If there is one man who has truly been inspired by his stomach, it's Keith Nowak.
During his junior year at Boston University, Nowak was put on hold while ordering from his favorite restaurant while he was talking to some friends on the computer through instant messages. This experience set in motion the creation of IM Dining.
"It struck me that being able to IM with the restaurant would alleviate me having to be on hold while they took other people's orders," Nowak said in an e-mail to the Daily. "If I could hold multiple conversations at once, the restaurant could take multiple orders at once as well."
This idea eventually led Nowak to found Shadow Enterprises, LLC and develop the IM Dining system.
To order, people send an instant message to a restaurant's screen name with their contact information and order, and the restaurant lets them know when their order will be ready and confirms their payment method.
Right now, four Boston area restaurants offer the service: the Angora Caf?©, Pino's Pizza, Burritos on Fire, and Sicilia's Pizzeria. Screen names for these restaurants can be found at the IM Dining Web site, www.imdining.com.
Nowak has also begun to extend his service outside of Massachusetts. A Papa John's franchise in New Jersey and a Quizno's franchise in Virginia are both using the service.
He plans to expand into another Quizno's franchise, a step he hopes is just the beginning.
"We are going to use the current installations in franchises as reference points in order to approach the corporate levels of these chain restaurants with the concept and complete chain-wide installations," he said.
The Angora Caf?©, which specializes in Middle Eastern cuisine, was one of the first places to sign up with IM Dining.
Selim Gurel, the owner of Angora, has seen a significant increase in the use of the program over the six months since his restaurant adopted it.
"We've been seeing an improvement in use of the system month by month," Gurel told the Daily. "The word has to get out. It's a brand new idea that not many people know about yet."
He said he was initially impressed by the ingenuity of the service. "The technology is really innovative," he said. "I thought it was such a good idea so I gave them a chance to use my place to start things up."
Gurel thinks that more restaurants will employ the service as it evolves into a "full functional service."
"There are some kinks and bugs that need to be worked out," he said, "but they are working on it. It is a new service."
Sophomore Isaac Emmanuel said he had never used service, but that he hopes more restaurants start to adopt it.
"That sounds fantastic," Emmanuel said. "I would definitely use it."
According to Emmanuel, being able to instant message his orders would help avoid inconveniences he has faced in the past when ordering via phone.
"There's static on the phone; it's just a big hassle," he said. "You have to look up the phone number ... and you have to remember it each time. I've had mistakes before where they hear the number wrong and then forget what my order is."
For sophomore Alex Garnett, however, phone orders have never posed a problem.
"I can see why some people might find it more convenient, but the phone works just fine for me," Garnett said.
Sophomore Dave Orellano felt similarly.
"I think it's something that's not really necessary, but I think it would be helpful for ... when you call [a restaurant] a million times and keep getting the busy signal," Orellano said.
He added, "Personally, I would probably never use it. It's a bit of overkill."
Nowak said the use of instant messaging streamlines the process of ordering without removing the human element, striking "a perfect balance between customer interaction and automation."
"For the customer the process is quick, simple and intuitive since it uses a program that they use all the time and with which they are completely familiar," he said.
Aside from employing it as a quicker way to take orders, restaurants can also use this system as a business resource to become more accessible to customers, Nowak said.
"IM Dining is more than an ordering system," he said. "For the restaurant it is a unique marketing tool that puts their name on their customers' desktops."
Nowak is optimistic about the future of IM Dining and sees a number of opportunities for his service to grow.
"We have plans to incorporate dine-in restaurants into the program and, for example, provide the ability to make reservations with IM Dining," he said. "We believe that there are also markets besides restaurants [for which] an IM-based ordering system will be beneficial."
