peAR Technologies Revolutionizes Dine-In with Augmented Reality and 3D Visual Menus

When we buy a product on Amazon, we scroll through high-definition images, read reviews, and check dimensions. Yet, when we walk into a restaurant, we are often asked to pay for a dish based on a single line of text on a paper menu. For over a century, the dine-in experience has remained fundamentally unchanged: a waiter, a pen, a piece of paper, and a lot of guesswork for the customer.

Enter Dharmin Vora, Co-founder of peAR Technologies. A former food blogger turned entrepreneur, Vora is using Augmented Reality (AR) to fix the "broken" dining system. By scanning a QR code, peAR allows customers to visualize their meal in 3D right on their table before ordering. From verifying portion sizes to seeing the exact ingredients, peAR is turning the abstract "menu" into a concrete visual experience, ensuring that what you see is exactly what you get.

From acting as a waiter to gather feedback to serving 600+ restaurants across Mumbai and Gurgaon, Vora’s journey is a blueprint for digitizing the physical world using deep-tech vision.

The Problem: The Frustration of "Guesswork" Dining

The "Eureka" moment for Vora and his co-founders (Parth Vora and Dhruvesh Mehta) happened over pancakes. Expecting a stack of three, they were disappointed when only one arrived. It sparked a fundamental question: Why are we paying for things we haven't seen? In an age where everything else is digital and visual, the 100-year-old paper menu was a massive anomaly.

"It was very frustrating to think... would I buy it [on Amazon] without even looking at it? Not really," Vora explains. Beyond the customer's disappointment, restaurants lacked data. Paper menus don't track what people look at, how long they stay, or what truly drives their decisions. The industry was not just analog; it was blind.

The Solution: Don't Read an Order, Watch an Order

peAR Technologies differentiates itself by being the first in Asia-Pacific to build a massive library of 3D food models. Their app allows users to scan a QR code at their table and see the entire menu in AR. It's not a generic image of pasta; it's a 3D scan of that restaurant's specific pasta, exactly as it will appear on the table.

"Logically, if I am going to ask someone to abandon a 100-year-old practice... it had to be a huge transformation," says Vora. The app provides a full-stack experience: 3D visualization, ordering, digital payments, and a loyalty ecosystem with cashbacks and rewards.

Implementation: The "Waiter" Bootcamp

Vora and his team didn't build peAR from an ivory tower. To understand the user journey, they became the waiters. They sat at a restaurant in Powai for weeks, explaining the app to every customer and watching their behavior. This "brutal" feedback loop led to critical iterations—like moving away from expensive tablets to a customer-owned smartphone model.

"We became the waiters... it got us understanding a lot of things," Vora recalls. They discovered that the "Aha!" moment happened the second a customer saw the food in 3D. By focusing on this core psychological shift, they managed to grow 10 times in just 10 months, even while Mumbai's dining scene was partially shut during the pandemic.

The Human Side: "Either You Are or You Aren't"

Vora is a "self-initiated" entrepreneur who started his first venture in college. At 22, he has already managed a 40-member team and raised multiple rounds. He believes entrepreneurship isn't a job title but a reaction to frustration. "If you see something and it just frustrates you... and you start taking those initiatives... you become an entrepreneur by default."

He views the startup life as a journey of constant failure and spirits. "You are going to fail so many times... you just have to be high-spirited enough to understand that this is part of the process." This resilience is what allowed the team to spend a full year building tech before onboarding their first customer.

Future Vision: From India to the World

Looking ahead, peAR Technologies is aiming to scale from 600 to 2,000 restaurants in the next six months, with a target of 1.5 lakh orders monthly. Vora’s ambition is to reverse the trend of "copy-pasted" foreign models. He wants peAR to be the Indian consumer app that defines the global standard for dining in the AR era.

Key Takeaways for Founders

• Focus on the Friction: Vora focused on the singular moment of frustration (the pancake stack) to build a global-first solution.
• Iteration over Pivoting: Keep the customer segment the same but constantly tweak the product based on real-world usage data.
• Value-First Monetization: By charging a commission on orders rather than upfront fees, peAR aligns its success directly with the restaurant's revenue growth.
• Process over End Goal: If the input metrics (3D quality, QR scans) are correct, the output metrics (transactions, scale) will work themselves out.

With an unwavering commitment to visual integrity, peAR Technologies is turning the dining table into a digital stage. For Dharmin Vora, the journey is just beginning. By bringing "truth" to the menu, he is ensuring that for millions of diners across the globe, what they see is exactly what they savor.