A meal in the metaverse, anyone?

Many restaurant chains announce that they are joining the parallel world of the metaverse. The newly opened restaurant Chipotle recently saw 20,000 people flock to its establishment by the metaverse. Can this immersive world help the restaurant industry get back on its feet?

Some restaurants these days are looking for new ways to re-engage with a market that has been heavily impacted for the past two years by the pandemic.

Redefining menus, thinking about new ways of getting closer to customers, pivoting activities… in short, restaurateurs have juggled a lot, and this, in a very impressive way, over the past two years. One approach gaining traction now is to look at a new market, the metaverse. There’s been a lot of hype around the metaverse lately, a concept also known as augmented reality, where this virtual universe offers very real interactions, and now this phenomenon is reaching the restaurant industry.

Talking about the metaverse today is like explaining the internet in the 1970s. Back then, few people knew how technology would intensify and evolve in ways that would change the way people communicate. Indeed, the internet has really changed the way we live. For its part, the metaverse is a virtual world that continues to exist and evolve even if you are not there. You can go in and out of it as the world goes on, with or without you. You can create, buy and sell goods and also order and eat food virtually in a digital economy. You obviously can’t physically taste food in the metaverse, but you can still do a lot of things that you can’t do in the real world.

In the most idealistic metaverse concepts, interoperability allows anyone to transport virtual objects, such as clothing and cars, from one platform to another. You can earn money, get credits to buy items in the real world.

Chipotle recently partnered with Roblox for users to create meals that earn credits for real food. When they invited people to join their restaurant in the Metaverse, over 20,000 people were waiting to enter and collect credits for their next Chipotle order by receiving special codes. McDonald’s recently communicated its intention to open new restaurants in the metaverse. Wendy’s and Hooters have also made an announcement to this effect in recent days. In Canada, Restaurants Canada will launch a Metaverse Marketplace for its industry in May, a partnership of trend scouts to revive the restaurant industry. We expect other chains to follow suit in the coming months.

It’s still unclear how the metaverse will change our lives or how restaurants will be able to make money selling food virtually. We may just be witnessing a passing fancy, as we observe with many other things in life.

But the potential intersection of the real world with that of the virtual world in the food sector through the metaverse may force companies to look at the market differently. Just think about how to train employees or allow chains to try to incorporate new items on the menu. Experiences can change infinitely, which cannot be done at this time. For example, the metaverse could offer consumers the possibility of having lunch in Istanbul, dinner in Paris and dinner in Rio on the same day.

In a more personalized way, a customer could go to a family restaurant, be served by their own ancestors and discover the dishes they ate at the beginning of the last century. Most industry research and development can be done in the metaverse. Obviously, there is no real food, but the consumer interacts with avatars embodying real people who will tell companies what customers like or dislike. The metaverse offers limitless possibilities, but, of course, how consumers react to experiences could bring its share of unpredictability.

Most Canadians may not buy into this metaverse concept at all, because virtual food isn’t nearly as appealing as real ready-to-eat food. And let’s face it, wearing VR headsets is often painful and makes us look a little silly. Some may even get motion sickness while wearing it. Nothing pleasant about that.

The metaverse is also another reason why so many people are talking about cryptocurrency these days. Many find that the two depend heavily on each other as their development gains momentum. For example, Crypto Baristas aims to bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds for coffee lovers. Not only does this bring coffee lovers together in the metaverse, but the project funds an actual cafe in New York City called Coffee Bros., which partners with coffee growers around the world. The whole project is funded by cryptocurrency.

The online world is different from what it was before the pandemic, especially in the food industry. Converting some of this traffic into a virtual world is getting easier than two years ago. Joining the metaverse for a restaurant doesn’t cost that much and the possibilities turn out to be interesting. So if the metaverse can help our restorers in some way, why not?