Restaurants turn to data-mining to serve up enhanced dining experience

New York

THE early diners are dawdling, so your 7.30pm reservation looks more like 8. While you wait, the last order of the duck you wanted passes by. Tonight, you'll be eating something else - without a second bottle of wine, because you can't find your server in the busy dining room. This is not your favourite night out.

The right data could have fixed it, according to the tech wizards who are determined to jolt the restaurant industry out of its current slump. Information culled and crunched from a wide array of sources can identify customers who like to linger, based on data about their dining histories, so the manager can anticipate your wait, buy you a drink and make the delay less painful.