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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Chopt

Chopt, Dos Toros Piloting CLEAR’s Biometric Platform to Screen Restaurant Employees

Biometrics in the foodservice industry tends to raise questions, but the debate over whether restaurants should use it may soon become a thing of the past. Founders Table, a restaurant group that includes Chopt and Dos Toros Taqueria, announced today it has teamed up with the CLEAR platform to test a health screening process on employees. The success of this pilot could mean a new form of employee health management is on its way to the restaurant biz.

According to a press release, a pilot of this program will start with the reopening of Chopt in Washington, D.C., and Dos Toros in NYC. More than 30 employees will use the new “Health Pass by CLEAR,” which was released this year, as part of their daily health screening. 

Anyone who’s been to an airport in the last few years will recognize CLEAR as the company that keeps kiosks near the terminal that scan a user’s fingerprints to identify them and enable faster check in. Health Pass by CLEAR does away with the kiosk aspect of this, as the system works on mobile devices to connect health information to employees biometric data like their faces and fingertips. 

Once set up in a restaurant, employees verify their identity with biometrics from a mobile device, and also complete a real-time health quiz (based on CDC guidance). They upload their data to their test provider, which verifies their health scan and identity. The system can also perform temperature checks. The idea is that once restaurants have near-instantaneous results on these elements, they can decide whether to send a worker who isn’t feeling well or has a high temperature home.

Biometrics, of course, bring up a lot of questions around data privacy. However, most of those questions originated in a pre-COVID world, and more people could be wiling to part with that data in order to be assured they’re eating, working, shopping, etc. in a safer environment. CNBC mentioned recently that “health screening could become an everyday task for many Americans.” That would make sense in a restaurant — even those with off-premises formats — where the operating model relies on other people touching your food.

Plenty of other companies offer health-related tools for restaurants. Squadle released its own scanner in June, and DragonTail Systems is using its AI to scan the cleanliness of food prep areas. Then of course there’s PathSpot, which scans employees hands to ensure proper hand washing. CLEAR, however, goes the most in depth because of the identity recognition aspect of its system. And if its pilot with Founders Table proves a valuable tool for restaurants, many other chains will likely adopt the system.

Chopt Is the Latest Restaurant Chain to Launch a Store Dedicated to Delivery and Pickup Orders

Chopt Creative Salad joins the growing number of restaurant chains building out brick-and-mortar stores completely dedicated to delivery and pickup orders. The fast-casual chain opened its first location for off-premises-only orders last week in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. 

Customers of the Chopt SoHo store can order online or via the chain’s mobile app, bypassing the need to wait in line and interact with a cashier. Delivery orders are handled by the major third-party services (Grubhub, DoorDash, etc.), while the SoHo location will also feature self-order kiosks for those walking in off the street. Those kiosks will be able to accept cash in addition to cards — an important feature in an age where the debate over cashless payments is heated and chains like McDonald’s have come under fire recently for kiosks that won’t take good old-fashioned greenbacks. 

Chopt hasn’t said whether its delivery- and pickup-only store will provide a new model for future locations. CEO Nick Marsh told Forbes that, “It will be a significant part of our growth going forward, though we can’t give a percentage on how many of them will open.”

Chopt isn’t the only salad chain in NYC to be experimenting with off-premises order formats. In October, Just Salad teamed up with Grubhub to deliver a virtual restaurant brand called Health Tribes to NYC customers. Sweetgreen, who raised another $150 million in funding in September, has expanded its Outpost service, which entails placing pickup stations in office buildings. The chain also just opened its Sweetgreen 3.0 store, a so-called high-tech location that emphasizes self service and orders destined for outside the restaurant.

It all makes sense. Salad travels well — better than, say, french fries. But — and this is the understatement of the week — salad chains aren’t alone in embracing this off-premises store model designed to fulfill more delivery and pickup orders. Chick-fil-A has operated off-premises stores since 2018 and just announced it’s also working out of DoorDash’s new ghost kitchen in Northern California. Starbucks has a to-go-only store in China and one planned for NYC. Masses of other chains following this trend is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

In a place like NYC (or San Francisco, for that matter), the model allows restaurants to utilize smaller spaces and cut down on the amount of rent they pay to be in business. And as demand for delivery increases along with the expectation for online ordering and self-service technologies, this to-go concept will become a de facto part of most major chains’ strategies.