If the shortest path between two points is a straight line, the shortest path to a smart tech play might mean a trip to Point B Restaurant Technology Innovation Center in Chicago.
Walk into the center and you will find a Wonka-like facility, which is decked out with more than 70 screens, featuring the latest in restaurant tech, with an emphasis on quick-service, table-service, and fast-casual operations. The center allows operators to kick the tires and see how tech platforms perform functions, from calculating team-based tipping to managing scheduling, all courtesy of Point B’s industry consultants.
Rich Faltot, senior client partner for the restaurant industry for Point B
This tech utopia didn’t happen overnight. “From concept to build-out was 14 to 16 months,” said Rich Faltot, senior client partner for the restaurant industry for Point B, in an interview.
The concept was born from a brainstorming session Faltot had with a colleague over logistics.
“We were in a testing phase with a client on a point-of-sale system and back-of-house implementation, a full stack refresh, and we thought, man, if we just had a place where could do our own testing instead of flying to a client and waiting for the client to load data,” he said. “What if we could just do it ourselves?”
Point B decided to build its own lab.
It swung the doors open for the first time in May, during the National Restaurant Association Show. With 55,000 food-service professionals in town, Point B got the word out that it would offer tours in 10-minute blocks. “We did that all night,” he said.
Brands have been streaming in ever since.
“We’ve spoken with Whataburger, Golden Corral, Red Robin, Taco Bell,” he said.
It’s more than just the opportunity to come in and test the tech. Point B offers workshops. Some can be simple. Or some can span more than one day and involve several pieces of tech.
“If someone wants to come in and explore the art of the possible and see some demos, we won’t charge. But if someone wants us a workshop customized for that company, we can do that with some planning,” he said.
Point B offers a menu of eight choices and already Faltot is seeing some popular topics emerge.
“A lot of brands have been expressing interest in Gen AI,” he said. “What we do is reach out to some of our partners. We’ll call Qu and say, Hey, do you want to send somebody for a workshop? Then we contact DecisionLogic and do the same thing. And then AWS. We run the workshop together.”
It will do the same thing with Toast, PAR, Aloha, Prefectos, NCR Voyix, and more.
But one thing is clear: Point B isn’t charging fees for tech companies to get face time with brands.
“We’re not selling tech,” he said. “We don’t get kickbacks. We tell our partners that you can talk about your services yourself. We’ll create the space and facilitate but we want brands to hear from you, not us.”
The space in the center features a painting from a Chicago muralist, “to give it a restaurant flair,” Faltot said, noting that internally staff members refer to the fake restaurant as Point B-stro.
So far it’s been receiving raves, recently from Checkers, who brought in its leadership team, but Falthot notes that it’s still early stage. There are countless configurations to display. There’s more that can be done.
“It’s an evolution. It’s not static. Right now we’re in MVP one. We’re working on MVP two. A year from we’ll be at MVP three. We’re going to add more partners, more integration, more capabilities to the space,” he said. “We’re going to keep going.”
