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Sitting here in 2019, I’m struck by how much has changed when it comes to how Americans eat. Vegetables we would never touch as kids (brussel sprouts? kale?) have become Instagram celebrities and menu staples. Many of us have developed a daily routine to drink coffee outside our homes - ordered from our mobile phones, of course. My mother often reminds me that innovation in her day meant feeding her kids Stouffer’s mac and cheese, whereas today there are dozens of brands of organic mac and cheese and farm-to-table kids’ menus that can be delivered right to your door.
Americans now consume more food outside of the home than in the home according to data from the USDA, and an increasing amount of that food is ordered on a mobile phone. Technology is changing nearly every aspect of our lives, and that transformation is changing our expectations of restaurants as well. The pace of change is continuing to accelerate, making it even more important for restaurateurs to evaluate what’s real and what’s hype when it comes to new technologies—and even more importantly, how these technologies will actually impact their guests and operations.
To help restaurateurs navigate this rapidly changing landscape, we turned to forward-thinking technology leaders, restaurant owners, and operators to dish on the future of restaurants.
We heard some great insights about technologies we already know are here to stay, like mobile phones, and some far-out ideas about technologies that may emerge in the future, like augmented reality. Ultimately, it all boils down to three takeaways: the era of the point of sale terminal as we know it is over, the death of lines in restaurants is approaching, and data analytics to help you run your business are more powerful than ever.
Kelly EstenSr. Director of Product and Partner Marketing, Toast
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Meet the Restaurant Experts
Executive Summary
The End of the Point of Sale Terminal
The Death of Lines
The Rise of Restaurant Data
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Eighteen experts from well-known fast casual and full-service restaurants and established technology companies shared their predictions for the future of the industry.
CEO
Chris Comparato is Chief Executive Officer of Toast. He has an extensive background in leading high growth SaaS, software, and consulting companies with a focus on customer success and building strong teams. Prior to Toast, he led all customer success functions at Acquia (named Inc. 500 #1 fastest growing company) and Endeca (acquired by Oracle in 2011). He previously held roles at consulting firms Keane and Cambridge Technology Partners, where his track record of delivering innovative business technology to diverse industries started. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Union College.
Co-Founder
Steve Fredette is President and co-founder of Toast, where he leads product and innovation initiatives. Prior to Toast, he worked on mobile app development before the iPhone came out, creating the first Flickr and Shoebuy.com apps. At Endeca, now Oracle, he co-founded their mobile commerce business, building the product team and driving sales, marketing, and services to over $10 million in revenue in two years. He also ran the Special Operations team at Endeca, creating new prototypes for various customer and business needs, including Endeca’s business intelligence platform. Steve holds a BS degree from MIT.
Aman Narang is President and co-founder of Toast. Prior to Toast, he worked on innovation initiatives at Endeca, now Oracle. Aman spearheaded the development of Endeca’s business intelligence platform as well as their mobile commerce platform, each of which became major business units. He holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from MIT and currently leads innovation and business development initiatives at Toast.
Partner at Bessemer and Toast Board Member
Kent Bennett, a Partner in Bessemer's Cambridge office, joined BVP in 2008. At Bessemer Kent has been involved in several investments in the food sector including subscription food concept Blue Apron as well as data infrastructure companies Endeca and Vertica. Before joining Bessemer, Kent wrote and sold original screenplays including a network television pilot and a feature film. He has a BSE in Engineering from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Co-Founder and CEO, SpeedETab
Adam is the co-founder & CEO of SpeedETab, an industry-leading technology company focused on empowering restaurants to leverage mobile to be more successful. Started in 2014, SpeedETab currently powers mobile ordering, mobile payment, and analytic solutions for over 1,000 locations between the United States and Latin America. At SpeedETab, Adam directs the overall management and strategic responsibilities. Prior to founding SpeedETab, Adam worked in Boston’s financial services sector, providing independent hedgefund valuations across a variety of sectors. Adam is native of Miami and a graduate of the University of Florida (‘09), with a BS in Finance.
CEO, Compeat
Jeffrey provides business leadership for the organization – focused on strategic direction, team performance, a superior customer experience and continuous company growth. He brings to Compeat extensive experience creating sustainable value and driving optimal performance for organizations in various stages of growth and life cycle. He has worked extensively with the private equity and broader investment community in a range of portfolio company situations. In addition to his leadership roles, Jeff has also served as a board member and operating advisor to a number of companies. Jeff previously served as GM and CEO for MarketTools, a provider of software and service for market research and backed by Texas Pacific Group’s (TPG) Growth Fund. Before MarketTools, Jeff was President and CEO of Tiburon Inc., the leading source of software for the federal and state public safety. Jeff joined Tiburon from The Gores Group, the private equity firm that acquired a majority stake in the organization. Jeff cultivated financial and transaction acumen as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley and operational depth and breadth in a variety of leadership positions with General Electric, where he became a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Prior to his time with GE, Jeff led business development and market expansion as an initial team member of two successful startups, Citysearch and FutureStep. Jeff earned his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and holds an undergraduate degree in business with concentration in hospitality management from the University of New Hampshire. Jeff is a member of YPO-Austin Chapter. Besides spending time with his family, Jeff, a commercial pilot, enjoys flying, as well as skiing, traveling and great wines.
Chief Customer Officer, Incentivio
Sash is a co-founder at Incentivio, which offers a comprehensive digital customer experience platform that enables restaurants to acquire new customers, drive increased spending, visits, loyalty and engagement by providing a seamless and consistent experience across web, mobile and in-store channels. Sash has two decades of experience spanning a variety of industries including restaurants, retail and payments and is passionate about helping restaurants succeed in the digital age.
Head of Partnerships, Harri
Amanda Halle is the Director of Partnerships at Harri, a talent technology and workforce operating system for the hospitality industry. Harri's next-generation Workforce OS™ provides hospitality businesses with the management tools and strategic insights necessary to make real-time impact on talent retention, revenue growth, profit margin, and risk mitigation. In her role at Harri, Amanda develops and builds partnerships with innovative, leading brands like Facebook and Toast, to create integrations that streamline workflow and enhance the user experience for clients. Prior to Harri, Amanda spent over 10 years in HR, strategy, consulting, and leadership development. Her work experience has spanned roles in HR at private equity firm Warburg Pincus to building and leading the account management function at leadership development firm Cambridge Leadership Associates. Amanda has built and managed multifaceted training and consulting engagements for reputable brands across various industry sectors, including Google, M&T Bank, Nordstrom and Microsoft. She is dedicated to understanding her clients and providing them with smart, innovative solutions.
President of the Hicks Group, Host of Modern Business Podcast
Ryan Hicks is President of the Hicks Group and host of Modern Business Podcast.
Vice President of Sales, Solink
Jim Farrell is the VP of Sales for Solink. Solink helps restaurants improve operations through data/video integrations to become "smart restaurants". Over Jim's 20 year career he's been able to help companies in all major industries and of all sizes adopt technology that enables them to be more competitive and improve both top and bottom line dollars.
Director of Business Strategy, Fuzz Productions
Brett Spiegel is Director of Business Strategy at Fuzz, where he helps oversee the development of their groundbreaking restaurant platform. Brett has worked with brands like Shake Shack, Potbelly Sandwiches and Wingstop to identify ways technology can be leveraged to enable amazing guest experiences.
Co-Founder and CEO, Rooam
Junaid Shams is a serial entrepreneur and physician. Currently, Junaid is the CEO and co-founder of Rooam, a mobile payment and marketing platform that allows guests to open, view, and pay their bar tab or restaurant bill directly from their phone.Junaid has received numerous national recognitions, including Bloomberg Businessweek’s “Top 25 entrepreneurs under 25” and Under30CEO’s “Top 30 Most Influential Entrepreneurs under 30.” His start-ups have also been featured by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Entrepreneur magazine.
As Americans demand convenience, restaurants continue to adopt restaurant technology that improves the guest experience and business efficiency. In this guide, the above restaurant experts share which technologies are impacting the restaurant industry today, as well as predict which technologies will impact the restaurant industry in the next five years and beyond.
Restaurants are being challenged to think like a technology company. Especially in the chain and franchise space, people say, ‘We are a technology company as much as we are a food company.’ The restaurants that think this way are winning.
Jim Farrell
Vice President of Sales at Solink
Point of sale on a purpose-build handheld device, used for order and pay at the table or line busting.Example: Toast GoRestaurant Impact: Faster table turn times, increased average ticket size, Reduced lines in quick serve
Order and/or pay on consumer mobile phonesExample: SpeedETab, IndentivioRestaurant Impact: New revenue streams (order ahead, delivery), new payment methods (e.g. contactless)
The ability to access and analyze data such as sales, customer spending, and food costsExample: Toast Analytics, AveroRestaurant Impact: Improve profitability, Better understand your customers, optimize your menu
Connecting technologies to each other to ensure data is shared and workflows are seamlessExample: Toast Integrations and APIRestaurant Impact: Enhanced functionality, reduced manual effort, reduced manual errors, lower costs
Contactless payment methods and potential future methods like pay with biometrics or RFIDExample: LevelUp, Samsung Pay, Amazon Go, RooamRestaurant Impact: Faster transaction times, shorter lines
Making a diner's experience specific to their preferences or needsExamples: Bitmoji, NikeID, Amazon suggested itemsRestaurant Impact: More repeat visits, higher average ticket size, higher sales
Computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as prediction and decision-makingExample: Expedia predicting flight pricesRestaurant Impact: More efficient staffing, lower food waste, lower costs, higher sales
Computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as speech recognition and translationExample: Siri, Google Assistant, AlexaRestaurant Impact: Faster ordering, faster table turn times, shorter lines
Technology that super-imposes computer-generated images on a user's view of the real worldExample: Google GlassRestaurant Impact: Less food waste, higher food quality
The use of largely automated equipment in producing or delivering foodExample: Nest thermostat, Roomba vacuumRestaurant Impact: Lower labor costs, fewer repetitive tasks, streamlined customer interactions
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The airport industry is a great example of technology transforming the way people get from point A to point B.
Ten years ago, you would walk up to a counter, talk to a person, and that person would type your information into a terminal at the counter, spit out a paper receipt, and off you’d go.
Now, that’s all changed with self-serve kiosks. One person helps dozens of travelers check themselves in and get their boarding passes on tablet-like devices stationed throughout the airport. Even more travelers skip the kiosks altogether and check in on their mobile phones, load their mobile boarding passes into their digital wallets, and head straight for the gate.
We foresee the restaurant industry following the same trajectory, offering multiple paths for guests to take. Let’s dive in to the future function of the point of sale as we see it.
“Over time, I have a hard time believing the restaurant POS terminal will exist in its current format. It will be more mobile, allowing owners to experiment with new concepts and guests to choose from many types of experiences.”
Chris Comparato
CEO of Toast
Early point of sale systems consisted of a mainframe that controlled processing and display terminals that were connected to the mainframe. The machine could only perform limited functions compared to today, but it was truly revolutionary technology at the time.
While these machines were available in the 70s, it wasn’t until the 90s that the technology started to catch on with restaurants. As businesses looked to streamline their processes and take advantage of the automation computers provided, POS systems became more attractive. No longer would the business have to rely on separate systems to handle sales, inventory, and other functions.
Over time, POS systems acquired more and more functionality as consumer expectations for convenience grew, spurred by the advent of the smartphone. Systems began to include integrated loyalty programs, time clock tracking, vendor ordering, customer profiles, happy hour discounting, integration with kitchen display systems, and more.
By the late 90s and early 00s, point of sale systems were a necessity not just for large restaurant chains or big businesses, but for small- and mid-sized companies and restaurants as well. However, POS systems were still cost-prohibitive for some businesses, who couldn’t justify the expense of a full machine that could cost thousands of dollars.
Cloud computing changed that forever. Now, any internet-connected device –that is, smart phones, tablets, and existing computers – could become a POS system.
Tablets quickly became the hardware of choice for many software-as-a-service POS companies. These devices are popular with restaurant owners as they’re sleek, portable, and less expensive. Now, a small business on a tight budget doesn’t have to shell out thousands upfront if they want the benefits of a point of sale system. Instead, they can invest in a tablet for a few hundred dollars and subscribe to POS software for a monthly fee
Restaurateurs are now exploring how mobile, or handheld, POS systems like Toast Go™ can improve the restaurant experience. The newest tablets are built for restaurant environments to be durable, water resistant and fit seamlessly into real restaurant environments.
In full service restaurant environments, servers look like magicians as they fire food to the kitchen or drinks to the bar with one tap. In fast casual environments, handheld POS systems improve guest touchpoints, bringing the continued service model to life. Staff can walk around the restaurant and process an order from anywhere, even in line.
Eventide Oyster Co., a fast casual seafood concept in Boston, brings this to life by asking guests to give their phone number so they can be texted when their order is ready. Then they follow up with guests who sit down in their restaurant to order more drinks and desserts using handhelds.
With handheld devices, restaurateurs are free to explore new service models and bend the traditional definition of a brick-and-mortar restaurant to catapult into the 21st century.
"We bring the continued service model to life with handhelds. Once they pick up their order at the counter, we didn't want the guest's interaction with the restaurant to be finished. So we have servers that roam through the dining room with Toast Go™ handhelds. It allows us to have another interaction with the guest and to sell a few more food items before they head out the door.”
John Myers
General Manager of Eventide
While consumer adoption of mobile wallets is still far away, the adoption of mobile payments — that is, purchases made via apps and mobile websites — is surging.
In fact, Forrester predicts that remote mobile payments will be the largest area of growth over the next five years.
Today, only 17% of restaurants currently offer mobile wallet options, while 16% of restaurants have a mobile app and 38% of restaurants have online ordering, according to research from Toast’s Restaurant Success in 2018 Report.
Online ordering and delivery are undeniable trends in the restaurant industry, creating a new type of interaction with restaurants that is only growing in importance. Eastman Egg, a company on a mission to change the way people eat breakfast on the go, is using their mobile app to change the equation on convenience and food quality for breakfast sandwiches.
People demand beautiful mobile technology. With our app, we’re bridging the gap between the physical and the mobile world—in breakfast form. If we can create a consistently great experience for you, you won’t skip breakfast.”
Hunter Swartz
Founder of Eastman Egg
Of course, these apps can have a big impact on restaurant operations and add significant new revenue streams. Eastman Egg saw a 180% increase in sales from launching their mobile order-ahead app integrated into their POS system.
However, according to our experts, we are just scratching the surface when it comes to using the power of the mobile devices that are already sitting in our hands or in our pockets at restaurants.
As consumers continue to rely on their mobile phones for every aspect of their daily life, turning to their mobile phone to interact with a restaurant—even when they are physically in the restaurant—will become second nature, opening up new interaction models and opportunities for forward-thinking restaurateurs.
Rooam is a company bringing this interaction to life today with an app that allows you to view and pay your bar tab right on your mobile phone and then just walk out when you are done. It helps bar owners avoid guests walking out on tabs or forgetting credit cards behind the bar and it gives guests visibility and control over their experience.
Junaid Shams, co-founder and CEO of Rooam, rightly pointed out that one of the drivers of adoption for mobile payments will be loyalty for guests and the ability to use data for marketing to those guests by restaurateurs.
If you go somewhere every Tuesday and drink tequila, we can use mobile payment data to send over information your favorite restaurant's tequila event on Thursday. The opportunity to engage and reward repeat visits based on real consumer behavior is enabled by mobile payments.”
Junaid Shams
Co-founder and CEO of Rooam
Payment technology is going through a phase of rapid transformation. According to Capgemini, “Increased customer demand for ease of use, along with faster, integrated, and seamless banking experience is driving banks to offer alternative payment channels.” Capgemini named alternative payment channels, including wearables and contactless, as a top ten trend of 2018. The alternative methods continue to evolve—from mobile phones, to smartwatches, to, yes, your face.
We can already authenticate our mobile phones using our faces on the latest smartphone devices. Our experts see a future where we can use our faces to pay at the checkout counter in fast casual restaurants, creating a new standard for contactless payments.
In full service environments, companies like Rooam are already working to make this a reality.
The payments industry is moving so fast right now that restaurants are being asked to invest in multiple pieces of new hardware—EMV readers, contactless readers for different phone manufacturer’s contactless payments, readers for specific white label apps, etc… it’s expensive and a lot of the hardware will be obsolete in the next five to ten years. We don’t think the payments industry will result in 5 different pieces of hardware on a counter. A customer should just walk into a location with their phone and have a tab immediately open up on the POS. The tab will automatically close when you walk out of the door. Ten years from now everything will be on mobile payments. Your phone stays in your pocket and it just happens.”
Several of our experts also mentioned that they were closely watching Amazon’s experiments with the Amazon Go model. Amazon Go is a model can simply walk out after selecting items for purchase; there’s no need to check out with a cashier. Payment happens on your phone without ever having to take it out of your pocket. Just walk through the gates at the store exit, and it recognizes your phone and charges your Amazon account.
Aman Narang, co-founder of Toast, imagines a future where, “a mobile app suggests not just a restaurant based on what’s most popular, but a restaurant and specific dish based on my personalized taste profile, allergies and location to ensure that I have a meal that I’ll really love. The Netflix personalization engine is a great model for what could happen in restaurants.”
Netflix divides customers into over 2000 “taste groups” to come up with its recommendations for what shows you should watch. Over 80% of shows watched on Netflix are driven by their recommendations, and so they work hard to dig deep into what you’ll really like about a show rather than relying on things like broad categories. This same approach could be applied to dishes in restaurants, exposing us to new tastes, flavors and cuisines that we might not have tried otherwise.
Brett Spiegel, Director of Business Strategy at Fuzz Productions, also imagines this extending to specific nutrients and ingredients within food. “Restaurants will start having really dynamic menus that are finely tuned to our nutritional needs based on time of day - extreme, automated personalization. A restaurant might end up with an infinite number of menus at a location based on your specific nutritional needs, preferences and allergies, adapting to each individual who walks through the door.”
We have a group of customers that spend more than $20k per year with us. How can we ensure we always give them the perfect table on the water, like the airline first class model? We want to recognize them when they walk in the door - maybe with facial recognition technology.”
Matthew Roy
Manager of Technology Operations, The Boathouse
Personalization helps restaurants bring the concept of “new hospitality” to life. Several of our experts expressed a desire to feel like a regular at a restaurant—for the barista, waitress or checkout person to recognize them, know their order, and reward their loyalty.
Restaurants today with a great staff who take the time to learn the names of regulars accomplish this today, but you can’t always ensure the same staff is present, or that their memory will always be perfect for potentially hundreds of regular customers. Personalization can help restaurant customers feel seen and recognized with a little assist from technology behind the scenes.
We are seeing customers gravitate towards choice and the ability to customize their meals – something that fast casual restaurants have historically done well. When you give people choices and control over what they want to get, you see average ticket sizes going up by as much as 60% from those extra modifiers at restaurants.”
Sash Dias
In her annual Internet Trends Report that is closely watched in Silicon Valley, Mary Meeker, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, simply stated: “Voice = Technology Lift Off + Product Lift Off.” With Google reporting human level accuracy of their machine learning for recognizing voice and Amazon Alexa installed in over 30mm homes in the U.S., voice is fast becoming a mainstream technology
While our experts still think voice is further away as a mainstream technology for restaurants because it's not widely adopted yet, expect to start seeing technology companies and larger chains experimenting with standalone voice ordering, enhancing server and cashier accuracy by supporting them with voice technology.
In May 2018, Google piloted new technology that allowed Google Assistant to call and make reservations at restaurants, unbeknownst to the hostess answering the call.
According to Deloitte, “The augmented reality and virtual reality revolution has reached a tipping point… International Data Corp. (IDC) projects that total spending on AR/VR products and services will soar from $9.1 billion in 2017 to nearly $160 billion in 2021, representing a compound annual growth rate of 113%.”
Deloitte goes on to say, “Increasingly, companies are shifting their focus from experimenting with “shiny object” [s]... IDC estimates that industry AR/VR use cases that will attract the largest investments in 2017 are onsite assembly and safety ($339 million), retail showcasing ($250 million), and process manufacturing training ($248 million).”
For restaurants, this means that while flashy experiments like interactive tables that show your food before it appears may be grabbing headlines, the more likely implementations are in the back-of-the-house.
This technology would reduce food waste and improve kitchen efficiency, food safety, and quality. As these use cases become reality, and as technology comes down in cost and becomes more ubiquitous, kitchens might look quite different through an augmented reality lens.
Imagine equipping your line cooks in the kitchen with AR glasses that allow them to look at a grill full of hamburgers and see the meat temperature of each patty as well as a visual cue as to which ones are done based on the guest’s order or the type of meat.”
Aman Narang
Co-Founder of Toast
The end of waiting in line! This is a technology trend we can all get behind. Whether the queue is full of office workers waiting in line to place an order at a busy lunch spot, families waiting to get seated at a casual dining establishment, or servers queuing up at the POS terminal to send their orders to the kitchen, restaurants are full of lines. There are a number of new and emerging technologies that help restaurants cut down on lines and decrease wait times.
A sure sign of friction that can be eliminated with technology is a line. I predict the end of lines in restaurants.”
Kent Bennett
Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
Handhelds are an off-the-shelf technology available now to line bust and reduce wait times.
In quick serve environments, staff are busting lines with handhelds to take orders and expedite them straight to the kitchen, while in full serve environments, they are having dramatic impacts on table turn times, reducing waits for drinks, courses, and of course, tables.
Odd Duck, a farm-to-table tapas restaurant in Austin, Texas, was able to serve 32 extra tables per night after they equipped their servers with Toast Go™, resulting in a $500,000 increase in annual revenue.
“Before we had Toast Go™, we were losing a lot of people to wait times," Cory Neel, General Manager, explains. "Typically, for a table for two, on a Friday night, wait times were anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours." After making the switch to Toast Go™, Cory noticed a stark decrease in ticket times. "With Toast Go™, we found that our turn times, for every category, dropped anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes per table.”
One of the top ways restaurants are eliminating lines is with mobile order-ahead technology.
Starbucks has been setting the pace on adoption of this technology, with more than 30% of its sales coming through their mobile app in 2017. Smaller restaurants are looking to compete, using online ordering and pick-up through companies like Toast, or white-label apps partnering with companies such as LevelUp, Incentivio and SpeedETab.
“Consumer expectations continue to evolve with standards set by the big players in the market like Starbucks, Chipotle, and other enterprise players,” says Adam Garfield, co-founder and CEO of SpeedETab. “The benefit of white label for most restaurants is being able to offer a competing tech experience without the resources and capital previously only accessible by the largest restaurant chains.”
The mobile trend goes beyond online ordering, however, and can create unique opportunities in full serve environments as well. The guest is happier and the restaurant is driving a larger check size, creating a win-win.
How many times do you order at a restaurant and the waiter takes the menu away? And you ask, can I keep a menu? Can I get a drink menu, a dessert menu? You spend time waiting to get a server’s attention, get the menu, and maybe the moment to keep ordering has passed. Imagine instead, it’s all just on your phone - you pull the menu up on your phone and you can order right there and maybe even the payment happens right there.”
Steve Fredette
Our experts predicted that these new technologies would impact the way restaurants are designed, the kinds of concepts that are opened, and even the “look and feel” of restaurants in the future.
At one end of the spectrum, some restaurants are starting to experiment with delivery-only concepts that allow them to centralize their kitchen, pay less rent, reduce delivery times and cut costs across the board. These are aptly called “ghost restaurants.”
Even for restaurants who don’t go so far as to open centralized kitchen, the math is changing as to what an ideal layout looks like. New best practices, such as creating a dedicated line, are emerging for organizing a kitchen to accommodate an increase in takeout and delivery orders.
Technology is going to lead to redesigning restaurants. We already see it today with the emergence of the front and the back line—the idea of an online ordering line. It’s going to shift the way kitchens are created. As online ordering and delivery increases as a revenue center, the kitchen becomes the bottleneck to handle the influx of orders coming from online. Fast casual restaurants might find that the front of the house gets automated and will shift labor to the back of the house to deliver more food. Restaurants will have to re-optimize their space to meet consumers’ changing demand. Does the kitchen become bigger than the dining room? Where is the tipping point where it no longer makes sense to pay so much for storefront, but instead create a delivery-only kitchen in a central location to decrease real estate costs?
As food and labor costs increase, the pressure to find efficiencies in restaurants is growing. Students from MIT are experimenting with a fully automated restaurant, Spyce, full of robots and emerging technology.
Our experts predict that a lot of the rote, repetitive tasks performed by servers, expediters, line cooks and dishwashers will be the first to be automated. Taking phone orders, typing orders into POS terminals, taking reservations, chopping food, washing dishes—these are the tasks that are likely the first to go.
The front of the house will continue to automate. Restaurants are being forced to make it user-friendly and automated. Millennials don’t want to talk to cashiers; they don’t want to try to explain what they are looking for. They want to interact efficiently with a kiosk, mobile device, or computer.
Rice Kitchen
Freeing up time manually taking orders, typing them into a terminal, and nagging the kitchen allows servers to do their real job—selling the food and making guests happy.
Brett Spiegel, Director of Business Strategy at Fuzz Productions, sees automation touching even more aspects of restaurants:“Automation will also extend not only into the operations of the restaurant itself - for order taking, routing orders, inventory, optimizing delivery routes, but outside the restaurant. Automation in delivery can play a key role in improving restaurant operations — whether it’s robots, driverless Ubers or drones delivering food to peoples’ houses.”
We want our servers to be salespeople, not order-takers. Restaurants need to stop thinking about the kitchen as an “art studio” and start thinking about it as a production facility. Use kitchen displays, metrics on performance, etc… This will continue to bring the focus away from the simple things and more towards complex tasks and quality.”
Over the years, many businesses have adopted a data-driven mindset. Data is an equalizer; opinions and hypotheses can be validated (or rejected) with data. As the restaurant industry grows, our experts predict that analytics will be the driving force behind most decisions made, including staffing, openings, new menu items, inventory, and more.
We’re going to start sharing more data for every role; servers, operators, chefs, and accountants will all be more empowered with data to improve.”
“Restaurants can get a whole lot smarter on how the front-of-house is performing. They can learn which servers make the customers happiest (and thus most profitable!), and share best practices across servers and locations.”
- Kent Bennett, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners
Using data and analytics to improve customer experience is a best practice in most companies today. However, many restaurants are still struggling with legacy systems that require being physically present and going through time-consuming processes to get access to basic data and reporting. Restaurateurs benefiting from the latest technologies are able to pull up sales data, manager logs from the prior night’s close, and more on their mobile phones from home.
We need access to data. We need the data live, and we need it now. Instead of individually having to export reports for each location, managers can look at their tablet and see how their inventory is doing. Having live access to all that information is what makes Toast so valuable for us.”
Max Seel
CTO of Oath Pizza
Aman Narang, co-founder of Toast, sees accessibility to data as just the start. “Restaurant technology companies should be delivering actionable insights to restaurateurs, alerting them to issues and trends in real-time so that they can immediately realize the business benefits. For example, when a menu item is close to selling out or when sales are slow and staffing needs to be changed, someone should be notified.”
In the meantime, several of our experts pointed out that more will be expected of restaurant staff when it comes to running and understanding analytics. Whether it’s understanding server metrics such as table turn times and guest satisfaction or analyzing menu items for popularity, food cost and profitability, every staff member will be data-driven.
As Brad Gillis, co-founder and CEO from Homegrown explained, “Restaurant staff will need to develop new skill sets; they’ll be expected to understand analytics and how it impacts their jobs and their businesses”
According to Amanda Halle, Head of Partnerships at Harri, restaurants are held back from embracing new and emerging technology because there are “so many different point solution vendors. Restaurateurs are inundated with different technology all the time. Every single one of those providers are asking them to change the way they currently operate.”
Harri is focused on using technology to take administrative tasks away. “Restaurant operators shouldn’t be spending hours creating schedules and sifting through candidates. They should be talking to guests, engaging with people, and, most importantly, developing their teams.”
Several of our experts talked about how the widespread adoption of cloud technologies in restaurants is opening up new possibilities for different systems to talk to each other— bringing POS data into your accounting suite or integrating with scheduling, or aggregating orders from different sources and sending them straight to the kitchen.
Restaurants focused on integrating their technologies are capturing benefits such as reducing errors when moving data manually from one system to another, improving speed of service by making sure all orders are firing straight to the kitchen, and gaining better insights into their financials
During a typical shift, a restaurant manager logs in to one system to create the schedule, another system to look at applicants to hire, a third system to check this week’s food costs, and yet another system to create a purchase order or to check inventory. Data integrity is key when a restaurant is relying on it to make important business decisions. An integrated system that has a direct connection to the point of sale can minimize manual data inputs, provide customers with more depth of data, and ensure the accuracy of that data. Now is the time for restaurants to modernize their technology stacks and understand the advantages of a fully integrated system that is guaranteed to save you time and money, increase your data integrity, and heighten your security.
Jeff Stone
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is becoming more common due to the incredible computing power available in our mobile phones and new applications. One of the capabilities of AI is the ability to predict events in the future. Restaurateurs can benefit from patterns picked up by artificial intelligence that may not be immediately obvious to someone looking at the data, such as when staffing patterns don’t match predicted demand.
In 5 years, restaurants will be able to predict demand based on their history, weather, the local events schedule, and more.
Recommendation engines as part of AI are already highly prevalent in many industries, such as cybersecurity and competitive intelligence.
The restaurant industry may do well to follow these trends, learning what AI can (and can’t) achieve for industries that have already adopted this technology.
As a business owner, I want technology to tell me, ‘Hey you’re overstaffed today. Based on previous analytics, here’s who you should send home.’”
Ryan Hicks
Restaurant Consultant and Host of Modern Business Podcast
In 2014, the New Yorker ran an article titled The End of Food that described a new trend of finding meal replacements that provides humans with all the vitamins and nutrients needed to survive.
Luckily, some strong counter-winds have picked up, with evidence showing that the coveted millennial demographic prioritizes experiences first and foremost.
Humans will always seek out fun experiences – experiencing a pleasant atmosphere, tasting great food, receiving great service, and sharing that experience with old and new friends will never go out of style. None of us wants to pop a nutrient pill in our house for every meal and so while the restaurant of the future will be increasingly frictionless, restaurants as a place to live our lives be will be here to stay.