Trends we spotted | Week 30
At hospitalitytrends.eu we spot many national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write about, the smaller trends we use in our weekly column ‘Trends we spotted this week’.
This week, among other links to articles about ice cream dumplings which are at the menu of Oddfellows in New York City and about The Grid, a combination of Escape rooms & cocktails in London. A new concept by Lollipop’s.
In Hong Kong Fairwood eSports Café will open and it will be the first eSports café in the city which will be a dining destination as well. In Croatia they spotted smart city benches which are also internet hot spots. Created by the firm Include. And Tokyo is getting its own ‘Bubble Tea’ theme park!
In an American article we have spotted the pre-dinner drink Haus, a start-up in aperitifs with a lower alcohol level than other spirits. Sounds delicious! And start-up Third Aurora is busy creating self-translating wine labels! With a link to a video how this works!
Click on the title if you like to read the full article. Enjoy reading!
Ice cream dumplings
At Oddfellows in New York City they sell ice cream dumplings, for a limited time only! It’s part of their passport program which highlights flavours of the world. They started in Asia with flavours like macha ice cream, Thai iced tea, lychee & sesame seeds all packed in a mochi shell. Check out the video of the website Refinery29RSVP in the link in the title.
The Grid | Escape rooms & cocktails
Lollipop’s (which we know from the Breaking Bad Bar inspired bar ABQ in London) new pop-up project The Grid promises to shock and entertain you over 1h30min of immersive fun. Go undercover at the evil startup Neosight and defeat their AI technology to help save humanity from extinction! You will go through multiple escape rooms and drink cocktails at the sci-fi bar. Located at the Bankside Arches in Southwark, London.
Fairwood eSports Café opens as Hong Kong’s first e-sports and dining destination
Hong Kong’s first e-sports and dining complex opens this month, created by the Kowloon EStadium and listed corporate restaurateur Fairwood. Fairwood eSports will open at E-Max offering 13,000sqft of space integrating elements of e-sports, live streaming and content-sharing for gourmands and e-sports enthusiasts. Divided into six different zones, Fairwood eSports provides more than 100 seats for casual dining and includes a main stage to support e-sports events with professional equipment and a distinctive multi-purpose ‘Xengagement room’.
Smart benches in Croatia charge phones and provide security
An article at the website of Springwise about a Croatian startup ‘Include’ who builds smart, IoT-connected street benches that can be linked into smart city infrastructure. Basic: this start-up has turned street benches and bike stands in internet hot points. The solar-powered smart benches offer free Wi-Fi, 15 sensors, USB and wireless charging, street lighting, security surveillance and platform for advertising.
Lower alcohol level drinks | Haus
Sober nightlife is one of the new trends, we spot lower alcohol levels in spirits and non-alcohol drinks all over the world. Slowly we see the popularity of alcohol changing, with for example the sales of nonalcoholic beers being on the rise as well. Basis for this change might be caused by the rise of people wanting to ‘live a healthy, happy life’. Beside that, young generations don’t want to miss out on the fun part of going out! This time we spotted Haus in the US, a startup in aperitifs with lower levels than other spirits. The DTC (direct to consumer) startup first product is a pre-dinner drink based on white wine infused with lemon, elderflower, hibiscus and grapefruit. Haus claims to have 80% less sugar than Aperol and it has 15% alcohol by volume while traditional spirits are 40% or more.
Self-translating wine labels by Third Aurora | Wine exporters look to new technology for market growth
Clever technology, enabling shoppers to read wine labels written in any language will soon become the standard among savvy shoppers, according to Digital Marketing Specialist Dave Chaffey. Third Aurora, the tech startup led by Chaffey, announced recently that the technology would be rolled out to their Winerytale platform in 2020.
A prototype video, shown on the Third Aurora website, demonstrates the solution for two different wines. In both cases, English text is instantaneously translated to Chinese, with the new content remarkably woven into the original label, indistinguishable from the original. “Self-translating is a bit of a misnomer,” says Chaffey, quick to correct. “The labels aren’t actually changing, the translation is projected using augmented reality, which is powered by your smartphone.”
Tokyo is getting its very own ‘Bubble Tea’ theme park
‘Tapioca Land’ is a one-of-its-kind theme park which is set to open for a limited time in Harajuku, Tokyo. It will be situated in a newly built shopping area called ‘jing’, which is about a two-minute walk from JR Harajuku station, and directly accessible from Tokyo Metro’s Meiji Jingu-Mae Station. Touted to be a heaven of sorts for bubble tea lovers, the adventure land will offer all kinds of bubble teas and tapioca-based foods from various popular shops in Japan.
