Bar using QR codes for drinks
http://www.vita.mn/story.php?id=113400809&elr=KArksUUUycaEacyU][url]http://www.vita.mn/story.php?id=113400809&elr=KArksUUUycaEacyU[/url]
Chino Latino's new bar code
When Chino Latino opened in 2000, it was a cutting-edge powerhouse that smashed the idea of what a Minnesota restaurant could be. A decade later, owner Phil Roberts says it's time to mix things up.
Chino's new vision: bargoers on a digital scavenger hunt in the bathroom, and the restaurant's new chef, Tuan Nguyen, wearing a loincloth while riding a talking chicken.
From the beginning, Chino Latino was a controversy magnet for its racy ad campaigns. The Uptown hot spot is getting edgy again, but this time on the techy side of things. This week it introduced an interactive ad campaign using QR codes, those black-and-white squares that look like digitized Rorschach tests. Once the code is scanned -- using a free app on any smart phone -- the user is instantly taken to a website (QR stands for "quick response"). Chino is putting these codes on billboards and inside the restaurant on bathroom stalls and cocktail flags.
So what happens when you scan one? Chino is using the gimmick to introduce chef Nguyen. Scanning the billboard code, for example, will take you to an interactive video adventure starring a cartoon version of Nguyen. Other codes, like the ones given out as tattoos or attached to cocktail glasses, might give you access to food and drink specials.
"What we really need to do is keep it rather outrageous," he told his team. "I really want people to be offended."
So far, the cartoon adventures they've concocted for chef Nguyen are pretty tame by Chino standards. Still, the video does show the scantily clad chef traversing the hot zones and wigging out on psychedelic habaneros.
QR codes are widely used in Japan, where the smart-phone revolution took hold much earlier. Chino Latino is one of the first Twin Cities restaurants to utilize this technology. Look for more restaurants and bars to use QR codes in a variety of ways. They might appear on menus next to certain dishes -- scan the code with your phone and it'll show you a video of the chef talking about the dish. Saffron and Vincent are among a few places that have put their wine lists on iPads that are handed out for patrons to peruse.
Clayton said he estimates that 70 percent of Chino Latino's clientele has smart phones and only 20 percent of them have a QR code reader. Luckily, there are several free apps available (they suggest NeoReader), and Chino's staff has been instructed to guide customers along the way. "I suppose at the end of the day this whole thing could flop," Roberts said.
Nguyen, 40, comes to Chino after working in Las Vegas as executive chef at Wolfgang Puck Café and stints here as the top chef at California Café and Napa Valley Grille. When Parasole first told Nguyen about the QR campaign, he didn't know what to think. "I said, 'What the hell are you talking about?'" Nguyen remembers. Then he watched the first video -- in which he's half naked, eating hot peppers and riding the chicken. "I couldn't stop laughing," he said.
Roberts said he wants to re-establish Chino Latino as the place where "Mommy in Minnetonka doesn't want Muffy going." But will bargoers take the time to scan a QR code during bathroom breaks? Roberts isn't entirely sure, but that won't stop him from dreaming up more naughty ideas.
"I'm just thinking about what we might be able to do with a goat," he said.
