If You are Seeing a Lot of Tech in Restaurants Now, Just Wait
Stepping into a restaurant these days can feel like walking onto the set of Dune. It’s pretty tech heavy. You may have ordering kiosks on your right, digital food lockers on your left, robots zipping around. And it’s likely to get even more futuristic,...
Speedy Eats Has an Unmanned Drive-Thru You Gotta See To Believe
Frederic “Speed” Bancroft had such a lousy experience at a fast-food restaurant in 2015 that he decided to design a QSR without a human in it. “This lady griped at me because I didn’t read a sign on the ordering menu about the credit-card machine being down. I started...
Marqii Partners with Open Table, Expands Review Management Capabilities
Digital operations platform Marqii has combined with OpenTable to incorporate publisher reviews on its review dashboard. The dashboard will feature reviews from the likes of Yelp, Facebook, and Grubhub, Uber Eats and ezCater —to name just a few. Marqii restaurant...
Taco John’s Launches Voice AI Ordering with Presto
Taco John’s is the latest chain to test voice AI ordering in its drive-thrus. To make this happen, the taco hub has teamed with AI automation technology provider Presto and restaurant point-of-sale (POS) provider Qu. Presto Voice will be available at select...
Build or Buy? Steering Through Maze of Custom Vs. Commercial Tech
Running restaurants today looks a lot different than years ago, especially when it comes to tech stacks. “When I first started in this industry, close to 20 years ago, operators typically had just a couple pieces of technology that were largely centered around their...
Restaurants Arrive at an Inflection Point With Packaging
A restaurant operator hoping to make an ecological packaging decision needs to be conversant in the following words: biodegradable, compostable, disposable, durable, perishable, recyclable, renewable, reusable, stackable, sustainable. This is what is required if they...
Amazon Embeds Grubhub Food Delivery into its App
Amazon customers in the U.S. can now order food from nearby restaurants through Grubhub—directly on the e-commerce giant’s website and app. The deal gets tastier if you’re an Amazon Prime member. Members will receive a free Grubhub Plus membership, normally worth $120...
In New Reality of Delivery-Only Models, Food Quality Is Nonnegotiable
It wasn’t long ago that influencers, musicians, celebrities—and those looking to reclaim some sense of celebrity—were attaching their names to virtual restaurant brands. Remember Pauly D’s Italian Subs? (Yes, the DJ who starred on MTV’s “Jersey Shore” more than a...
A Global Look at the Drive Towards First-Party Delivery
Contributing editor, Peter Backman is a long-term foodservice sector guru and founder of theDelivery.World, a platform that connects the delivery sector and makes sense of the myriad changes and challenges that affect the sector across the globe. As the restaurant...
Outstanding Operators
Food On Demand Outstanding Operators features restaurant brands with innovative operations that are taking creative paths to success with delivery and all things off-premises.