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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

contactless ordering

PayJunction Launches Its ZeroTouch Terminal to Help Restaurants Go Contactless

Joining the list of restaurant tech solutions aiming to bring contactless everything into the restaurant dining room, PayJunction today announced the launch of its ZeroTouch terminal system.

The device combines contactless pay functionality with a traditional credit card swiper, leaving customers the choice of paying with their phones or with a credit card. The cashier controls the transaction via a web interface on the store’s own computer, eliminating the physical act of passing a credit card back and forth. All receipts are digital, getting rid of the need for paper to be handed from cashier to customer, too.

All that said, the device is only truly contactless for those using their phones to pay. Judging from the keypad on the machine, as well as the fact that ZeroTouch accepts both chip and swipe payments, it looks like those who opt to pay with a card still have to key in a PIN. While the aforementioned web browser still eradicates cashier-to-customer interactions from the process, customers will still have to share a keypad with other guests. 

The most compelling aspect of ZeroTerminal is the device’s all-in-one approach to payments. Not everyone can or wants to pay with their phone, and despite some folks believing credit cards will soon be a thing of the past, a good many people continue to pay with them. Having a device that can process both could cut down on the number of devices a restaurant has to juggle. 

PayJunction will find a lot of competition when it comes to making the restaurant dining room contactless. Since the start of the pandemic, contactless order and pay solutions, along with digital menu tools, have swarmed the market. Paytronix, Sevenrooms, Presto, and many, many others now offer such products. Granted, those solutions are geared more for table service, whereas PayJunction’s terminal would work better for counter service, or even somewhere like the self-checkout aisle of a grocery store. 

How the device stacks up to the competition remains to seen, but it’s yet-another option for restaurants to consider as they grapple with the task of going permanently contactless.

Bbot Raises $3M for Its Contactless Restaurant Tech Solution

NYC-based restaurant tech company Bbot today announced a $3 million seed funding round led by Craft Ventures. The company says it will use the new funds to hire up and expand its reach and product capabilities, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Bbot, which was founded in 2017, was ahead of the times when it originally launched its mobile order and pay platform that emphasizes contactless functionality and minimizes human-to-human contact in restaurants and bars. The system integrates directly with a restaurant or bar’s existing tech setup. Customers use their own phones to scan a QR code (usually placed on a decal on the table) and browse the menu, as well as order and pay for food. 

Bbot points to a number of different advantages with this setup. Most obviously, contactless features in the dining room makes it easier for restaurants to foster social distancing among customers and staff. It also more or less forces restaurants to have at least some digital presence, which is becoming increasingly mandatory these days. Bbot also says the system can increase revenue for the restaurant, and that some of its existing clients have seen a 15 percent lift thanks to the system.

While that’s an encouraging figure, the challenge right now for any restaurant tech is two-fold. First is the sheer amount of competition in the restaurant tech space — particularly when it comes to the consumer-facing side of things. As I said earlier, companies that formerly served the front of house are now racing to find new ways to stay relevant. So far, that’s been through contactless dining kits a la Paytronix, Zuppler, Presto, and many others. 

The other part of the challenge is that the state of restaurant dining rooms remains uncertain, to put it mildly. Some states and/or individual businesses are halting or reversing their reopening plans, thanks to a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases, and businesses are being encouraged to continue their focus off-premises orders.

On that latter note, Bbot has an advantage in that its system is designed to work for any type of restaurant setting, including the off-premises ones. That ability to translate across restaurant formats plus its early entry into the contactless space may give Bbot a greater advantage over the competition, even if dining rooms don’t reopen the way we thought they would.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Deliveroo’s New Table Service Feature

U.K.-based food delivery service Deliveroo launched a new feature this week that sounds convenient on the surface but could cause some problems for more than one party in the restaurant biz. This “Table Service” feature, as it’s dubbed, is meant “to help restaurants reopen safely to dine-in customers and help the recovery of the sector,” according to a company blog post. The feature is available on July 15.

In terms of how it works, the feature is simple: Customers sit down at the cafe, restaurant, or bar, pull up the existing Deliveroo app, and order their food with the Table Service feature, rather than directly interfacing with a server. Payment also happens in the app, so that all the restaurant staff (theoretically) have to do is cook the food and bring it out to the table.

Here’s the good of this new way of operating dining rooms:

If you’re an existing Deliveroo user, it’s convenient. You don’t have to download yet-another mobile ordering app, and since this is table service, not delivery, the extra fees third-party services tack onto orders should be minimal. Deliveroo also said in its blog post it will charge zero commission fee to the restaurant on these orders.

Without a doubt, there is also a level of social distancing built into this concept that will be safer for both restaurants and customers. Being able to sit down and order a meal from your phone gets rid of long lines and crowding near a cash register, and it does, to a degree, minimize customer-to-server interactions.

But on that note, here’s what’s less awesome about Deliveroo’s new feature:

It’s not as socially distanced as the hype would have you believe. Someone has to run the food and be available to refill drinks or assist if there is a problem with the meal. (“I said fries, not salad!”)

This isn’t a Deliveroo-specific problem. All restaurants and restaurant tech solutions have to account for the fact that in any sit-down dining experience, you can’t get away from at least some customer-to-staff interactions. I don’t think Deliveroo, or any company, is promising to completely eradicate those interactions. The company blog post specifically says “minimising in-person contact.” Even so, it’s something to keep in mind as more companies come to market with these contactless solutions for dining rooms. 

More worrying is what a feature like Deliveroo’s Table Service means for restaurant tech companies. Like I said, tech companies, and even non-tech companies, offering contactless dining room solutions have multiplied in the last several weeks. Sevenrooms, Presto, Zuppler, this signage company, and many others offer restaurants the technical means to let guests order and pay from their phones in the dining room. Paytronix has a system that even lets you keep your virtual “tab” — that is, ticket — open so you can order another round of drinks or dessert without making multiple transactions.

If third-party delivery starts offering order and pay features for the dining room en masse, it could be a serious competitive threat for these companies. 

Most alarming about this new feature is what it means for customer data. Ownership of customer data is already seen as a huge issue with third-party delivery services. If restaurants can’t see data about what their customers are ordering, when they’re doing it, etc., they’re less able to cater to exactly what those customers want when it comes to food. 

Deliveroo owning the customer data in the dining room could potentially mean restaurants wouldn’t get the feedback they need to deliver good service that’s enjoyable and simultaneously safe in this pandemic-stricken era. 

A while back, one restaurant tech CEO told me that the COVID-19 pandemic should be treated as “a wakeup call” for restaurants when it comes to their data. In his view, these restaurants need to “to rethink how they’re connecting digitally with their customers.” This is likely to become even more important going forward as governments encourage contactless technologies in restaurants and more customers gravitate towards using their phones for browsing and buying from restaurant menus.

So before you restaurants go signing up for Deliveroo’s new model for the dining room, consider first your digital relationship to your customers, how you treat your customer data, and, most important, how willing you are to part with it when it comes to the newly reopened dining room. 

Paytronix Puts a New Spin on Contactless Tech in Restaurant Dining Rooms

Guest management platform Paytronix Systems today announced its version of the contactless dining kit for restaurants, simply called Paytronix Contactless Dining. With it, restaurants can offer guests touch-free ways to browse menus, order, and pay for meals while in the restaurant dining room, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

While the motivation behind Paytronix’ new offering is similar to other contactless dining kits out there — minimize human-to-human contact in the restaurant — the tech itself offers some features we haven’t yet seen on other platforms.

Most notably, Paytronix’ system allows guests to keep their virtual “tab” — that is, ticket — throughout the entire meal.

Right now with most mobile apps, a customer has to order and pay to complete the transaction and get that order sent to the restaurant kitchen. That works fine for takeout or delivery orders, which are inherently meant to be one-off transactions. For dine-in service, however, a customer might want to order a second drink partway through their meal. Or they may decide at last minute to get dessert. For each of those extra items, a new transaction, or “tab,” would have to be made, which means more transaction fees for restaurants that they may or may not pass on to the customer via higher menu prices. It’s also just a messy scenario to have to pay multiple transactions for each course at a single meal.

That mess and expense is what Paytronix is trying to eliminate with this Contactless Dining kit. The platform connects directly to the restaurant’s POS system. Customers then use their mobile devices to browse the menu, order items, and make a single payment (the virtual equivalent of “closing the tab”) at the end of the meal. 

Tim Ridgely, head of development for Contactless Dining, got to the heart of the matter when he noted in today’s press release that, “When it comes to on-premises dining, guests want the freedom to peruse a menu, order what they want when they want it, open tabs, and ultimately, pay for that experience at the end.”

Offering more flexibility in terms of this open tab feature also means restaurants could potentially sell more per ticket, whether that’s a second martini or a slice of cake at the end of the meal. That boost in sales will be much needed for most restaurants, since dining rooms across the U.S. are still operating at reduced capacity and, depending on how the pandemic wave falls, will be doing so for quite some time.

Paytronix joins Presto, Sevenrooms, Zuppler, and other others offering systems that try to minimize contact between guests and restaurant staff.

Of course, to make the most of Paytronix new system, restaurants will actually need a lot of customers. As we learned recently, the general population remains pretty divided about going out to eat. Some refuse to set foot in restaurants. Others were ready weeks before they reopened. Between those two extremes is a swath of folks who, while wary, are slowly but surely becoming open to the idea of going out to eat once more. Restaurant tech companies that can help sway more people towards that idea will be the ones businesses find most valuable going forward.

Ritual Brings Its Online Order Platform to the U.S., Makes It ‘Free for Life’ for Restaurants

Today, online ordering app Ritual announced the U.S. launch of Ritual ONE, its online order platform that lets restaurants host and process digital orders through their own websites rather than using a third-party delivery service. That includes takeout, curbside pickup, delivery, and other off-premises formats, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

The Ritual ONE tool will first be available in the U.S. to restaurants in Chicago, IL.

Based in Toronto, Ontario, Ritual’s order-ahead app has up to now been mostly geared towards the office lunchtime crowd, allowing workers in the same office or location to piggy back off one another’s orders.

Ritual ONE actually integrates directly into a restaurant’s main system, effectively becoming a piece of the business’s tech stack, rather than an add-on that has to managed separately. For businesses that are not already online, Ritual can create a customizable menu.

Ritual created its Ritual ONE service in response to the COVID-19’s devastating impact on the restaurant industry. The tool is actually a joint effort by Ritual and the City of Toronto. Through it, restaurants can accept digital orders through their own digital properties, rather than having to go through a third-party delivery service like DoorDash or Uber Eats to process delivery and pickup orders (though they would in most cases have to use those services for the last mile of delivery).

Lower commission fees is the big selling point here. Typically Ritual charges restaurants a $49 monthly fee for each location for Ritual ONE. However, given the ongoing state of the restaurant industry, the company noted in today’s announcement that “any current or new Ritual customers in the Chicago area will receive the service for free for life if they sign up by July 10.”

That, too, could be a major selling point. One of the major beefs with third-party delivery is the staggering commission rate those services extract from restaurants — up to 30 percent of each transaction, in some cases. Small and/or independent restaurants, in particular, can have their bottom lines decimated by such fees. The shift towards more off-premises orders has only made the issue worse, since restaurants that could previously get by on dining room sales are now forced to offer takeout and delivery. Usually, that means working with third-party services and handing over those hefty commission fees. 

Helping restaurants bypass those fees, at least in part, is something many restaurant tech companies say they can do nowadays. Toast, ChowNow, and others have all made announcements for restaurant tech packs that gets rid of the high commission fees charged by third-party delivery services. Though no one yet has gone as far as to promise free software for life, as Ritual just did. That could be incentive enough for restaurants to try the service out as they struggle to find ways to meet the new expectations around off-premises orders.

Presto Makes Its Contactless Dining Kit Free for Restaurants Reopening Dining Rooms

Restaurant tech company Preso has released a Contactless Dining Kit to assist restaurants with social distancing measures as they prepare to reopen dining rooms in the coming days and weeks. The kit, which Presto is making available free of charge to restaurants, notably offers technologies to assist restaurants with contactless order and payment, according to an email sent to The Spoon.

In certain states, restaurants are slowly but surely reopening. Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and others have all loosened stay-at-home restrictions to varying degrees, though restaurants are operating at reduced capacity and with stricter social distancing measures in place.

In a letter sent to California Governor Gavin Newsom, of which The Spoon has obtained a copy, the Redwood City, CA-based company outlined the technologies on offer in its Contactless Dining Kit. “As our state looks towards reopening for business, it will be important for restaurants to operate in an environment that can reassure customers about their personal safety,” the letter states, before going on to say that the new normal will be “very different” and that “technology can play a very critical role in enabling this new normal.” 

For the Contactless Dining Kit, that technology primarily addresses how restaurants can ensure social distancing during the order and pay process in the dining room. That means plenty of contactless solutions. Presto’s tech stack already offered a number of contactless order and pay solutions prior to the pandemic; for its kit, the company has pulled relevant pieces of software and hardware and bundle them together.

The contactless menu option lets restaurants place a QR code sticker on tables, which guests can scan to access the menu. Any loyalty or rewards programs the restaurant runs can be integrated into the process. For those guests that can’t use their own device or don’t want to, the restaurant can also provide the menu via a Presto tablet placed on the table.

Restaurants can choose to have those orders directly integrated into their main POS system, which would definitely be the more contactless way to go. Otherwise, orders from diners’ devices land in a Staff Tablet and will have to be input into the POS system. 

Finally, the kit’s contactless payments feature lets guests pay via their own devices or the aforementioned Presto tablet on the table. 

Presto says on its website that it will ship a kit within three days of a restaurant signing up for one. Deployment takes “less than an hour in most cases” — though that doesn’t factor in restaurant staff having to learn how to work a new technology. On that front, Presto appears to be trying to make the switch to a more tech-centric dining experience as easy as possible for restaurants. Kits arrive with a tablet, 60 QR code stickers and table placards, setup instructions, and a web portal from which businesses can create and manage their online menus. 

As I mentioned earlier, Presto is giving this pack away for free right now to restaurants. That’s a generous move, given the turbulent times, but it’s also a smart one from a business perspective. Presto is a front-of-house technology company, and at the moment, front-of-house players are fighting to remain relevant in a world where the in-house dining experience will probably never be the same. Allowing restaurants to sample its technology stack for free potentially gives Presto wider exposure across the sector and, so long as execution goes well, helps the company solidify its credibility as an important tech company in the space. 

The company hasn’t yet said if there is a time limit on getting the kit, only that “supplies are limited” and that the offer is only valid while said supplies last.

That it’s chosen to focus on contactless order and payments is also a move that could pay off down the line for Presto. As a growing number of restaurant industry figures have said, contactless will be the way forward, and one of the most important parts of the restaurant experience to get right is ordering and payments.

If Presto can take some headache out of that process for restaurants with its technology, it could win over a lot of new and loyal clients as the foodservice world starts to reopen.