They take several steps to accomplish these goals:

• Only two customers can come inside to order, preventing crowds in the enclosed space. This works in accordance with state laws about reducing capacity inside restaurants; initially, they planned to allow ten people inside at once.
• They use triple-filter air conditioning to reduce the airborne spread of COVID-19.
• Cooks hand-deliver food to the lockers so there’s no interaction between them and customers. The lockers then automatically self-clean after each use.
• Although the kiosks are completely touch-free, staff members still regularly sanitize them just in case.
• They use disinfectant strips and offer antibacterial silicone shoe coverings for any customer who wants a pair.

Whereas some restaurants see increased COVID-19 protections as a detriment to smooth business operations, Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is using these necessary precautions to their advantage, working with them instead of around them. BDS is designed with the safety of its customers and staff in mind.

Though so much technology and automation might seem more costly than effective, especially during a global crisis when customers and sales are lower than ever, Morfogen actually reports the opposite: “You save three people every 24 hours of labor” with the right automation.

There’s a reason why so many restaurants are opting for automatic machines and self-service point of sale systems; customers love handling things themselves because it’s faster, they can add more to their plate and it eliminates any mistakes that might occur playing telephone between waiters and kitchen staff. Business owners save money and make their customers happier too.

More proof that Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is surely in it for the long haul: They’re pushing the boundaries of their menu by turning everything into a dumpling. They have breakfast dumplings, deli-style and anything else that customers might crave. By creating a unique but relatively expansive menu, they increase their value to customers and stand out because of how many boundaries they’re pushing at once.

Brooklyn Dumpling Shop combines automation, self-service, experimental menus, and health and safety to change the game for restaurants in a big way. They’re making a name for themselves by pushing BDS firmly into the future of foodservice.