In the past 16 months, much of the restaurant industry has turned its attention to customer engagement at all costs. When COVID hit, there was a widespread realization among operators that when customers aren’t coming in or have to stay home, smiling, happy regulars quickly become online strangers. Those that were ahead of the consumer engagement game bounced back earlier and sustained better through the worst of the pandemic and are getting back to normal faster or doing better than they were in 2019. Michael Schatzberg, a New York restauranteur […]
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Kitch is a matchmaker connecting growth-minded restaurant brands or aspiring chefs who aren’t looking to sign multi-year leases with underutilized kitchen spaces.
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Slice is on the receiving end of a big block of mozzarella as two former Twitter execs joined the Cross Creek investment firm on a $40 million Series D funding round to help the New York-based pizza-focused delivery service kick off its latest round of growth.
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Some lucky customers in Texas can now get a fully automated robot delivery from Domino’s. In the real-world launch of a partnership we covered last year, the pizza giant and automation partner Nuro are finally doing real-world testing of automated deliveries. The test will be limited to a single location in in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. Customers ordering and pre-paying for their meals will be asked if they would like their order delivered by Nuro’s R2 Robot. Domino’s wouldn’t divulge specifics, but a representative said there would be […]
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During the FOD Tech Stack panel focused on low-friction order handoffs, Del Taco, Apex Supply Chain and CardFree shared creative high-tech and non-tech solutions to increase volume and ease the ordering process for consumers.
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Take one look at the ecommerce marketing world and you’ll see a frightening amount of data at work. One search for socks follows you to the very ends of the earth. The restaurant industry is playing catch-up on big consumer data, but the massive shift to digital ordering has accelerated that dramatically. During a panel discussion with Food On Demand, two marketing vendors with a handle on big, big data discussed how the marketing end of the restaurant sales funnel is getting digitized. “Hospitality at its core is understating who […]
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High-touch, hospitality-minded restaurant folks are more than ready to bring people back into restaurants. But the founders behind delivery-only virtual restaurant brand Stay’d are looking to bring some of that high-touch hospitality to the delivery experience. Compared to a great restaurant, delivery can be a bit of a hollow experience no matter how good the food is. As many restaurant operators lament, it’s an experience largely dictated by whoever shows up to take the delivery. “I don’t necessarily like not controlling the whole process,” said Jeff Castillo, CEO of Maadaadizi […]
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Ghoster is the latest early-stage virtual restaurant provider promising that a focus on operations and technology will make the difference for restaurants bringing new brands into their kitchens.
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Fast-casual franchise Saladworks is partnering with Ghost Kitchen Brands to open in dozens of non-traditional locations by the end of 2021, many of which will be inside Walmart stores.
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Tock, the restaurant reservation platform that moved into carryout and events, has been acquired by website and ecommerce platform Squarespace in a $400 million mix of cash and stock.
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