Restaurant Operator

In this episode of the Pizza Marketplace Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace, talks with Les Tomlin, co-founder and president of PizzaForno, North America's first automated pizzeria, about the rise of food vending machines.

"The concept of automated pizza is relatively new to North America but has been around Europe for almost 20 years," Tomlin told Detwiler. "We found this technology platform — we being my business partner and myself — in France, and we were just amazed that this technology platform had not yet made it to North America."

The pizza vending machine helps with square footage, rent, waste and wages. It bakes an 11-inch pizza in under three minutes in 65 square feet, Tomlin added.

To listen to the podcast click here.

Brand leaders spoke to Restaurant Operator Podcast host Mandy Detwiler at the Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit held in Kansas City in March.

Detwiler spoke to leaders at Longboards Wraps and Bowls, Kansas City International Airport, Hawaii Brothers and more.

"The Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit offers a wealth of information for restaurant leaders and brands," Detwiler said. "The annual event highlighted some of the most pressing issues in restaurants today, including growth, technology and innovation, restaurant delivery, marketing and more."

Listen to what these brands had to say about attending the summit here.

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb, talks to Charles Wetzel, CEO of Kalibrate, a company specializing in data, software and consultancy to restaurants.

Kalibrate, which began in 1970, started on the fuel and convenience side and eventually moved to location intelligence, specifically within the hospitality, retail and restaurant domains.

"Today, a large portion of our business looks to the restaurant community and looks to identify from a global perspective who your customers are, where they're located, and the value of those customers and how that translates into a location intelligence offering," Wetzel said.

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, Networld Media Group Editor Mandy Detwiler chats with Don Smith, director of business development for Givex North America, about the state of the restaurant industry and what's affecting it today. Givex, a best-in-class POS solution, services a number of high-profile brands.

Online ordering has grown since the pandemic, and Smith said it has been a "seesaw battle" for many operators. "The more orders they get obviously drives more money to their bottom line," he said. "But the challenge is trying to get more of that dollar for online ordering."

Ordering sites take a great percentage of online orders, up to 30% for Uber Eats, Skip (a Canadian delivery service) and GrubHub. Givex's clients are working to try to regain some of that percentage, Smith said.

"How they're doing it now is through a many-faceted approach," Smith said. "It combines some loyalty, it combines some private apps, and if they made the right combination, they can claw back some of that 30%"

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, managing editor of Networld Media Group and editor for QSRweb.com and PizzaMarketplace.com, talks to Chris Lybeer, chief strategy and marketing officer for Revel Systems, a cloud-based technology provider, about how tech is changing the restaurant industry today.

Lybeer said it's an exciting time for technology brands in the restaurant space as more restaurants rely on it in both the front and back of the house.

"Costs are going through the roof," Lybeer said when asked what some of the industry's biggest challenges are today. "The cost of everything — the cost of food, the cost of real estate, the cost for labor and so that's putting a lot of stress on the industry and really, in almost any industry — even if you go outside of restaurants — usually when there's pressure on an industry technology is used to make it more efficient."

Lybeer said restaurants have traditionally been behind the curve, but the opportunity and the challenge for restaurants is to figure out how to use technology to battle some of the pressures they're facing.

To listen to the podcast in its entirety, click here.

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Daily podcast, Mandy Detwiler, editor of PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com, talks with Emily Gorman, marketing and communications manager for CORE, a national non-profit dedicated to serving restaurant employees with children financial relief when facing a life-altering health crisis, injury, death or national disaster.

Gorman said CORE's mission is "to be there for all parts of the restaurant industry." A group of beverage executives met at the National Restaurant Association and a conversation was struck up about the lack of support for the restaurant industry. That discussion led to CORE, now it its 20th year.

Pizzeria menus can range from small and tidy to large and complex, but they've all got one thing behind them: research and development.

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace, talks to Hisham Abdulfattah, partner and executive chef of Willow Street Pizza in Willow Glen and Los Gatos, California, about menu development.

Abdulfattah said his first job was working in a kitchen washing dishes at age 14. He later moved on to prep and cooking at a taqueria.

"I fell in love with the atmosphere of a restaurant and the fast-paced environment," Abdulfattah said, adding he went to a culinary academy right out of high school. "I worked probably every position in a restaurant, including front of the house."

During the pandemic, he got a loan and bought food truck, and one of his partners owned Willow Street Pizza, which he later invested in and now co-owns.

"There's something for everyone on their menu," Abdulfattah said. "Willow Street is a place where you can go and feel very comfortable and warm."

To learn more about Abdulfattah's approach to menu development, click the link to listen to the podcast in its entirety.

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of PizzaMarketplace.com and QSRweb.com, interviews Mike Adolph, partner and vice president of business development for Doyle HCM, about keeping the human element in back office management.

Adolph co-founded Doyle HCM, a back office solutions and payroll company, with two partners in 2018. The restaurant space was always in the back of Adolph's mind, and when COVID hit, restaurants needed extra help, especially in the back office space. Doyle HCM was there to pick up the pieces. That hard work allowed Doyle to scale, "and got us to where we are now," Adolph said.

 On this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Wolf Detwiler, managing editor of Networld Media Group, talks to L&L Hawaiian Barbecue CEO Elisia Flores about the brand's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that Flores says are built into her staff as a whole.