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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Restaurant Tech

Meet The Spoon’s Restaurant Tech 10

The restaurant industry has changed drastically over the last 18 months when it comes to tech. What was once a sector slow to change and reticent to embrace digital is now practically at bursting point in terms of the many technological solutions available to restaurants. As food tech investor Brita Rosenheim recently wrote, “the past 18 months, technology solutions across the restaurant and hospitality industry evolved at such a fast pace that keeping up with changes proved challenging, even for those of us who work in the space. This rapid rate of adoption in the industry caused even the technophobes in hospitality to rapidly embrace tech solutions. “

Picking just 10 companies from the hundreds out there was a Herculean challenge when it came time to make this list. From virtual restaurants to maintenance management solutions to making better use of data, there’s no end of innovation in the restaurant tech sector these days. Our list is a tiny sliver of that innovation, showcasing what we believe are some of the most unique and intriguing companies shaking up and rethinking the restaurant business. Some of these companies will be at our upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit (make sure to get your ticket!), some we’ve written about recently, and some we are just getting to know.

It goes without saying, of course, that this isn’t an exhaustive list, and if you have a restaurant tech company you’d like to get on our radar, drop us a line anytime.

In no particular order, here are The Spoon’s Top 10 Restaurant Tech Companies:

Too Good to Go

When it comes to eliminating food waste, Too Good to Go was too good to not include on this list. The Denmark-based company partners with hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and other businesses that have surplus food items at the end of each day and sells that food at a discount to consumers, who pick up the food at a designated time. Too Good to Go started in Europe, but raised $31 million and expanded into the U.S. this year. Businesses win because it turns leftover foods into revenue. Consumers win because they get good food at a discount. And the world at large wins because there is less food waste going into landfills. 

86 Repairs

You can’t run a restaurant without a fridge (or stove, or electricity), which means maintenance and repair management will always be relevant in the biz, no matter how many pandemics you throw at it. Chicago, Illinois-based 86 Repairs is leading a new generation of companies helping to make the management of maintenance and repair tasks a little less burdensome on restaurants. The platform digitizes information about all a restaurant’s equipment and coordinates troubleshooting, warranty checks, booking technicians, and other tasks. The idea is to give restaurants one central location at which to view all data about all maintenance, even for large, multi-unit chains with thousands of units.

Bite Ninja

The restaurant labor shortage will go down as one of the major issues — probably the major issue — restaurants faced in 2021. One of the most intriguing solutions to the issue comes from a company called Bite Ninja. In essence, the Bite Ninja platform lets restaurants outsource their staffing needs for the drive-thru lane to gig workers that take orders remotely. Drive-thru customers see a face on a screen and order as they would normally. They may not even know the person taking the order is probably sitting at their kitchen table instead of standing inside the restaurant. Bite Ninja’s founders say the platform can increase order accuracy and upsell rates for restaurants, while workers don’t actually have to report to a physical location to clock in. In the future, the tech will be available for more uses than just the drive-thru, including front-of-house kiosks, curbside pickup, and phone orders.

ConverseNow

ConverseNow currently creates conversational AI assistants for restaurant drive-thrus. In use at 750 restaurant locations in the U.S, ConverseNow says its AI achieves 85 percent order accruacy and bumps check sizes up by 25 percent. But ConverseNow is about so much more than just helping automate the drive-thru. The company wants its software to be the virtual plumbing for all of a restaurant’s digital ordering, connecting the drive-thru, mobile ordering, phones, kiosks and more. If it can achieve this, ConverseNow will convert many restaurant operators over to AI. 

Crave Collective

When The Spoon got a virtual tour last year of the Crave facility in Boise, Idaho that serves 16 virtual restaurant concepts, it felt like a look into the future of what restaurant/food delivery design could look in Metro areas. Not only were the physical attributes like a conveyor belt system that shuttled meals towards the front for delivery and a customer pick up area interesting, but Crave’s custom-built tech stack and in-house delivery drivers were indications that the company had built a facility and business model tailored towards the virtual brand era. The company wants to take it’s concept to four additional locations this year, and 10 by 2022.

Slice

While it’s easy to think most pizza restaurant shops are savvy at online ordering, the reality is that the typical independent sees only about one in five pizzas ordered online compared with three out of four for Dominos. Slice saw this as an opportunity and created a consumer app to help put independent pizza shops (16,000 of them so far) on solid digital footing to compete with the 800 pound gorillas in Dominos and Little Caesar’s. But what helped Slice make this list was their acquisition of POS startup InStore. Before Instore, Slice helped indies enter into the world of online ordering. Now, Slice Register (the POS based on Instore) enables the small guys to level up to the big guys and create a true multichannel pizza business with loyalty programs and integrated online/offline marketing programs.

Qu POS

The past decade saw restaurant point of sale move into the cloud and adapt features like pay-at-table and integrated online ordering, but the virtual brand explosion may be the biggest test yet for these systems. Qu POS is betting big on a virtual restaurant future with their KitchenUP platform, which acts as a lightweight operating system for ghost kitchen/virtual brands with unified management of multichannel order management, reporting, third-party delivery integration and other features built into an API-first architecture. FranklinJunction is utilizing KitchenUp across its network of 500 “host kitchens” to help power virtual concepts for such brands as Nathan’s and Frisch’s Big Boy.

Ordermark/NextBite

An arguably bigger trend than ghost kitchens this year has been restaurants finding and leveraging underutilized kitchen space in which to run delivery-only restaurant concepts. NextBite, a company created by restaurant tech company Ordermark, helps restaurants find that space and launch those concepts. The platform operates a number of virtual/delivery-only brands restaurants can add to their existing business and in the process make some incremental revenue. The company raised a whopping $120 million for this concept at the end of 2020, and has since launched more than 15 virtual brands in thousands of kitchens around the country. 

Manna

Look! Up in the sky! It’s your latte! Drone food delivery seems like sci-fi, but Manna is making it a reality right now. Earlier this year, the company was doing 50 to 100 drone deliveries a day and it’s prepping to launch service in a second Irish city. Though there are still regulatory hurdles to overcome, drone delivery could be a boon for restaurants because it delivers meals in minutes without needing to put a full-sized delivery car on the road. Drones are starting to take flight around the world, and Manna is helping the industry take flight. 

Delivery Hero

Delivery is table stakes at this point for the restaurant industry, but we pub Delivery Hero on this list because of all the big-name services out there today, it has one of the more noteworthy approaches to the concept. In addition to operating restaurant food delivery services around the world (via a bunch of different subsidiary brands), the Berlin, Germany-based company has also launched its own VC fund to foster food tech innovation, opened an education program to teach coding to underserved individuals, and, most recently, kicked off a new initiative to provide its restaurant partners with sustainable packaging. All these efforts point towards the possibility of a food delivery industry that’s not only faster and more efficient, but also more inclusive and sustainable.

Q&A: How BentoBox Helps Restaurants Take Back Their Customer Relationships Through Tech

Before the off-premises boom, there was no question of restaurants owning their relationships with customers. One pandemic and a whole lot of digital tools later, and that ownership is a little less certain, and restaurants often give up valuable customer data and feedback to bigger tech companies (e.g., third-party delivery services). Now, however, a number of tech companies are promising to change this by putting more digital interactions with customers back restaurants hands, so to speak.

A company called BentoBox does it by helping restaurants create and manage their own digital storefronts. The BentoBox platform facilitates a number different areas of running a restaurant in the digital age: online order management, website design, dine-in order and pay, digital gift cards, and event management, to name a few. These and other features promise to give restaurants a direct relationship to their customers, even when those interactions are entirely conducted through a website or mobile app.  

Ahead of The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17, we caught up with Krystle Mobayeni, CEO and Founder of BentoBox, who will also be speaking at the event. Read our full Q&A with her below, and if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

1. What problem does BentoBox solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry?

BentoBox helps translate restaurants’ on-premise experience to their digital storefront in a way that matches their standards of hospitality. We do this through a full-service website, commerce, and marketing platform that helps operators cultivate stronger guest relationships — and drive high-margin revenue through their websites.

2. What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

Before the pandemic, restaurants and technology co-existed. Restaurants focused on their dining rooms and adopted piecemeal technology tools along the way. Restaurants also viewed the guest experience in the brick and mortar as separate from the guest experience online. The pandemic has shown that restaurants need to think about these as one holistic experience and embrace the right technology to connect the on-premise and off-premise experiences. 

With that, the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the shift to a single, modern restaurant experience where restaurants can connect with their guests across all channels. With the support of the right technology, restaurants can build direct relationships and more personal ones to stay resilient and thrive going forward. 

3. What are the most important first steps a restaurant should take when going online?

The most important first step is aligning with the right technology partner. Restaurant operators didn’t get into this industry to be marketers or technologists; they sought to create meaningful experiences with food.

Understanding restaurant operators don’t have the time or expertise to be restaurant website designers, my best advice is to seek out a technology partner who understands what the restaurant needs. While local designers or design agencies can be an effective means to get online, these solutions are often expensive and time-consuming. It is important for restaurants to find a partner that makes their website a reflection of their brand with elevated design, built-in marketing tools and the opportunity to drive revenue the same way they do in their brick and mortar. 

4. What is the biggest challenge for restaurants right now when it comes to digitization? 

As the world has evolved over the last year and a half, restaurants’ core purpose of providing a hospitable and memorable experience has remained constant. However, the technology that has been introduced to help them enter the digital world and make things easier, has in many cases proved far more complex and fragmented than it should be. 

Not surprisingly, this fragmentation and complexity has led to frustration and takes away from the restaurants ability to provide a seamless experience for their diners. It’s crucial for technology providers to be aware of this and work to provide end to end solutions to eliminate these breakage points. 

5. What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

Restaurant technology has the power to help restaurant owners with their business and give diners an enhanced dining experience. When restaurants have the right technology partner, it changes the way diners interact with restaurants. They have more ways to experience a restaurant outside of the brick and mortar location. For restaurant owners, they have the opportunity to focus on better serving their communities and expanding their reach both locally and abroad. It also gives restaurants a more diversified stream of revenue, which helps them become stronger businesses.

6. What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

The pandemic catapulted the digital transformation of the restaurant industry and in five years, I see restaurants having a direct-to-diner experience with their customers, much like the transformation of retail going direct-to-consumers. Through restaurant technology innovation, restaurants will have the tools and data to build strong brand affinity among diners and tailor their customers’ experiences to make every diner feel like a regular. 

As the Ghost Kitchen Industry Matures, Here Are 5 Trends to Watch

This following a guest post from Warren Tseng, a long-time operator, investor and advisor in the restaurant and ghost kitchen industries (full bio below).

The food industry has managed to squeeze about 10 years of innovation into just 18 months thanks to the pandemic. This in turn has given rise to a variety of ghost kitchen models that have allowed restaurants and food brands to increase sales and reduce their operating costs. Now that restaurant operators have seen that online delivery may likely be the bulk of their sales going forward, we will continue to see them double down on delivery and find new ways to become more efficient and technology-driven in terms of menu development, supply chain efficiency, direct-to-consumer distribution solutions, and kitchen automation. Here are five trends that will continue to shape the rapidly evolving ghost kitchen industry beyond the pandemic.

  1. Leveraging data and AI to inform menu and product development

Data can provide invaluable insight to any customer-facing industry, and ghost kitchens are no exception. Ultimately, data regarding brand preferences, pricing strategy, ingredients, and the popularity of cuisine types in certain regions can inform everything from menu design to marketing strategy for delivery-only food brands. Examining customer ordering data can also inform restaurants where their particular cuisines may fill a gap on a hyper-local basis, and where they might want to offer their products via a ghost kitchen versus a bricks and mortar location.

For example, JustKitchen has partnered with two Michelin-rated restaurants, Orchid by Peng and 3 Coins, to create delivery-only menus. Their brick and mortar locations previously were situated in very high-density areas of Taipei. By partnering with us, they were able to test the demand for their food in other parts of Taiwan without having to invest in real estate first. By examining the customer ordering data on a trial basis, we were able to see that the demand for this fine-dining style of food was very strong throughout areas of Taiwan they previously weren’t serving.

Additionally, brands that are interested in expanding into new countries can use a ghost kitchen to test out the popularity of the food on a trial basis before taking the leap and investing in the additional real estate and marketing that a global expansion normally requires. They can also test menu items on a trial basis and use ordering data to determine whether certain menu items are a fit for a new market — for example, a North American market versus an Asian market — before developing and rolling out a final concept and menu.

  1. Delivery-only food brands going direct-to-consumer

Whereas today many ghost kitchens and delivery-only brands rely solely on third-party food delivery platforms to connect with customers, in the future we are going to see more ghost kitchens and food brands going direct-to-consumer. Established food delivery platforms will more frequently be used as a test for brands to get initial exposure through the platform’s users. Once operators have found the right product-market fit, they will benefit from continuing to invest in the brand and building out new distribution channels, just as many startups first launch products on a platform like Shopify to test the market before building their own online sales portals and investing in marketing and distribution.

  1. Environmentally conscious initiatives to reduce packaging and food waste

Food waste is a growing global environmental and social issue, and restaurants are one of the world’s biggest contributors to it. In the U.S. alone, it’s estimated that restaurants account for 22-33 billion pounds of food waste each year. But ghost kitchens really do have an opportunity to be leaders in the restaurant industry in terms of reducing food waste. For example, using technology, ghost kitchen operators have the ability to more carefully track historical delivery data to better predict demand and thus more accurately plan supply, which can greatly reduce food waste. In addition, real estate players that host multiple ghost kitchen operators in a single facility, such as CloudKitchens, are able to leverage economies of scale with suppliers to boost efficiency and lower costs for operators. Similarly, ghost kitchen operators that offer grocery delivery in addition to meal delivery can take advantage of the FIFO (First In, First Out) rule: ingredients and supplies can be used in both meal preparation and grocery delivery services, reducing the chance of food going off before it’s used.

It’s no secret that the rising demand for online food delivery also means more packaging that gets tossed in the garbage. I believe that as the industry matures, more ghost kitchen operators will be held accountable for their packaging. At JustKitchen we use 100 percent recyclable or compostable packaging and paper straws instead of plastic straws. I believe, and hope, that we will see more ghost kitchen operators taking the initiative to replace single-use plastics with more environmentally friendly materials in future.

4.) Autonomous food delivery

A big challenge that ghost kitchens and online food delivery platforms alike experienced during the pandemic was a shortage of delivery drivers. As demand for online food delivery exploded during the pandemic, many third-party delivery platforms found themselves short of drivers. Additionally, many people were concerned about drivers handling food hygienically and following contact-free drop off protocols. In some cities, autonomous delivery robots have provided a viable solution to these issues, as they can bypass obstacles such as traffic and human-to-human contact during delivery. However, realistically delivery-by-robot only works in core downtown areas where the delivery destination is relatively near to where the food is prepared. Self-driving cars that can travel longer distances will likely provide a more viable autonomous delivery option in future, but we are not there quite yet.

5.) Modularized / container ghost kitchens

As the industry evolves and cooking technologies become more automated (check out Flippy, the burger-flipping robot), kitchens and everything from cooking to packaging and delivery will become more streamlined and less costly. In general, if care is taken to design menus and preparation methods that are highly efficient, delivery-only food brands will continue to evolve so that they need less space, less equipment, and perhaps even less staff to operate. When you need less space to operate in, you can invest in setting up a greater number of smaller kitchen facilities that occupy less real estate but cover more ground. Modular kitchens can be set up in spaces as small as a shipping container, can be deployed almost anywhere, and can still produce excellent quality products. Many ghost kitchens, such as Reef Technologies, are already implementing modular kitchens and although it can be a trial and error process at first, this is likely a trend we will see more of in the future.

At the end of the day, successful ghost kitchen operations are all about efficiency, and that can be thought of in two parts. On the restaurant side – implementing technology that enables a single ghost kitchen operator to handle multiple brands on multiple delivery platforms out of one kitchen will improve staffing efficiency and reduce food wastage. On the delivery side – having multiple restaurants and multiple brands concentrated in a small footprint, and technology that enables effective queuing and batching of orders – allows couriers and third-party logistics to batch multiple orders from one pick-up location to deliver to multiple destinations. This not only significantly boosts the efficiency of the logistics providers for the last mile, but most importantly, ensures the customer receives the highest quality product possible. Ultimately, ghost kitchens that can consistently deliver high-quality, on-brand products will be the winners in this increasingly competitive marketplace.

Warren Tseng is a strategic advisor to Taiwan-based cloud kitchen operator and delivery-only food brand developer, JustKitchen. Mr. Tseng is an early-stage business operator, advisor, and angel investor with extensive experience establishing and growing companies acrossSoutheast Asia and Greater China. He was an early entrant to the on-demand economy and the cloud kitchen industry from his previous roles as General Manager (Singapore) at Uber Technologies, and Regional General Manager (Asia Pacific) at CloudKitchens, where he established the companies in eight countries across the APAC region.

Q&A: RoboEatz on the Importance of Robotics in Restaurants of the Future

Thanks in part to the pandemic and the changing restaurant experience, there is more interest in food robots these days. While we’re not yet at the point where counters, kitchens, and drive-thrus are fully manned by these bots, there is a steadily growing number of choices when it comes to machines that can speed up and/or smooth out operations, save on costs, and provide a truly contactless meal creation and pickup experience.

One such offering is the RoboEatz Ark 03. it is a standalone kiosk that contains an articulating arm, fresh ingredients (including soups and salad dressings), an induction cooker and cubbies to hold pickup orders. When a customer places an order (via phone or tablet), the robot arm grabs ingredients, places them in the rotating induction cooker, and puts the finished meal container in a cubby.

RoboEatz’ CEO Alex Barseghian will share more on this exciting new world of restaurant tech at The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17. As a teaser, we recently got some thoughts from him about restaurant robotics, which you can read below. And if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

1. What problem does Roboeatz solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry?

The robot solves multiple things in one system. The ARK 03 can hold 80 ingredients allowing for 1,000 menu items to be made. Anyone from a salad concept to a pasta bar QSR or an Asian restaurant chain can leverage it. It self cleans the entire system and utensils, can dish out meals every 20 seconds and can serve 1,000 meals before it needs replenishment. It reduces waste, makes more consistent and great tasting food and labour shortages are resolved.

2. What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

There are a number. Touchless interaction is becoming more vital. Everything from digital menu boards, touchless payments and curbside pick have increased in demand during the pandemic. Chains are going to look to automate key areas of the kitchen or replace the whole kitchen to reduce mundane tasks. There is global labour shortage for the restaurant industry and technology is going to be a vital way to solve for that problem. 

3. Where do robotics and automation make the most sense in the restaurant industry (e.g., back of house, standalone machines, etc.)?

They can be either back of house or full standalone systems. The application will depend on the environment. For example, business canteens, student campuses, mining camps, airports and transit hubs can drop in a standalone machine like the ARK03. But if you have a casual fine dining chain with a massive infrastructure, you will take much more of an iterative approach to technology. Test and learn which pain points need to be fixed and automated. Only after can you scale — which takes time and extensive resources.

4. What is the biggest challenge for restaurants right now when it comes to digitization? 

The whole continuum of the journey is a challenge because there are so many aspects to digitization. From the ease of consumer ordering and personalization on the mobile phone to the end point of picking something in store, systems interacting with each other is a very large pain point.  

5. What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

That we, as a society, can rely on is great quality food that is produced safely and without much food waste. We have a profitable model that is scalable for multiple restaurant verticals, from QSRs to managed food service companies with the aforementioned goal in mind.

6. What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

The fine dining restaurants will deploy automation that is not visible to customers.  Managed food service companies will deploy full systems in multiple verticals they service, especially where grab and go or 24/7 food is needed. QSR chains will have either a full system or have hybrid back of house functions. It is a very exciting time.  

Wendy’s to Launch 700 Ghost Kitchens Via Reef Partnership

Wendy’s announced this week it will expand its number of delivery-only kitchens via a partnership with ghost/mobile kitchen provider Reef. With the deal, Wendy’s plans to open 700 more of these kitchens over the next five years in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Wendy’s and Reef first announced their partnership in 2020, when the two started testing delivery-only kitchens in Canada. The partnership is part of Wendy’s ongoing strategy to be operating 7,000 units globally by the end of the year, according to the company’s earnings call this past week. The QSR chain plans to have 30 percent of all its new units come from nontraditional locations.  

Reef’s mobile kitchens certainly count as “nontraditional” when it comes to QSR formats. The company, which raised $700 million last year, houses ghost kitchens in mobile trailers that can be parked more or less anywhere there is underutilized real estate and demand for restaurant food. Right now, the company partners with existing restaurant chains that want to boost the number of delivery-only orders they fulfill. Saladworks, Wow Bao, and BurgerFi are just a few names using Reef’s mobile kitchen infrastructure. 

“We are still very early in our nontraditional development journey, but we are encouraged by the results that we’ve seen with Reef, and we’ll continue learning alongside them throughout this partnership as we grow our brand,” Wendy’s CEO Todd Penegor said on the earnings call.

Partnering with Reef on mobile kitchens allows Wendy’s to expand its new build-outs faster, since there’s less development time needed compared to a traditional QSR location with a dining room attached. Wendy’s decision to go the mobile kitchen route differs from other QSRs like Burger King, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell, all of whom have recently announced new store prototypes that emphasize digital ordering and delivery. In those cases, however, the units are stationary and have yet to be built out en masse.

Revenue in the online food delivery segment in the U.S. is expected to reach $32 billion in 2021, which is about 15 percent of the total U.S. fast food market today. That suggests a long-term trend towards non-dine-in formats for QSRs and more focus on the “hub-and-spoke” model where the kitchen is the central piece of the restaurant serving multiple different sales channels. QSRs, in particular, are well suited to the non-dine-in format because customers aren’t typically going to these establishments for the ambiance or experience one expects in a dining room setting.

For their part, Wendy’s and REEF expect to open approximately 50 delivery kitchens in 2021, with the remainder launched by 2025. 

5 Ways the Restaurant Biz Will Change In the Next 5 Years

If the last year and a half was about how restaurants could survive, this next stretch will be all about how they are and will continue to adapt to all the changes they’ve absorbed in the recent past. 

A lot of those changes have been around tech. In fact many would argue the restaurant biz made 10 years’ worth of technological evolution in the span of a few months because of the havoc the COVID-19 pandemic brought. Over the last year, online ordering has become table stakes, restaurants of all sizes have opened virtual, delivery-only concepts, and customer data has grown even more important for businesses to keep tabs on.

What do changes like these mean for the restaurant over the next five years? We’ll discuss that next week at The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit. The virtual event takes place August 17, and you can still nab a ticket to it.

In preparation for the event, we’ve been publishing Q&As with restaurants, tech companies, analysts, and others who will be participating in the Summit. Below are some highlights from these individuals on where they see the restaurant biz headed over the next five years. 

Michael Schaefer, Head of Beverages and Foodservice Research, Euromonitor

“In the next five years, restaurants will become less synonymous with prepared food. Prepared meals will remain the primary business for restaurants, of course, and dining in restaurants will not be going away. However, the range of operators, concepts and venues for obtaining prepared meals and solving for daily meal occasions will continue to expand. Rather than a strict separation of restaurants and prepared meals on one end and grocers and packaged food and drinks on the other, we’ll see more of a spectrum, with a range of different approaches to prepared food and drinks, generally ordered via an app and often fulfilled by third-party delivery.”

Read Full Q&A

Allison Page, Founder, Sevenrooms

“We’re at the early innings of a data revolution for the hospitality industry. Over the next five years, hospitality experiences are only going to become more personalized and tailored to the wants and needs of guests – to the levels we see on an everyday basis from the likes of Amazon and Spotify today. The restaurant industry has been through a lot over the past year, but it’s one of the most inspiring industries to work in and be a part of every day and I’m excited to see what the next five years hold.” 

Read Full Q&A

Trish Paterson, CEO, Copper Branch

“There will be a surge in closings once the subsidies end — restauranteurs are focused on considering drive through and mobile pick up spaces for guests. There will be a stronger focus on touch-free technology (menus etc.). Due to labour shortages, there will be more focus on technology (robotics) for back of house and front of house, including self-serve kiosks, order from QR code at the table, etc.”

Read Full Q&A

Adam Brotman, CEO, Brightloom

“I predict we’ll see a couple of notable shifts. 

First, digital is here to stay and will only increase. Customers crave frictionless experiences. The accelerated shift to digital menus and mobile ordering and payment during the pandemic illuminated a new standard of customer convenience. If I can order ahead and arrange for curbside delivery with a few clicks on my phone, why would I ever return to waiting in line to order and pick up my food?

Second, we’ll see a rebalanced focus on customer retention relative to customer acquisition. It’s commonplace that loyal customers are almost always more profitable. Instead of over indexing on customer acquisition, restaurants will recalibrate their focus on driving sustainable revenue with existing customers based on historical transaction data.”

Read Full Q&A

Andy Wiederhorn, CEO, Fat Brands

“Five years from now, I think restaurants will be built upon the internet of things. Your POS talks to your grill, who talks to your fryer, who talks to your walk-in fridge, who makes an order to your potato supplier without a manager or cook having to lift a finger.” 

Read Full Q&A

You can hear all of these leaders at next week’s Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17th. Get your ticket today.

More Headlines

Ono Food Rebrands as Hyphen, Launches Makeline Food Assembly Robot to Work in Tandem with Humans – Hyphen just launched its Makeline assembly robot, which is meant to help fast casual restaurants quickly and accurately make meals for pick-up and delivery without taking up any additional space. 

Bite Ninja Raises $675,000 in Pre-Seed Funding to Virtually Staff Restaurants – The service allows restaurant workers to take drive-thru and counter orders remotely without interrupting the order process for consumers.

Kiwibot and Sodexo Bringing Delivery Robots to Three Colleges – Kiwibots will be rolling out to New Mexico State University, Loyola Marymount University in California, and Gonzaga University in Washington state.

This is the web version of our newsletter. Sign up today to get updates on the rapidly changing nature of the food tech industry

Taco Bell to Launch New Drive-Thru-Centric Store Prototype

Via a partnership with longtime franchisee Border Foods, Taco Bell is set to launch a new store design the QSR chain says will “simplify drive-thru time significantly,” according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Dubbed Taco Bell Defy, the initiative was first announced at the beginning of 2021, when the store prototype surfaced.

Border Foods enlisted Minneapolis-based design firm Vertical Works to assist with conceptualizing the new building, which will be restaurant number 230 for Taco Bell and Border Foods, and the pair’s 82nd new build.

Speed of service via digital means is the emphasis here. The Defy location will include four drive-thru lanes, three of which will be dedicated to mobile orders and pickups for delivery. (One lane will function like a traditional drive-thru lane.) For these mobile-order lanes, customers will check in and order via QR code, then retrieve their food from a lift system that eradicates the human-to-human touchpoint during a traditional food handoff. The kitchen itself, meanwhile, will be elevated above the drive-thru lanes and staff able to communicate with customers via audio and video features.  

Aspects of the Defy location are reminiscent of store design plans from another major QSR, Burger King. The Home of the Whopper unveiled a store prototype last year that also featured suspended kitchens, multiple drive-thru lanes, and a conveyor belt system that would deliver food to customers without an actual human-to-human interaction. 

Other chains, including McDonald’s, have announced various initiatives over the last several months aimed at digitizing more of the drive-thru operation and in the process speeding up service times. Wait times at the drive-thru have progressively increased over the last several years, and the latest data shows that total wait time in 2020 was about 30 seconds longer than 2019 across the QSR sector. 

So far, only the designs themselves have surfaced for these various store concepts. We have yet to see how these ideas function in real time, in real life, and just how widespread they wind up being in terms of the population’s QSR experience.

Taco Bell breaks ground this month in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, with plans to open by summer 2022.

Bite Ninja Raises $675,000 in Pre-Seed Funding to Virtually Staff Restaurants

Bite Ninja, which allows restaurants to virtually staff drive-thrus and counters, has raised $675,000 in Pre-Seed funding. TechCrunch was first to report the news, writing that the round was led by Y Combinator, AgFunder and Manta Ray.

The basic gist of Bite Ninja is that it allows restaurant workers to take drive-thru and counter orders remotely. Instead of managing staffers, restaurants get access to a pool of gig workers (called “ninjas”) managed and scheduled by Bite Ninja. Since these workers take orders remotely (from their own homes, for example), these workers don’t actually show up to the restaurant for their shift.

From the customer’s perspective, little changes about the order-pay-collect process. Someone placing a drive-thru order interacts with a remote worker whose face appears on a screen in the drive-thru lane. The customer may not even know the worker is offsite. Bite Ninja says this method can actually increase order accuracy and upsell rates for restaurants.

Bite Ninja is coming along at a time when the restaurant industry is in the midst of a labor crunch and struggling to find workers. Bite Ninja’s platform can help alleviate this issue by allowing QSRs to staff up on demand without going through the process of hiring and training a worker. Another benefit in these pandemic times is that by shifting some of the order taking to a virtual staffer, more social distance can be created in the back of house because there is one less person on-site. For workers, Bite Ninja opens up new work opportunities because they can pull shifts in different restaurants and time zones from the comfort of their home.

As the pandemic pushed people out of dining rooms and into off-premises meal formats, restaurants have needed to modernize their drive-thru operations. Bite Ninja is among a number of companies that are looking to make drive-thrus both faster and more accurate. Other startups, such as ConverseNow and Valyant AI are building artificial intelligence agents that can take orders from people using natural language.

Bite Ninja Co-Founder Will Clem will actually be speaking about his business and the future of QSRs at our Restaurant Tech Summit next week. And just like one of his company’s ninjas, you can attend virtually from your couch, so grab your ticket today!

Ono Food Rebrands as Hyphen, Launches Makeline Food Assembly Robot to Work in Tandem with Humans

One of the questions that always comes up when talking about food robots is what will happen to the human workers. Coming out of stealth mode today, Hyphen‘s answer is to have its robot work alongside people. Well, technically, to have the robots work underneath them..

Hyphen launched its Makeline assembly robot today, which is meant to help fast casual restaurants quickly and accurately make meals for pick-up and delivery without taking up any additional space. Perhaps the easiest way to think about the Makeline is to picture a Sweetgreen (Hyphen has not announced a deal with Sweetgreen, I’m just using it as an illustrative example). When you’re physically at a Sweetgreen, you order at a counter, and a worker there goes down the line with you, adding the ingredients you want to your meal.

With Hyphen’s Makeline, that counter of ingredients is still there, as is the person. But the magic happens underneath the counter, where a robotic system dispenses ingredients from the same trays used above the counter to assemble electronic orders. In effect, the Makeline is doubling the output of a restaurant’s counter system with humans taking in-person orders and the robot handling off-prem ones.

In addition to saving space, the Makeline is also modular, so restaurants can lengthen and shorten it as needed. Additional modules can be for more ingredients, and there are beverage dispensing modules, re-heating modules, mixing modules, lid and label modules, and staging modules that hold multiple items for pickup.

Hyphen’s Makeline is able to make 350+ meals per hour, and the initial cost is $10,000 for implementation and integration. After that there is an undisclosed per-use fee. In a video chat last week, Hyphen Co-Founder and CEO Stephen Klein told me that his company has signed deals with eight partners, seven of which are fast casual restaurants and one of which is a co-packer for a grocer.

But it’s not just a new robot that Hyphen is debuting today, Hyphen is actually the new name and direction for what was once Ono Foods Co. Ono made a robotic smoothie making system that fit in the back of a van so it could move to different spots throughout the day. Ono Food also had ambitions to be an owned and operated restaurant brand. But Ono launched in October of 2019 which, of course, was just months before the pandemic hit the U.S. in full force. So Ono retrenched, laid off staff and pivoted.

Klein said Hyphen was able to re-purpose its original technology. “We leveraged the same technology to make smoothies to make plates,” he said. Additionally, the company hasn’t lost those mobile roots, as Klein said Hyphen’s Makeline can still fit in a van. “The technology is still mobile [and] can fit in van or ghost kitchen, it doesn’t matter the environment,” he said. “A lot of our partners want to be in spaces that don’t have four walls. It might make sense to have a mobile kitchen.”

As it moves from smoothies to food assembly, however, Hyphen is facing a more competitive market offering a variety of solutions. Picnic‘s assembly robot offers a similar modular design that will eventually be able to accommodate foods like burritos and sandwiches, but it only works with pizza toppings right now. Karakuri and RobotEatz are more autonomous standalone kiosks, but can be customized to create a wide variety of hot and cold dishes.

The biggest selling point for Hyphen, however, will most likely be the space it saves restaurants. By adding a robotic layer to existing dish assembly workstations, Hyphen not only answers the question of what to do with human workers (keep them), but also solves the problem of where a new robotic system would go.

Q&A: Fat Brands’ Andy Wiederhorn Talks Virtual Dining, Delivery Adoption, and the Biggest Challenge for Restaurants Right Now

Fat Brands, parent company of Fatburger, Hurricane Grill & Wings, and others, was something of an early mover in the world of delivery-only and virtual restaurant concepts. The SoCal-based company, which owns several restaurant brands, was one of the first to trial delivery via third-party services. And when the pandemic hit last year and shut down dining rooms, Fat Brands was quick to respond by launching virtual concepts in its existing restaurant locations.

Since that time, the company has acquired the Johnny Rockets brand and completed merger with Fog Cutter Capital Group, among other milestones from the last year and a half. 

Fat Brands CEO Andy Wiederhorn will share his thoughts on digitizing a restaurant company in the pandemic era at The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17. As a teaser, we recently got some high-level thoughts from him around the future of virtual restaurants, ghost kitchens, restaurant tech, and more. Full Q&A is below. And if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

The Spoon: What problem does FAT Brands solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry as a franchisor?

Andy Wiederhorn: One thing that’s especially exciting in today’s landscape is our multi-concept offerings. We make it efficient for franchisees to be able to operate a variety of concepts under the same umbrella under one franchisor. As a result, our franchisees are able to offer things like virtual restaurants out the back door of their anchor brand. Under other franchisors, this wouldn’t be permissible. 

What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

Delivery adoption has far exceeded what was an already impressive growth trajectory. The shift to online ordering also accelerated dramatically. This led to innovative changes in tamper-proof packaging, POS and more. There is still so much more to come regarding increasing speed of service, labor crisis relief, and overall margin improvement thanks to rising wages.  

Is the restaurant dining room going away for fast casual/QSR formats?

No. Are they evolving to accommodate digital users? Yes. These formats also need to evolve to accommodate virtual restaurant capabilities. At the end of the day, people want to go out to eat and, more specifically, want to eat and socialize in a dining room. If you look at restaurant sales today, it’s abundantly clear there is a strong demand for people to eat and socialize in restaurants. 

What is the biggest challenge for restaurants right now when it comes to digitization?

The biggest challenge for restaurants starts with finding the right POS system. Outdated POS makes it very difficult to implement exciting new technology as they don’t have robust systems to tap into API. New cloud-based systems allow for quick and easy pivots that lead to a comprehensive ecosystem encompassing delivery, loyalty, mobile payments, apps and more software solutions. 

What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

I’m excited about restaurant technology enhancing dining experiences. I don’t think people want robots to replace good servers, but there are exciting opportunities to improve everything from speed of service to overall efficiency.  

What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

Five years from now, I think restaurants will be built upon the internet of things. Your POS talks to your grill, who talks to your fryer, who talks to your walk-in fridge, who makes an order to your potato supplier without a manager or cook having to lift a finger. 

Brightloom’s Adam Brotman Wants to Better Educate Restaurants on How to Use Their Data

One thing the restaurant industry has in abundance right now is data, and as more of the front and back of house get digitized, the amount of data will only grow. But unless you happen to be Starbucks, with deep pockets and lots of resources, making sense of all that data is, in Brightloom CEO Adam Brotman’s words, “a herculean feat” that most restaurants simply can’t afford right now.

Brightloom’s data-science-as-a-service platform aims to help restaurants including small- to medium-sized ones, make more sense of their data and get better insights from it via the company’s customer growth platform. With it, restaurants can organize their data to answer questions about who their customers are, how many customers they even have, what they’re buying, and how frequently they’re doing it, among others.

Brotman will be talking more about the importance of restaurant data at The Spoon’s upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17. As a teaser, we recently got some high-level thoughts from him around why data is important to the future of the restaurant and how businesses can better leverage it. Full Q&A is below. And if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

The Spoon: What problem does Brightloom solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry?

Adam Brotman: Brightloom provides restaurants of all sizes with the ability to develop an effective growth marketing strategy using the customer data they already have. At its essence, it is an intelligent marketing platform built around customer transaction data and powered by measurement and predictive modeling.

The Brightloom Customer Growth Platform (CGP) makes the secret sauce previously available only to giants like Amazon and Starbucks — data science and continuous optimization — available as a simple and affordable service to the huge segment of the market for whom the “build-your-own” option just isn’t a reality, especially now. With the CGP, restaurants can deliver personalized, relevant, and rewarding experiences to their customers that drive higher customer engagement and measurable business results.

We start with a brand’s existing data, we run it through our proprietary ML models and then the CGP provides insights and analytics around the brand’s digital customer base and digital business. Next, the CGP delivers smart segmentation that allows a brand to easily run a series of personalized marketing campaigns on their own channels.

What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

Last year, COVID-19 forced retailers and restaurants to digitize their operations seemingly overnight, and in turn, brands digitized a majority of their customer relationships. In fact, The Boston Consulting Group found that one-third of restaurants’ digital customers ordered online for the first time during the pandemic. With vaccine distribution well underway, signs of economic relief, and regional restrictions loosening, it’s paramount for restaurants to leverage technology in order to maintain these new digital relationships and drive sustainable revenue.

In the years leading up to the pandemic, brands have competed on customer experience. Now, the battlefront is moving squarely towards digital and omnichannel experiences. Restaurants have an opportunity to convert their new digital customer relationships into a highly effective customer growth strategy. 

What will happen to restaurants that don’t use this time to learn how to better leverage their data?

In short, they are going to be left behind. Restaurants are still reeling from last year’s disruptions, and we saw the pandemic force 100,000 restaurant closures in six months. The good news is there’s tremendous upside and potential for those who are able to adapt and take advantage of newly digitized customer relationships. The QSR, fast-casual, and casual restaurant segments have seen an uptick in purchase frequency for digital customers compared to non-digital customers. Relatedly, recent research found that more than 90% of customers who are fully vaccinated plan to continue to order online at least as often as they do now. Restaurants are sitting on a gold mine of first-party, transactional customer data. The key now is for them to harness it in a way that drives customer retention and sustainable revenue. 

What is the biggest challenge for restaurants right now when it comes to digitization? 

One of the largest challenges we see restaurants struggle with is how to best collate customer data and in turn take action on it. The reason it’s so difficult is because it requires brands to perform a couple of herculean tasks in sequence.

First, they must access and organize their customer data to create customer segments. That alone isn’t difficult, but when you look at it from another dimension — e.g., what product offer should I send this customer — it becomes exponentially more complicated. Virtually no business could afford the human-hours required to do it manually. Instead, brands must use an algorithm and predictive modeling to understand product offers by customer segments instantly across multiple dimensions. Building this algorithm takes data engineers, data scientists, and digital product experts, and most brands don’t have the teams or resources to build it in-house. 

What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

For too long digital leaders have been misled with the notion of a golden customer record. The attitude that more data is better is false. Marketers spend more time collecting and cleaning data than acting on it.

We’ve now reached a pivotal tipping point that will redefine the future of digital experiences and how brands engage with their customers. The digitization of restaurants and the explosion of data and analytics around what customers want has opened seemingly endless possible avenues for digital marketers to explore, ideate, and create. From intuitive payment to streamlined ordering to tailored loyalty programs, I’m excited to see how restaurants will continue to elevate the dining experience for their customers.

What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

I predict we’ll see a couple of notable shifts. 

First, digital is here to stay and will only increase. Customers crave frictionless experiences. The accelerated shift to digital menus and mobile ordering and payment during the pandemic illuminated a new standard of customer convenience. If I can order ahead and arrange for curbside delivery with a few clicks on my phone, why would I ever return to waiting in line to order and pick up my food?

Second, we’ll see a rebalanced focus on customer retention relative to customer acquisition. It’s commonplace that loyal customers are almost always more profitable. Instead of over indexing on customer acquisition, restaurants will recalibrate their focus on driving sustainable revenue with existing customers based on historical transaction data.

Q&A: Copper Branch CEO Trish Discusses the Intersection of Technology and the Plant-based Food Movement

By some accounts, the QSR is headed towards a future where more of its menu is derived from plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy. Canada-based chain Copper Branch is one such chain leading that shift. 

The company’s franchise locations span Canada and are now making their way into the U.S. and other parts of the world. But bringing more plant-based food to QSRs is only part of the Copper Branch mission. Earlier this year, company CEO Trish Paterson talked about the company’s “triangular focus” when it comes to sustainability. The goal is to strike a balance between human health, animal welfare, and planetary health when it comes to food, packaging, operations, and everything else it takes to run a restaurant. 

Trish will join The Spoon at our upcoming Restaurant Tech Summit on August 17, where she and other panelists will discuss the current state of the restaurant industry and where it’s headed. As a teaser, we recently got some high-level thoughts from her around the future of the data-driven restaurant. Full Q&A is below. And if you haven’t already, grab a ticket to the virtual show here.

This Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity.

The Spoon: What problem does Copper Branch solve for restaurants/the restaurant industry?

Copper Branch: Our restaurant brand provides a 100% plant-based option to our guests in a fast casual format including takeout and delivery. We are also an incubator for new food innovators to launch their products in food service.

What is the biggest change in terms of the restaurant industry’s approach towards technology as a result of the pandemic?

Much more emphasis on third-party delivery apps and proprietary mobile app for geolocation and customer loyalty, and revamping of loyalty programs.

Can tech play a role in moving more people over to plant-based foods and a plant-based diet? If so, how?

By tracking and rewarding sustainability as part of loyalty program. Copper Branch is considering creating a leaderboard across the chain that will reward customers using algorithms to track sustainable metrics.

What is the biggest challenge for restaurants right now when it comes to digitization? 

Cost and maintenance of systems and technology.

What are you most excited about when it comes to the impact of restaurant technology?

Better data and rewarding guests for eco-friendly initiatives.

What do you think the restaurant industry will look like in five years?

There will be a surge in closings once the subsidies end — restauranteurs are focused on considering drive through and mobile pick up spaces for guests. There will be a stronger focus on touch-free technology (menus etc.). Due to labour shortages, there will be more focus on technology (robotics) for back of house and front of house, including self-serve kiosks, order from QR code at the table, etc.