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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Papa John's

The Week in Restaurants: Papa John’s Hearts Food Delivery Apps, OpenTable Expands Delivery Options

We’re neck-deep in final preparations for The Spoon’s Smart Kitchen Summit, which kicks off Monday morning in Seattle. (There’s still time to snag a ticket, btw.) But news doesn’t stop just because we’re throwing a fab event, and for the restaurant industry, it was business as usual this week. Before I hop on a plane and head west, here are a few more pieces of restaurant-tech news from the last few days.

Papa John’s Publicly ‘Embraces’ Third-Party Delivery Apps
Still coming back from controversy that rocked its bottom line, Papa John’s made its stance on third-party deliver clear to the public this week when new CEO Rob Lynch told CNBC that third-party food delivery apps are “an opportunity” for the company, not a threat. This is a direct contrast to Big Pizza rival Domino’s, who staunchly keeps all delivery operations in house. Lynch, on the other hand, says his company continues to meet with multiple third-party delivery services (Papa John’s signed on with DoorDash in March). These apps, he said, have “an impact on our industry, an impact on business. But we believe that’s because we haven’t worked strategically with them.”


Free News Courtesy of Starbucks
As of September, Starbucks quit selling paper copies of national newspapers, which means no more scanning the nearby print copy of NY Times while you wait for your latte. But you can still do it digitally, for a limited time. In a blog post this week, the coffee giant said it is providing “complimentary digital news” with its free in-store Wi-Fi in the U.S. Sites participating include The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), USA Today, The Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and New York Daily News. Many of these papers have subscription paywalls in place that normally limits the amount of content you can see on the website for free. Starbucks also said it will offer discounted subscriptions for print and digital subscribers to the WSJ.

OpenTable Expands Delivery Options to Canada
OpenTable is expanding its delivery capabilities with Uber Eats to Canada, following the launch of the same feature in the U.S. in July. To be clear, you can’t order and pay for food direct from the OpenTable app. Instead, diners perusing restaurants on the OpenTable iOS app will see a “Get it delivered” button and be redirected to the Uber Eats app. It’s another way the company is trying to evolve into more than just a platform for booking restaurant reservations, and in doing so, keep customers inside the figurative walls of its own ecosystem as much as possible.

Revention Unveils New Restaurant Tablet Software
It’s another day and another tablet in the restaurant industry. Point of sale (POS) and mobile order platform Revention launched its own tablet software this week that integrates with the company’s existing POS and mobile order system. The new software, which is compatible with both iOS and Android tablets, promises to streamline restaurant operations, from entering an order to managing and training staff, and works both online and offline. Revention counts Dairy Queen, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and numerous pizza chains, including mall favorite Sbarro, among its customers.

You’ll Soon Be Able to Order Domino’s Pizza From Your Car

Domino’s announced this morning it will launch its Anyware digital-ordering platform in cars in 2019. To do so, the pizza chain-turned-tech trailblazer has teamed up with Xevo, whose in-vehicle commerce technology is currently in about 25 million cars.

This is actually not the first time the Anyware platform has made its way into a car. In 2014, Domino’s worked with Ford Motors to bring voice order to the Ford Sync vehicle. That initiative was slurped up into Anyware when the latter launched in 2015 and is still available today.

With the new in-car app, customers use the car’s touchscreen to find their local store, order, and track the pizza. Voice-ordering will also be available. According to a press release, the feature will be automatically loaded onto cars with Xevo platform starting “in late 2019.” While the release didn’t state which car brands this includes, Xevo already works with Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC, so I’d expect models from those companies to be on the list. Xevo also partnered with Hyundai in 2018 to allow customers to order and pay for meals from Applebee’s, so this isn’t its first go at a QSR partnership.

For Domino’s, the Xevo partnership seems like another stop on Domino’s quest to seemingly try out every new technology it possibly can for delivering pizzas. The list of channels from which Domino’s customer can use the Anyware platform keeps growing: phones, smart watches, TVs, Alexa and Google Home devices, Slack, Facebook Messenger, and Domino’s own Zero Click app. The chain also delivers to HotSpots, which are “non-traditional” locations like beaches, parks, and probably even the zoo. And Domino’s launched a separate partnership with global addressing platform what3words earlier this year, to use the latter’s technology in countries and regions that lack a more straightforward address system.

At one point, Domino’s was the only pizza chain around trying out new technologies left and right, but times have changed. Pizza Hut recently partnered with FedEx to use its autonomous bot to deliver pizzas, and even has some weirder projects in the works, like the autonomous pizza factory on wheels the company unveiled in 2018. (It’s still a prototype.) Papa John’s, who has weathered a good deal of trouble in the last year, got a $200 million investment in February. The company hasn’t said yet what the money will go towards, but if it wants to keep up, a little tech innovation will probably be part of its plans.

The only bummer about the Domino’s-Xevo deal is that you still have to either pick the pizza up at a store or get home by the time the pie arrives. My guess is that will change quickly, and Domino’s will either integrate its HotSpots into car ordering or even use the what3words’ tech. You have to figure that, with its many tech initiatives and a platform called Anyware, Domino’s is aiming to eventually deliver everywhere.

How Should Papa John’s Spend Its New $200M Investment?

This morning Papa John’s announced a $200 million investment from hedge fund company Starboard Value. The company has also named Starboard Value CEO Jeffery Smith as Papa John’s new chairman. The investment is a bright spot after a well-documented year in hell for the struggling pizza company, including a drop in shares earlier this month after talks with other potential investors fell apart. And while a $200 million shot in the arm won’t single-handedly fix Papa John’s reputation, it could help the company once again compete more seriously with the likes of Pizza Hut and Domino’s.

A press release stated that half the $200 million investment will go towards repaying debt, and the remainder will be “providing financial flexibility that enables Papa John’s to invest capital to further advance its five strategic priorities.” Technology is one of them, and it should play big role in how Papa John’s allocates the new funds.

Since the chain’s struggles began around July 2012, other companies have released several noteworthy tech innovations that are changing the way they deliver pizza.

Some highlights are:

Pizza Hut took over as the official sponsor of the NFL. That’s not a tech development in and of itself, but it has allowed the Plano, TX-based company to push its digital rewards program to more people and try out new ways for customers to interact with the app. Pizza Hut also unveiled an autonomous pizza-making machine it’s calling a “mobile pizza factory” manned by a robotic arm that makes pizzas as a human drives to the delivery address.

Domino’s had already rolled out its Hotspots prior to the start of the Papa John’s saga. The company has since furthered its efforts in location-based technology by expanding its what3words partnership to the Middle East, which alleviates some of the friction and delays involved with delivering to regions with irregular and/or non-existent street address systems. The company also added an AI-powered loyalty campaign in 2018.

Even Little Caesar’s, who does not and may never deliver, has been hard at work on pizza innovation with the Pizza Portal, a self-service pickup station for mobile customers, and has a patent for a pizza-making robot.

Papa John’s hasn’t exactly been sitting around doing nothing. The company did revamp its rewards program at the end of 2018, making it easier and faster for customers to earn points and therefore free food. The move, however, seemed more a reaction to falling sales than a push for digital innovation.

That said, Papa John’s should continue to invest in its mobile ordering and rewards platform, fine-tuning the tech to make it as quick and effortless as possible for customers to order. CEO Steve Richie has stated in the past that millennials and Gen Z are an important audience to reach with new initiatives, so any revamping or new developments for mobile order should bear that in mind.

Drive-thru is another area Papa John’s could invest more in and differentiate itself. Dunkin’ set a standard last year with its tech-driven drive-thru, which offered a dedicated lane for pickup orders. Papa John’s could give its mobile rewards program a boost and get on the edge of a growing trend by incorporating a similar strategy at stores that have drive-thrus, and possibly even consider building more drive-thrus where space permits.

If space doesn’t permit (like the hole-in-the-wall location up the block here in Brooklyn), pizza lockers could do the trick. Imagine ordering and paying for a pizza via mobile app on your way home from work, swinging by Papa John’s after you climb out of the subway, and picking up a hot pie from a designated locker. I could see this working in a mega metropolis or even in the airport, where grabbing a slice you paid for on your app would be the fastest way to eat en route to a connecting flight.

Where do you think Papa John’s should spend its investment cash? Drop your thoughts into the comments below.

Domino’s Just Delegated Phone Orders to Its Resident Chatbot

Ordering food online has never been easier, but that doesn’t mean everyone wants to do it. In fact, the phone still the preferred method for most consumers. Trouble is, placing orders via phone means more room for human error, since anything from a spotty connection to bad hearing can lead to incorrect orders.

With that in mind, Domino’s just officially unveiled a method that could leverage the accuracy you get with technology without forcing people to go full digital if they don’t want to.

Its (his?) name is DOM, and while this chatbot-like being has been accepting orders online since 2014, this is the first time the AI-powered voice-recognition system will also be taking telephone calls. DOM can also answer questions when customers call to check on the status of their order. 

“While many of our orders come via digital platforms, there are still millions of customers who like to call in their orders directly to their local stores,” Dennis Maloney, Domino’s Chief Digital Officer, said in a press release. “DOM can now take those orders, freeing up our store team members to focus on preparing orders and serving customers already in the lobby.”

Domino’s has quietly been testing DOM’s phone skills in a handful of company-owned locations over the last few months. Initial feedback was positive enough to expand the test to 20 stores, and Domino’s says it plans to implement the service in more sites over the next few months. 

Meanwhile, Domino’s CEO and President, J. Patrick Doyle, noted (in the same press release) that the company’s goal is to “one day be 100% digital.”

The trailblazing pizza company is well on its way: Currently, 65 percent of its U.S. sales are digital, and Domino’s is continually testing new concepts and ideas, be they self-driving delivery robots or giving customers 15 different ways to order digitally on Superbowl Sunday.

But they’re not alone. Papa John’s claims 60 percent of its sales are digital and says it’s more like Amazon than a brick-and-mortar retailer. Likewise, Pizza Hut addressed its dragging sales by starting a loyalty program and allowing people to order via Amazon Echo. And Little Caesars recently filed a patent for a pizza-making robot, which means they too have an eye towards technological solutions.

So is pizza the new tech company? Actually, it’s a good route to test out these new concepts. The worldwide pizza market is currently worth $134 billion, and one doesn’t need a statistician to predict that the pizza-eating population isn’t declining anytime soon.

But as Domino’s implied when it announced this week’s news, not everyone is ready to hang up the phone and order exclusively through digital. “Voice is a more natural way for people to interact with technology,” Domino’s CEO and president, J. Patrick Doyle, noted in the press release.

It could be this flexibility that gives Domino’s an edge over its competitors. DOM gives the company a way to meet the needs of less tech-savvy customers without sacrificing its digital strategy. That combination could mean Domino’s is headed for absolute dominance sometime soon.