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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

POS systems

The Week in Restaurant Tech: Ordermark and Omnivore Team Up, Employees Get On-Demand Pay

The restaurant biz may have once been seen as slow to adopt technology, but that’s less and less the case these days. In fact, between all the apps, kiosks, back-of-house systems, front-of-house software, automated pickup cubbies and enough other developments to fill a 600-word post, restaurant tech is a bit of a juggling act to keep up with lately.

A bird’s eye view of the scene every once in a while helps, so with that in mind, here’s a quick look at some highlights from this week in restaurant tech:

Ordermark and Omnivore team up for POS integration.
Los Angeles-based Ordermark, whose hardware-software package streamlines third-party delivery orders into a single dashboard, announced this week it has partnered with POS integration company Omnivore. The deal will allow any restaurant using certain POS systems, including Oracle Micros, Brink, and Dinerware, to integrate with Ordermark and aggregate orders from popular third-party delivery services like DoorDash and Grubhub.

Ordermark, who recently raised $18 million in Series B funding, serves major chains across the U.S., including TGI Friday’s and Subway, while Omnivore works with some of the biggest POS systems (see above). According to the press release, the combined integration “addresses over 85% of [restaurant] venues in North America.”

Waitbusters integrates with Postmates.
Waitbusters is one of those restaurant-tech companies that started with a narrow focus (getting rid of wait times at restaurants) and has since expanded to offer more features, including table-management features and some marketing. This week, the company also delved into the delivery world by adding a Postmates integration that’s aimed at restaurants that don’t have their own delivery fleet and may not be able to afford commission fees for third-party delivery services.

Restaurants are offering on-demand pay for employees.
With so much of the restaurant biz going “on demand” these days, it was only a matter of time before employee paychecks did likewise. QSRs are now offering ways for workers to instantly access their earnings. Third-party payment company DailyPay offers this feature via patent-pending technology that tracks employee earnings and lets them transfer funds, for a small service fee, instantly to their bank accounts. This week, NRN reported that Burger King franchisee TOMS King and LA-based chain Sprinkles Cupcakes both use the service in the hopes of curbing employee turnover and appealing to Gen Z workers accustomed to on-demand, uh, everything.

Backyard Burgers modernizes its chain with Qu’s POS.
The popular burger chain Back Yard Burgers announced this week it has teamed with POS company Qu to replace the legacy tech still hanging around its 28 locations. Back Yard Burgers, who is headquartered in Nashville, TN and has stores around the Southeast U.S., is on a quest to modernize its operations, particularly when it comes to standardizing and centralizing orders from disparate sales channels. Qu’s platform specializes in just that, integrating orders from web, mobile, and kiosks as well as those made in house.

Paytronix buys Open Dining.
Customer engagement company Paytronix this week completed its acquisition of food-ordering platform Open Dining. According to a press release, the new solution will let customers “use online ordering with integrations to point of sale (POS) and third-party delivery partners such as DoorDash and Grubhub.” Ohio-based Open Dining focuses mainly on small- to mid-sized businesses. With the acquisition, it will rebrand as Paytronix Order & Delivery.

DoorDash Inks Exclusive Delivery Deal With Chili’s

DoorDash’s breakneck expansion across the U.S. continues this week, with the the third-party delivery service announcing an exclusive deal with casual dining chain Chili’s.

According to a press release sent via email, the partnership takes effect immediately at over 1,000 participating Chili’s restaurants in the U.S.

Chili’s, who is something of a poster child for the fast-casual American dining scene, has been vetting third-party delivery services for some time. At the end of April, the company said it was looking for a delivery partner that could adequately cover the suburban markets, where Chili’s has a substantial presence. In that light, DoorDash seems the obvious pick, as it currently holds 30 percent of the market share in sales and is the only third-party delivery company currently operating in all 50 U.S. states (as well as in 50 Canadian cities).

But DoorDash’s ability to integrate with Chili’s existing POS system might have been the real determining factor. Chili’s, along with its parent company, Brinker Internatoinal, has been skeptical about third-party delivery services overall. Brinker CEO Wyman Roberts said back in January that his company was “. . . cautious on business model implications and significant fees, but more importantly, the impact it has on our systems isn’t great.” In the same interview, Roberts added that, “From a technology standpoint, given that so many of these third parties are really priding themselves on being experts, we’re challenging them to integrate better.”

Integrating DoorDash directly into the restaurant chain’s POS system means all DoorDash orders are sent directly to Chili’s, without a server needing to manually input the information. As well, a direct integration means it’s easier and faster for Chili’s to onboard more of its locations onto this new delivery program.

This ability to integrate almost seamlessly into existing restaurant systems may be key for third-party services in future as they rush to gain and retain customers. All of the top services — Grubhub, Uber Eats, and Postmates along with DoorDash — offer POS integration capabilities. The question at this point appears to be more around who can offer it at the best price point for restaurants, and do so without introducing a lot of disruption to day-to-day operations. Might operational efficiency be yet-another area in which DoorDash can stand out?

DoorDash raised another $600 million in funding this past May, bringing the company’s total funding to $2 billion. This came on the heels of a $400 million Series F round raised in February of 2019. DoorDash has also said that since that Series F round, its business has grown 60 percent. Pair those numbers with the company’s continued and aggressive push across North America, as well as high-profile restaurant partnerships like the Chili’s deal, and there’s reason to suspect the company could be well on its way to nabbing the top spot in the market for third-party delivery.

ItsaCheckmate and Allset Team Up to Streamline Pickup Orders for Restaurants

With digital restaurant orders set to triple by 2020, it’s becoming more crucial than ever for restaurants to find ways to manage the flow of different sales channels, from third-party sources to in-house mobile apps. And it’s not just delivery. Takeout also accounts for part of the digital orders placed by 60 percent of consumers each week in the U.S. Even in-house diners can now order via an app rather than a server.

ItsaCheckmate, whose software platform streamlines the task of juggling all these orders, has teamed up with Allset to address the latter two of those sales channels: takeout items and in-house meals ordered ahead of time. The partnership, announced today, is aimed at helping restaurants transition to digital ordering, even if they don’t yet offer straight delivery.

ItsaCheckmate’s technology integrates all incoming orders from third parties into the restaurant’s main POS system. Right now, the system connects major POS vendors like Toast and Clover with outside services like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Postmates. Other third-party partners include the likes of Bite Squad, Texas ToGo, delivery.com, and ChowNow among them.

The whole point of integrating third-party order services with restaurant POS systems is to make the day-to-day workflow easier for restaurant owners and staff, who would otherwise have to manually input all the orders coming from disparate sources — a process that’s fraught with confusion and very prone to human error.

The Allset app, meanwhile, currently serves a few different channels: you can reserve a table, order food, and pay for it before you ever set foot in the restaurant. More recently, the company started offering customers the ability to order and pay for pickup items, too.

Integrating the app with ItsaCheckmate will allow restaurants wanting to include the Allset app among their sales channels to do so without creating more confusion.

ItsaCheckmate counts Dig Inn, Five Guys, Momofuku’s Milk Bar, and Bareburger among its customers. To date, the company has raised $3 million. Allset has raised a total of $8.4 million and currently serves restaurants in NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston, TX.