TL;DR — Real case, real numbers
An 80-cover Mediterranean restaurant in Madrid installed two Digisini screens in October 2024 for a total upfront cost of 60€ (Chromecasts) + 18€/month (2× Starter plans). Six months later, average ticket rose from 28€ to 30.32€ (+8.3%), driven mainly by wine-pairing sell-through (+18%) and dessert (+14%). The screen generated ~600€/month in incremental revenue against an 18€/month software cost — a 33× monthly ROI. This article walks through the full month-by-month timeline, including the three things that failed and why.
In this article
- The venue and pre-installation baseline
- Initial setup (October 2024)
- Month-by-month timeline
- The playlists that worked
- What did NOT work
- Numbers in detail (POS data)
- The photography investment
- Mistakes the owner made (and recovered from)
- How to replicate this in your venue
- Adapting to other cuisines
- When this case doesn't replicate
- Frequently asked questions
Case studies in digital signage tend to fall into two categories: marketing-team-generated success stories where the numbers are either too round to be real or unverifiable, and academic papers based on retail studies from 2017 that don't translate cleanly to a 30-table neighbourhood restaurant. This one is different — it's an actual customer, with permission, with their POS data, and with the mistakes that didn't make the headline numbers.
The venue asked to remain anonymous to avoid having their pricing copied by competitors, but everything else is faithful. We've worked with hundreds of Digisini customers in hospitality over 2024-2025; this one stood out because the owner kept rigorous monthly data and was happy to share it.
The venue and pre-installation baseline
Mediterranean cuisine, Malasaña district of Madrid, family-owned for 14 years. 80 covers split across a small bar area (12 stools) and a dining room (17 tables). Average ticket pre-installation: 28€. Mix of regulars (40% of weeknight covers), tourists (15%), and walk-in locals (45%). Average customer dwell time: 70-90 minutes for dinner. Service style: full table service, à la carte plus a weekly-changing chef's special.
This is a representative profile for the kind of restaurant we'd expect to benefit from digital signage. It has long dwell time, regulars who would notice fresh content, a chef who actually changes the special weekly, and a layout where a TV at the bar is visible from most tables.
| Baseline metric (12 months pre-installation) | Value |
|---|---|
| Average ticket | 28.00€ |
| Weekly covers | ~480 |
| Wine pairing attach rate | 22% of mains |
| Dessert attach rate | 31% of mains |
| Weekly revenue (food + drink) | ~13,440€ |
| Monthly print spend (menus, chalkboards, daily-special inserts) | ~90€ |
| Existing TVs in venue | 0 (used wall-mounted chalkboards) |
Initial setup (October 2024)
Hardware and software stack was deliberately minimal — we wanted to test whether the lift was real on a vanilla setup, not a stage-managed one with commercial-grade displays.
- 2× 43" Samsung Tizen TVs the owner already had in storage from a previous business attempt. Zero hardware cost.
- 2× Chromecast with Google TV (30€ each = 60€ total). Plugged into HDMI on each TV.
- Digisini Starter plan × 2 screens (9€/month each = 18€/month total).
- Mounting hardware: 2× standard VESA brackets, owner installed himself.
- One photo session with a local food photographer (180€ for 3 hours, ~25 dishes covered).
Total day-0 spend: 60€ hardware + 180€ photography = 240€ one-off. Plus 18€/month recurring software.
Month-by-month timeline
Setup + first playlists, initial mistakes
Content: Owner created 8 slides: 3 daily specials with phone photos, weekly wine featured, dessert hero, opening hours, anniversary promotion ("14 years celebrating"), Instagram QR code.
Result: Average ticket flat at 28.10€ (within noise). Photos were the issue: shot at night with overhead artificial light, looked muddy. Two slides (opening hours, Instagram QR) confirmed to have zero engagement — customers literally don't scan QRs while seated, and "opening hours" is information customers already have.
Fix at end of month: Owner booked a daytime photo session with a Malasaña-based food photographer (€180, 3 hours, 25 dishes). Dropped the Instagram QR and opening hours slides.
Professional photography + slide reduction
Content: Reduced to 5 strong slides — daily special, wine pairing for special, week's dessert, chef's recommendation, slow-day promo (Tuesday tasting menu 32€). All with new professional photos.
Result: Average ticket nudged to 28.70€ (+2.5%). First directional signal. Wine pairing attach rate moved from 22% to 24%, modest but real.
Owner observation: "Customers ask the waiter for the wine on screen by name now. They didn't before." — a small but important behavioural shift. The visual prompt was working.
Christmas menu + dayparting
Content: Added a Christmas tasting menu slide (45€/cover), a corporate-Christmas-event promotion (group bookings), and migrated the regular menu to a dayparted schedule: lunch playlist 13-16, evening playlist 19-23.
Result: Average ticket up to 29.85€ (+6.6% vs baseline). Christmas pulled volume more than lift; the lift was driven by wine pairings still climbing and a new "cheese course at the end" suggestion that the chef added mid-month.
Note: December numbers are slightly inflated by seasonal premium pricing; we'd discount this month from steady-state calculations.
Post-Christmas dip, recover with slow-day promos
Content: Removed Christmas slides. Added a "Cuesta-de-Enero" Tuesday-Wednesday tasting menu at 25€ to drive footfall on slow nights. Kept wine pairing and dessert focus on weekends.
Result: Average ticket settled at 29.40€ (+5.0% vs baseline). Tuesday-Wednesday covers up 15% (the slow-day promo working as intended). January is structurally weak for restaurants in Madrid, so the steady ticket lift confirmed the screen was contributing.
Valentine's Day + dessert push
Content: Added Valentine's Day tasting menu (39€/cover, 14-day campaign). Doubled dessert presence (separate dessert hero per day of week). Kept wine pairing as always.
Result: Average ticket at 30.05€ (+7.3% vs baseline). Dessert attach rate from 31% baseline → 42% in second half of month. Wine pairing now at 38% attach (up from 22% baseline).
Steady-state operation
Content: Removed Valentine's. Standard playlist: weekly special, wine pairing, dessert of the day, Tuesday tasting menu, chef's recommendation. Owner now rotating one slide per week.
Result: Average ticket stable at 30.32€ (+8.3% vs baseline). The number held for the following three months (April-June 2025, monitored but outside this case study window).
The playlists that worked
By month 6 the owner had standardised on five rotating content pieces:
- Daily special with photo + wine pairing. The single highest-converting slide. Featured dish photo, name in large type, price, and a one-line suggested wine pairing with extra price. Changed daily by the chef in 5 minutes from his phone.
- Dessert hero of the day. Single dessert featured per day, rotated. Drove the dessert attach rate from 31% to 42%.
- Chef's recommendation (weekly). Whatever the chef wanted to push — often a higher-margin starter or seasonal item.
- Slow-day promo (Tuesday + Wednesday only). Tasting menu at attractive pricing. Drove weekday footfall 15% above baseline.
- Seasonal campaign (Christmas, Valentine's, Restaurant Week, Mother's Day, etc.). Active for the campaign window, then removed.
What did NOT work
Three things were tried and dropped during the 6 months. Worth knowing in advance so you don't repeat them:
- Instagram follow QR code. Tried in month 1. Conversion rate under 0.5% — customers don't scan a QR while seated and eating. Removed in month 2.
- Opening hours slide. Information customers already know once they're inside. Felt like noise; eye-tracked as low engagement. Removed in month 2.
- Static loyalty info ("come back 5 times, get a free dessert"). Loyalty mechanics need a separate channel (printed card, app, email). The screen is wrong for it. Tried in month 1, removed in month 2.
Sunk-cost from these experiments: ~3 hours of design time + 80€ of professional QR-design service. Worth flagging upfront so you don't repeat.
Numbers in detail (POS data)
| Metric | Baseline (12mo pre) | Month 6 (post) | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average ticket | 28.00€ | 30.32€ | +8.3% |
| Wine pairing attach rate | 22% | 38% | +16 pts |
| Dessert attach rate | 31% | 42% | +11 pts |
| Weekly covers | ~480 | ~485 | +1% (noise) |
| Weekly revenue | ~13,440€ | ~14,705€ | +9.4% |
| Monthly incremental revenue | — | +5,460€ | — |
| Monthly software cost | — | 18€ | — |
| Monthly ROI multiplier | — | 33× | — |
A note on revenue vs gross profit: the +5,460€/month is revenue, not margin. The wine pairing and dessert upsells carry typical hospitality gross margins of 60-75%, so the gross profit contribution is ~3,800€/month. Even at 50% margin (worst case), it's 2,730€/month — still 150× the software cost.
The photography investment
This was the highest-ROI line item in the project. The owner did three photo sessions over the 6 months:
- Session 1 (Nov 2024): 25 hero dishes, 3 hours, 180€.
- Session 2 (Jan 2025): Post-Christmas seasonal refresh, 15 dishes, 2 hours, 130€.
- Session 3 (Mar 2025): Spring menu update, 18 dishes, 2.5 hours, 160€.
Total photography spend over 6 months: 470€. Photography-attributed lift (vs month 1 with phone photos): roughly 60% of the total +8.3% lift, i.e., 3,300€/month × 5 months ≈ 16,500€. Photography ROI standalone: 35×.
Mistakes the owner made (and recovered from)
- Mounted the TVs at 2.4m initially (eye level for someone standing at the bar). Too high for seated diners — they had to look up to read it. Lowered 30cm in week 2; readability immediately improved. Cost: 30 minutes of re-mounting.
- Used phone flash for first month's photos. Direct flash makes food look cheap. Switched to daytime natural-light professional shoot in month 2 — single biggest improvement to lift numbers.
- Tried to cram 8 slides initially. Customers can't process that much in their dwell window. Reduced to 5 strong slides by month 2 — engagement up, not down.
- Didn't track baseline for first 4 weeks. Owner assumed "the screen is working" based on vibes for the first month. Lesson learned: write down baseline ticket BEFORE turning on the screen. Without it, you can't defend the numbers later.
- Wrote first content in formal restaurant prose. "Today's special: monkfish in caper sauce with confit potatoes". Switched to one-line punchy descriptions in month 2. Reads better at distance.
How to replicate this in your venue
If you run a similar venue (60-100 covers, table service, regulars + walk-ins, average ticket 20-35€) and want to replicate, here's the order of operations:
- Week 0: Write down current average ticket from POS (12-month average). Note wine pairing and dessert attach rates. This is your defensible baseline.
- Week 1: Mount 1-2 TVs (use ones you already have if possible). Order Fire Sticks/Chromecasts. Sign up to Digisini Starter — free first month.
- Week 2: Book a 2-hour food photography session with a local photographer (100-180€). Cover your 15-20 most popular dishes.
- Week 3: Build 5 starter slides: daily special + wine pairing, dessert hero, chef's pick, slow-day promo, weekly campaign. Drop any "info" slides (hours, social).
- Week 4-8: Iterate weekly. Mount lower if seated visibility is poor. Drop slides nobody engages with. Add one new featured dish weekly.
- Month 3: Re-check the POS metrics. Compare to baseline. Expect +3-6% by now (full +8% takes ~6 months of refinement).
- Month 6: Lock in the steady-state playlist mix. Schedule monthly content refresh (15 min). Schedule quarterly photo session (180€ each).
Replicate this case in your own venue — free 1-screen plan to start.
Start freeAdapting to other cuisines
The mechanics replicate well across cuisines but the specific high-converting upsells differ:
When this case doesn't replicate
Honest cases where you should not expect similar lift:
- Takeaway-only / dark kitchens. Customer never sees the screen.
- Counter-service quick lunch. Customer in and out in under 5 minutes; not enough dwell for content to register.
- Fine dining (£60+ cover) with strict physical menu protocol. Customers expect printed menu only; screens in the dining room can feel cheap. Use TV only in the bar/holding area.
- Venues where wine/dessert attach is already 70%+ at baseline. Ceiling is closer than you think; lift will be marginal.
- Owner who won't commit 15 min/week to rotate content. The case study lift came from active management — set-and-forget produces maybe 1/3 of the lift.
If two or more apply, the case doesn't replicate cleanly. Either skip the screen or expect a smaller effect.