Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

mobile order

Odeko AI-Driven Platform Aims to Boost the Supply, Demand, and Lifespan of the Indie Coffeeshop

A lot of us dread the idea of a world where speciality coffeeshops are gone “going for coffee” means getting a Starbucks latte delivered via DoorDash. 

Dane Atkinson, CEO of tech startup Odeko, clearly doesn’t want that day to happen either, which is why his company has developed a mobile ordering and supply chain management system that is, for now, specifically geared towards keeping specialty coffeeshops in business. 

Speaking on the phone this week about his company’s overall mission, he said “the really important message [is that] if we don’t sustain this industry, it really will become Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. They will consolidate in smaller locations and the community and neighborhoods will suffer.”

NYC-based Odeko, which closed a $12 million Series A round in August, recently merged with fellow coffee tech company Cloosiv, has since the start of the pandemic looked for ways to help businesses make both the front and back ends of the coffee shop more efficient, less wasteful, and more financially sustainable over the long haul.

The consumer-facing side of Odeko’s business functions similar to those of mainstream coffee retailers. Customers order and pay for pickup through the company’s mobile app or website. At the moment, Odeko has about 10,000 coffeeshops on the platform across multiple U.S. states. Atkinson says the benefit for customers is its current focus on speciality coffeeshops, which simply means less sifting through irrelevant options to find a high-quality espresso. (Odeko vets its potential merchant partners in order to ensure they actually are specialty coffeeshops.)

The coffeeshops themselves get perhaps the most benefit from the platform. Listing a business on the platform means the coffeeshop itself doesn’t have to come up with the resources to create a mobile order app from the ground up. Odeko charges a 5 percent commission fee per order, which small compared to others, including third-party aggregators a la Grubhub.

Sales data is then used, via AI, to predict volume so that coffeeshops know how much to order in terms of paper supplies, baking ingredients, beverages, and other items needed to run a coffeeshop. Businesses can browse the company’s Cafe Supply Catalog to find all of these items, which Odeko then delivers as a single shipment. 

Atkinson said this supply side of the business is “exploding” now that restaurant industry margins are so tight that any amount of money lost through inventory waste or inefficient supply chain processes can spell the end for a business. “Previously, as a shop, you could get away with some waste in your inventory,” he noted. Now, throwing out unused inventory is akin to “your own salary you’re throwing out.” He says the system is “90 percent accurate” in terms of predicting inventory needs for a week.

The need to digitize the back of house and make it more efficient is a theme that comes up a lot nowadays, with companies like Galley and Souszen applying software, automation, and IoT to change how the back of house is run. Odeko stands somewhat apart from these companies because of its accompanying consumer-facing tech, and also its focus on independent and specialty retailers. It’s main competitor in the coffee-specific mobile order space is Ritual, though Ritual does not have a supply chain side of its business.

Odeko doesn’t necessarily want to solely commit itself to coffee for the long haul. Atkinson says the system could actually work for other types of food businesses, including juice bars or full-service restaurants, and that at some point down the line the company will expand in terms of the types of food businesses on its platform. For now, keeping the independent coffeeshop, the connective tissue of many neighborhoods, alive is its main mission. 

Taco Bell Unveils New ‘Go Mobile’ Restaurant Concept

Two big trends are a foot in the world of quick-service restaurants: orders going off-premises and major chains redesigning their store formats to better meet that demand. Taco Bell is the latest major QSR player to respond to these trends. Today, the chain announced a new restaurant concept, “Go Mobile,” that emphasizes the role of digital in the restaurant experience.

Speaking in today’s press release, Taco Bell President and Global COO Mike Grams called the new format “a completely synchronized digital experience centered around streamlining guest access points.” 

To that end, the new store format includes two drive-thru lanes, with one dedicated to customers that order via the Taco Bell mobile app. New technology integrated into the app will detect when customers arrive to pick up their order and direct them as to where they can retrieve the food. (Sidenote: the tech sounds like geofencing a la Panera, but Taco Bell’s press release did not use the term.) Go Mobile will also feature curbside pickup and “bellhops,” who will take orders via tablet in the drive-thru lane and at curbside. 

Taco Bell also notes that this new store format will be physically smaller than its normal brick-and-mortar locations, which makes sense, given the reduced dining room capacity under which restaurant operate these days. 

Other QSRs have made similar moves in the last few months. Starbucks is reformatting many of its traditional cafes to act as to-go-focused locations. Chipotle, a brand not historically known for drive-thru service, is all-in on its Chipotlanes. Shake Shack is also revamping its focus to include more drive-thrus and digital-forward experiences. Even Domino’s, which has always been an off-premises business, is revamping its format to include more curbside pickup.

Taco Bell’s first Go Mobile store is set to open in the first quarter of 2021.

Takeout, delivery, and curbside pickup are still the main formats through which these big brands can reach customers at the moment. With dining rooms still operating at reduced capacity and the future of full-service restaurants still very much uncertain, we will see more QSRs rethinking their brick-and-mortar locations to fit the off-premises style that’s become, for better or worse, the new restaurant experience. 

Paytronix Raises $10M for Its Restaurant Guest Management Platform

Restaurant guest management platform Paytronix Systems announced today it had raised a $10 million round of fresh funding. The round was led by Great Hill Partners and Paytronix cofounders Matt d’Arbeloff and Andrew Robbins, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. This brings Paytronix’ total funding to $75 million.

The company said the funding is “designed to ensure that Paytronix is on sound financial footing and will continue to provide its restaurant, convenience-store, grocery, and retail clients with the communications tools necessary during this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.” 

The Paytronix platform offers a number of different solutions restaurants can add to their tech stacks, including loyalty program capabilities, custom mobile apps, messaging, and data analytics. Its software integrates with most of the major POS systems, and the company counts California Pizza Kitchen, Bloomin’ Brands, and restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You among its clients. 

Many of those brands, not to mention independent restaurants, are feeling the strain imposed by COVID-19 and the accompanying dining room shutdowns. And while we’ve called into question the value of certain restaurant tech solutions at a time when businesses need to cut back to necessary tools only, what we can count on is that some tech will be necessary for restaurants to both survive the pandemic and function once the world settles into its new normal.

Paytronix — whose website actually reads “slim down your tech stack — recently released a number of features that seem geared towards that particular approach to restaurant tech. The company now offers an online ordering platform that integrates with both POS systems and third-party delivery platforms. Even more important in these pandemic times, restaurants can now set up touchless payments through Google Wallet and Apple Pay integrations. 

Contactless payments, in particular, will be an important technology for restaurants of all sizes going forward. Bo Peabody, who sits on the task force that created the reopening guidelines for the state of Georgia’s restaurants, recently told me that it’s one of the most important pieces of tech a restaurant should consider right now. He went as far as to say that by the end of next year, “putting your credit card down will be a thing of the past.”  

Whether or not that will actually happen, we’re likely going to see many more guidelines around restaurant reopenings for the rest of the year, some of them focused on the most useful technology businesses can implement in this weird, uncertain time. Patyronix, with this new round, looks to be positioning itself as close to the center of that usefulness as it can get.

A Peek Into the Tech That Could Power Next Week’s Restaurant Re-openings

As you’ve already heard by now, some U.S. states — notably Georgia and South Carolina — are set to relax their quarantine rules and allow certain non-essential businesses to reopen next week. That includes restaurant dining rooms. We’ve already made some predictions about what those dining rooms will look like, and this week, I got some more intel from tech entrepreneur Bo Peabody, who is on the task force that helped create the reopening guidelines for Georgia restaurants. 

Peabody is also the co-founder and chairman of Seated as well as a board member of Boqueria Restaurants and a longtime industry vet. Over the phone this week, he talked through many of the guidelines created by the Georgia task force, which also had involvement from The National Restaurant Association. (You can read The Association’s full guidelines here.)

While many of those guidelines are around implementing social distancing and stricter health practices, Peabody suggested technology also plays a key role. That includes everything from using a text to let people know when their table is ready to implementing digital menus and contactless payment systems. 

“We suggest embracing technology wherever you can,” says Peabody, though he admits tech is “a tough one” in terms of a task for restaurants. In particular, contactless payments will prove challenging for many operators. “We suggested contactless payments if you have that in your restaurant. But most restaurants don’t have that technology,” he said.

Contactless payments take many forms. They can happen through an order-ahead system, at a tabletop kiosk, or with a handheld device a la Starbucks. The common denominator in all these technologies is that they eliminate the need for a customer to hand a credit card to a server and vice versa.

‘We’ve been behind in this country at pay at the table,” said Peabody. And to implement any new technology, restaurants need time and money, two things in short supply these days. While restaurant tech companies have been waiving and reducing some costs, restaurants large and small are just busy trying to keep the lights on right now.

One solution could be QR codes. Peabody describes this as every POS company adding the ability for restaurants to include a QR code on the check. When the server brings the bill, the customer can simply scan the QR code with their own phone to pay for their meal. Ideally, the server would be able to split a check multiple ways, just as they can with credit card payments. 

He says that Toast is currently rolling out such a system, and that others may do the same soon. In fact, he goes as far as to suggest that by the end of next year, “putting your credit card down will be a thing of the past.”

And while contactless payments will be a challenge until that day, mobile ordering might be even trickier for many restaurants to implement. While we’re quick to praise the efficiency of mobile order systems offered by massive chains like Chipotle and Starbucks, the reality is that those apps cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop.

Peabody recommends solving the contactless payments issue before trying to tackle mobile ordering.

Even for those that do look to mobile ordering, developing an expensive in-house solution won’t make sense for most restaurants. A more likely scenario, he says, is that customers will start using apps provided by POS vendors, reservations companies, or even credit card companies to pay for meals. 

Before any of that happens, though, we have to actually reopen restaurants. Georgia’s plan for next week will give us some clues. For example, the success or failure of the reopening may give intel into whether we’re putting enough emphasis on basic safety precautions.

It’s also important to note that not every restaurant in Georgia is going to open next week. “For the most part the bigger operators in Atlanta are not going to open on Monday,” says Peabody. “Outside of Atlanta I think you’re going to see a lot more opening. The pressure to open will mount on everybody in Georgia as the days go on.”

Even so, Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A has already said it will “take additional time” before reopening. Nationwide, Starbucks said its re-openings will be “gradual” and that some stores may just continue as off-premises-focused locations. TGI Fridays has also said it will sit out on this initial reopening phase. 

Finally, let’s not forget that experts have warned it is too soon to relax shelter-in-place measures, so it’s entirely possible restaurants that choose to open will face some massive health risks for their workers. If that’s the case, tech may need to take a seat even further in the back.

Peabody believes that long term, more good than not will come in terms of the new developments restaurants have been forced to adopt during this time, technology and otherwise. In the meantime, as Peabody says, “What’s going to happen in Georgia is a dress rehearsal for the country.”

Domino’s Is Losing Its Legal Battle Over Website Accessibility. Good

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from Domino’s fighting a ruling that a blind customer could sue the chain for violation of the American Disabilities Act (ADA) after he couldn’t use the Domino’s website to order a pizza. The ruling comes at a time when the restaurant experience is more digital than ever thanks to the growing popularity of things like mobile ordering, delivery, and ghost kitchens. It will also likely trigger more action on the part of restaurant chains to make their digital properties accessible to those with disabilities.

For a quick backstory, in July, Domino’s petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of California resident Guillermo Robles, a blind customer who filed the lawsuit after two failed attempts to order a customized pizza from the Domino’s website and app. Robles argued that protections under the ADA apply to online properties as well as brick-and-mortar ones. Domino’s refuted the point, stating that the ADA regulations were written long before digital restaurant ordering existed and that the government hasn’t yet issued rules on how businesses should make their websites ADA compliant.

The puzzling element of this case has always been that Domino’s is a massive entity with ample resources to put towards improving the way its website and app functions for the disabled. That Domino’s prides itself on being more a tech company these days than a pizza chain makes the case even more of a head scratcher. You would think a company that wants to be known for its technology-forward approach to business would be falling over itself to set the standard for ADA-compliant digital properties.

But the opposite seems to be true. Domino’s has instead argued that the recent “tsunami of website accessibility litigation” by plaintiffs is “exploiting the absence of a standard for their own benefit” and that federal standards need to be put in place.

While it’s true that digital properties present more challenges when it comes to staying ADA compliant, Domino’s argument overall has been weak from the start. Rather than use the case as an opportunity to help create clearer regulations and become known as a champion of more ethical tech, the chain has instead chosen to spend millions of dollars fighting a ruling it will in all likelihood still have to comply with.

It’s estimated that blindness in the U.S. is expected to double to more than 8 million people by 2050. Meanwhile, around 26.9 million U.S. adults have some vision loss.

At the same time, though, more than 5 billion people own mobile devices, at least half of which are smartphones, the restaurant experience is only getting more reliant on digital properties. Add to that the rising popularity of delivery-only ghost kitchens, which wouldn’t exist without digital devices, and it’s easy to see why the issue of restaurants making their properties ADA compliant is so urgent now.

While a large number of restaurant websites are still not designed for ADA compliance, this week’s ruling should certainly motivate other chains to provide an acceptable level of service via digital properties to those with visual, auditory, and cognitive disabilities. If Domino’s is smart, it will start using some of its innovation muscle to be part of the solution, rather than continuing to paint itself as the villain of the story.

Krispy Kreme Gets a Digital Makeover With Newly Redesigned Store

Krispy Kreme debuted its first store redesign in over a decade this week, and it’s all about digital enhancements to speed up ordering, payments, pickup, and delivery for the doughnut-centric business.

According to a press release, the first of these locations opened on Tuesday in Concord, N.C., appropriately just a stone’s throw away from the company’s Global Product & Innovation Center.

Besides an expanded menu and something called “an enhanced doughnut theater experience,” where you can watch the goods being made step by step, the new store design features a number of tech-forward initiatives. Online ordering is integrated into the overall format, as is delivery. In terms of physical layout, the store has a dedicated area for self-service mobile order pickup for customers and/or delivery drivers. Krispy Kreme has also expanded the store’s drive-thru to two lanes — much like Dunkin’ did in 2018 when it opened its next-generation concept store.

The similarities between Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ shouldn’t be taken as a doughnut to donut comparison, though. Rather, Krispy Kreme is merely following the direction most QSRs are traveling these days, which is all about becoming digital-first restaurants that can accommodate the growing number of sales channels (in-store, delivery, mobile app, drive-thru) customers want as options for ordering, as well as growing demand for better personalization. The news comes just days after KFC announced its digitally focused drive-thru of the future, Starbucks opened an express store concept in China, and, here in the U.S., Brightloom (formerly Eatsa) upped the ante on restaurant-tech in general by partnering with Starbucks to license the latter’s tech. Among many other developments.

According to the press release, the Concord, N.C. store is the first of 45 planned Krispy Kreme locations, new and existing, that will get the digital makeover throughout 2020.