Mari Pari Kitchen provides a fresh new take on European inspired street food.Their goal is to prove ingredient inspired food that is prepared to order and are nutritious and delicious. The offering covers a wide range of food types from across Europe but also includes some traditional American favorites. The following digital menu board scorecard is based on their location in Rosemont, IL.

Creative Design (Score: 7/10):

Branding – The Mari Pari Kitchen logo is large and directly above the digital menu boards which makes it unnecessary to include the logo in the menu designs. The two white menus that sit in the middle of the configuration are well designs and support the overall brand aesthetic very well.  The other screens used in the configuration seem inconsistent with the brand and take away from the overall brand experience. 

Visual Appeal – This image doesn’t show all of the displays used but you can see from this image that 5 displays are used in the center of the back wall. The left screen is used for promotional content, the two displays in the middle are used for menu content and the two displays on the right are smaller portrait displays used to show random photographs and content. This mixture of imagery feels a little disjointed and is visually confusing.The food photography is quite nice and the callouts for the upsell (although a little small) are a nice touch. 

Typography – Overall the use of typography on the menus and promotional screens is quite good. The fonts are very legible and the sizing of headers, titles and descriptions are well balanced. The one complaint would be the white text on the dark or photographic background on the left display (The LTO display).  This text is a little hard to read with all of the other visual elements.  Also on the LTO the offer (the price for the specialty items) is a very small element. It almost feels as if it is hidden in the design.

If the overall aesthetic of the displays followed the two menu designs, this would be a much more effective use of digital menu boards. Our recommendation would be to remove the extra displays and to keep the design consistent across all displays.

Organization (Score: 6/10):

Information Layout –  The menu items on the Mari Pari Kitchen menu board are grouped into logical categories, such as signature sandwiches, ham baguettes, and sides. This categorization helps customers quickly find the types of items they are interested in, as they can scan the menu for their desired section. Grouping similar items together also makes the menu easier to navigate and understand, as customers can compare options within each category more easily.

Clarity – For the purpose of this analysis we will focus on the two menu screens.  The offering is very clear and the flag icons demonstrating the country of origin is a nice touch to help ground each item in the core mission of the brand concept. Key items on the menu are accentuated by the food photography used and the scannability of the menus are quite nice.

As mentioned above, the other displays take away from the overall effectiveness of this implementation.  A more integrated approach to the organization of promotional content and menu content would serve this restaurant well.

Physical Setup (Score: 7/10):

Displays – The three main displays are physically attractive with a small bezel and are nicely installed within the space.  The two smaller portrait displays seem out of place (at least with the type of content being displayed).  Other than the small cable coming down under the sandwich section of the menu, the installation seems clean and well executed.

The one concern we have with the physical layout of the menus is the light fixtures that are coming down in front of the menus.  While these light fixtures are nice and provide a nice visual element, they may be blocking the view of the menus a little and causing a slight glare on the displays reflections.

In summary, this implementation has many nice aspects and a few that could be improved. This is a situation where more displays may be “too much of a good thing”.  There is definitely room for improvement but the general approach (particularly on the menu designs) is quite nice.