On today's 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we're talking about NEXT-GEN LOYALTY. Spendgo's VP Sales & GTM Strategy Neal Dubisky shares loads of 🪙nuggets🪙on what it takes to drive guest loyalty and acquisition in today's hyper-competitive QSR market. I love Neal's experience, honesty, energy, and perspective. You don't want to miss this.

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 Why Neal sees voice lighting the path to the restaurant cash register by enabling a frictionless loyalty signup bonanza (maybe a slight exaggeration, but not by much - these guys at Spendgo are onto something)

👉 Which app login strategy is the best - by FAR - with 96% of guests choosing this method over a year of testing

👉 Neal's unique and controversial take on personalization, and why he thinks the industry needs to focus more on conversation. We agree.

👉 How Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken drove a 6% increase in loyalty member frequency over a year by revamping their loyalty program

Shout outs in this episode to Keith Canseco at Captain D's and Dan Sokolik at Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken! Keep climbing, guys! 📈📈📈

It's time for the newest 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends! If you want to hear from one of the BEST pizza operators we've ever met, don't miss this. 🍕🍁Pizza Hotline's🍁🍕 President Antonio Cianflone shares his secrets to achieving longevity and growth in this cutthroat space. Culture, operations, and leaning into tech are 🗝️

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 What Pizza Hotline's secret weapons are to driving sustainable growth 📈📈📈

👉 How this chain has turned the humble 📞phone📞 into an efficient, streamlined operations powerhouse with more muscle than most brands could ever dream of. It's so good they offer it as a service to others! 🫨

👉 Magic unlock 🎁to get buy-in at stores and throughout the system to achieve rapid technology adoption and improvement. Way more old-school than you may think but it WORKS.

👉 The RIGHT way to position AI with the team to generate enthusiasm and results

Thank you, Antonio!

TODAY on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends, we chat with Jordan Lomas, former SVP Information Technology at Darden. It's hard to encapsulate the key tech learnings from a storied 18 year run at one of the restaurant industry's most iconic companies in a 15-minute podcast, but we gave it a go. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 What best practices and leadership principles Jordan used to guide Darden's 9 brands to achieve technology harmony and longevity

👉 What smaller to midsize chains (50 units+) need to tackle on DAY ONE to ensure they don't fall victim to ransomware or other cybersecurity threats

👉 Which technologies Jordan is most excited about (*spoiler* - it's AI) but which applications he's surprised about might surprise you

👉 The one project Jordan wishes he could hit the reset button on. We've all been there!

On today's 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends, we sit down with WaBa Grill Franchise Corp.'s Sr. Director of Technology Adam Kinsinger to uncover his secrets to tech success at two fast-growing brands (the other being Egg Tuck). 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 Which investments Adam made to increase digital order mix from 10% in 2020 to 37% at the close of 2024 🤑 🤑🤑

👉 Which technology is creating check bump averages of 📈$1 per order📈 in-store, and how Adam is working to bridge in-store check averages with online. Note: there are DEFINITELY some trends to be on top of here!

👉 Tech tips from the trenches to make soft openings go smoothly 🚀

👉 Where WaBa deployed AI first, and where it sees the greatest AI opportunities ahead

Vendor shout-outs to Bikky, Toast, and Olo in this episode! Keep crushing it, guys!! 💪⚡📈

Next up on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends, we get schooled by Restaurant PE LEGEND Josh Boshard at Savory Fund as we discuss Savory's recent acquisitions and its philosophy around scaling restaurant brands - plus the role of tech in bringing their portco's to the next level. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺👉 Why having the right foundational tech is so important to reaching the next level of scaling: we discuss recent acquisitions including Hawkers Asian Street Food and Bonrue Bakery. Shout outs to Toast and Olo!👉 What common mistake restaurant founders make before they realize it's time to scale up - and what you can do to avoid it. HINT: 📜📜 📜 👉 We discuss a shared conviction that leads to success in the space: if you're a restaurant tech company, do you agree???👉 What bleeding-edge tech WOW'd the chessmasters at Savory and why... shout out to Loop AI - Delivery Intelligence Platform👉 What Josh sees as the BIGGEST tech differentiator restaurants can embrace over the coming 2-3 years

😲INCREDIBLE!😲 Leon Davoyan, EMBA, the Chief Technology Officer of Dave's Hot Chicken sits down with our own Justin Foster to discuss how he's using technology to electrify growth at arguably the QSR industry's hottest brand. 📺Watch and learn📺:

👉 How Leon sees Roark Capital's $1B acquisition impacting the brand and its tech plans moving forward

👉 Why and how Leon changed his mind on the role of kiosks for taking guest orders

👉 Which AI technology Leon sees as the biggest 'game changer' for the QSR segment - and why.

👉 Why you need to master the 4 'F's of selecting technologies for your brand, OR ELSE... 😱 😱 😱

At long last, we sat down with Ovation Founder and CEO 🍽️Zack Oates🍕on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends! Zack is one of the people we admire most in this industry, and he can teach us all a thing or two about how to maximize restaurant guest satisfaction. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 The secret to making long-form guest satisfaction surveys work.

👉 Zack's perspective on platform consolidation in the industry: where it makes sense, and where it doesn't

👉 If time and budget were no object, which #restauranttech company Zack would have Ovation buy, and why

👉 SNEAK PEEK: what's coming in Ovation's upcoming Summer release

Special shout-outs in this episode go to Adam Karveller and Abhinav Kapur! Keep crushing it, guys!! 💪⚡📈

When we think of 💪strength💪in the restaurant tech world, Costa Vida, Fresh Mexican Grill President Wade Allen comes to mind! Dedicated to innovation and leading by example, Wade is propelling this fast-casual fresh-mex leader to new heights. Our co-founder Justin Foster sat down with him to catch up on the latest. 📺Watch and learn:📺👉 How Wade made the leap from senior restaurant tech exec to President of one of the coolest fast casual restaurant brands - and where he's beefing up his skills to ride the wave moving forward👉 How Wade sees the 1st party ordering vs. 3rd party delivery landscape shaping up over the coming years. Controversial? Could be!👉 Wade's hot take on whether it's better to take a best-of-breed approach to tech vendor mgmt vs. looking for all-in-one platforms (hint: it's a little different than how Troy Hooper sees it... will be interesting to watch this play out over the next couple of years!)👉 Which tech suppliers are crushing it at Costa Vida (nice shout outs to Olo, Braze, Sparkfly, Paylocity, and Toast!)👉 The ONE technology every emerging restaurant brand should be experimenting with right now. Hint? 🤖🤖🤖

🎤 Restaurant Voice AI thought leadership knowledge drop!🎤

Here's my reaction to the interview with Wendy's Michael Chorey that was posted this morning (the interview is split into 2 parts, part 1 here: https://lnkd.in/g2MTxTp9 and part 2 here: https://lnkd.in/gjTgQtD2)We focused on Wendy's deployment of FreshAI, a hashtag#voiceAI system that takes drive-thru orders. 🚗 🤖 🍔Easier to capture some thoughts on the interview in video format, hence this post, but I'll sum it up with: Mike made a lot of good points I agree with. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

On today's 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends, we sit down with Savi Co-Founder & CEO Brock Weeks to discuss the future of video and video AI technology in restaurants. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺👉 Why Brock thinks of video as a platform and not a collection of disjointed problems that need solving - this is NOT the traditional way of thinking👉 What's driving restaurant video from the edge to the cloud👉 Which restaurant video use case Brock still doesn't think is ready for prime time despite having evaluated 100's of AI models👉 How brands like Swig and Scooter's Coffee use video to drive service times down by 15%👉 What Brock sees as the 🏆NUMBER ONE🏆 lesson he's taken away while building and scaling Savi. Hints: 🔬 🔭 🔍 👓