Several years into this dinner-on-demand revolution, catering has emerged as an adjacent option to give restaurants another avenue for adding incremental sales and revenue.
Seth Cohen feels as though his poké restaurant, Sweetfin, is “kinda like the guinea pig” in the world of fast-casual restaurants working with third-party delivery services. It’s a role that’s brought some headaches—Sweetfin’s small footprint means waiting delivery drivers create “a bit of a cluster”— but also insight into how operators can make delivery work to their advantage.
It takes a village to grow sales in a catering business, said Gracie Prasanson, director of sales at Jason’s Deli. “You need everyone in the store comfortable with sales.” But you also need to explain to everyone from kitchen staff to counter workers why catering is an important part of a fast-casual business.
A new study from Market Force Information about the U.S. grocery industry shows significant churn for meal-kit delivery services where all the needed ingredients and recipes are shipped directly to homes.
Scads of battery-powered scooters under the brand names of Bird and Lime have been deposited in urban areas across the country in recent weeks—in many cases without municipal approval or permission. In response, cities are fighting back with licensing rules and cease-and-desist letters.
LevelUp, a restaurant analytics, loyalty and rewards company, announced a new partnership with Restaurant Revolution Technologies to help restaurants gain enhanced exposure and ordering distribution across several newfangled ordering channels.
According to a report in TechCrunch, Ford has teamed up with Postmates for a pilot test of on-demand delivery with approximately 70 businesses in the Miami metro area. TechCrunch also reports that Ford is testing vehicles with multiple storage lockers so vehicles can handle multiple separate deliveries in the same trip.
Supermarket giant Kroger took another step to bolster its online grocery and delivery business, this time with a partnership with driverless car company Nuro to deliver groceries with its vehicles.
Following in the footsteps of Dunkin’ Donuts, which began a catering test in four states in March, McDonald’s is in the midst of its own breakfast catering trial program in Central Florida. Several breakfast bundles, such as a six-pack of steak Egg McMuffins or the Breakfast Boss are available for pick-up or delivery from UberEats at 195 McDonald’s restaurants in the Orlando area.
Minneapolis-based Bite Squad has announced an expansion of the service in the southern suburbs of its home market, as well as a corresponding charitable partnership with Second Harvest Heartland—Minnesota’s largest hunger-relief organization. Bite Squad has initiated a FundRazr campaign to raise funds for Second Harvest Heartland to help support people in the local community who face hunger every day. The campaign runs from July 5 through July 19, 2018. “We’re in the business of feeding our customers every day, but we know that we often drive right past families who […]
