This series, Business in Better Shape, was born from new research by Stacked and Square, The Long-Term Case for Smarter Tech Investment.We spoke to more than 150 hospitality leaders across the UK, uncovering an industry stuck between ambition and hesitation. Most hospitality teams buy tech only when something’s on fire - Square’s research shows just 6% plan purchases, while 94% react. That insight inspired this series, real conversations with operators who are finding ways to move forward, to simplify, to modernise without losing what makes hospitality human.

In our third epsisode Jonny Bramwell, Regional Ops at Rosa’s Thai shares the operator’s view from the floor, pick tools that give time back, fit the brand, and lift service - not add noise.Episode HighlightsBrand-first fit: tech must support the Rosa’s experience (fast, fresh, friendly) without forcing guests down paths they don’t want.FSR: in full-service, tech should facilitate the theatre and human touch, not replace it.Test & learn (hard): run real trial sites, stress-test with frontline teams, and involve the partner directly in fixes.Time back for teams: main buying lens - does it reduce workload, protect work-life balance, and free GMs to plan (not just cover shifts)?Operator dashboard: mornings start with covers, like-for-like, delivery, and guest sentiment to decide where to lean in.Adoption signals: happier teams, lower turnover, stronger reviews, rising spend/head = tech is actually used and valued.Buying criteria: brand fit, guest experience, time back, scalable rollout (roadmaps alone are not enough).Work with reality: mistakes happen - what matters is a partner who stays to tweak and land it properly.Message to vendors: do the homework, tailor the pitch, and focus on the two outcomes that matter: enhance guest experience + coach/develop teams.This series is powered by Square - helping hospitality operators put their business in better shape through connected commerce, payments, and restaurant technology.https://squareup.com/gb/en

💡 Connectivity in hospitality is no longer optional — it’s as important as gas, water and electricity.

Host Chris Fletcher chats with Andy Maynard (Head of IT services and Solutions Caffè Nero) and Joe Strudwick (Head of National Accounts, Sky Business) about why reliable networks now power everything from card payments to coffee machines — and how smart operators are treating connectivity like a true utility, not an afterthought.

☕ How do you keep 600+ stores online?💸 What’s the hidden cost of downtime?🔐 And how do you build resilience that protects your brand, your teams and your guests?

Powered by: Sky Business

⏱️ Chapters00:00 – Why connectivity is as vital as gas, water & electricity ⚡01:24 – Meet Andy & Joe02:09 – Inside Caffè Nero’s global network05:08 – Every SaaS tool depends on uptime08:01 – When Wi-Fi drops, operations stop10:02 – Fibre, EPOS, IoT & SD-WAN explained12:58 – Creating one “gold-standard” store setup16:59 – Downtime = money on the floor 💷17:42 – Staff experience and tech frustration24:03 – Treating connectivity like a utility30:04 – 4G failover & real-time monitoring35:03 – The future: security, resilience & smarter sites43:56 – Wrap-up & next steps

✨ Key Takeaways

• ​⚙️ Connectivity is as essential as your utilities
• ​🚀 Uptime = revenue, morale & guest loyalty
• ​📶 Standardise, monitor & build in resilience
• ​🕓 Match support to trading hours — not office hours
• ​🔐 Cyber security is now a board-level topic

🎙️ Guests

• ​Andy Maynard – Head of IT services and solutions
• ​Joe Strudwick – Head of National Accounts, Sky Business

👋 Host: Chris Fletcher🎛️ Production: Stacked🤝 Series Partner: Sky Business

AI isn’t here to replace ops, it’s here to amplify it. Laure Joyeux (Expansion & Partnerships, Inpulse) and Italo Vendramini (Head of Operations, La Maritxu) share how AI-driven forecasting powers inventory and purchasing, cutting order-building time, lifting availability, and reducing waste. We cover trust on the shop floor, onboarding and support, supplier integrations (incl. EDI/email), and what changes as you scale from one site to many.
Presented by Lightspeed Restaurant.

Guests
Laure Joyeux — Inpulse
Italo Vendramini — La Maritxu (Basque cheesecake bakery, London)

Key takeaways
• ~90%+ production accuracy trending to ~95% as models learn
• Pre-filled orders save ~50% time; managers keep final say
• Better availability, less spoilage, clearer supplier comms
• Two years’ sales history = day-one accuracy; new sites settle in ~2–3 months

Chapters
00:00 Intro & sponsor
02:00 Meet Laure & Italo
06:30 What Inpulse does
12:00 Trusting AI on site
18:30 Purchasing & suppliers
25:00 Onboarding & support
31:00 Scaling to multi-site
36:00 Final takeaways

This week, Chris sits down with Frederick Szydlowski, Co-founder of Embargo, to unpack how an all-in-one, best-in-class approach to loyalty, ordering and CRM can actually move the P&L—without burying teams in complexity.

Freddy’s story runs from professional basketball in Poland to JOE & THE JUICE on King’s Road, to building one of the UK’s highest-rated food & drink apps (4.9★).

We dig into why hospitality still loves loyalty but hates complexity, why first-party data beats data scrapbooks, and how Embargo’s product philosophy (own the journey end-to-end) drives adoption, repeat visits and higher direct sales, operators are reporting ~60% higher delivery volume via their own channels versus marketplaces.

We also cover Embargo’s expanding toolkit (web & table ordering, kiosks, payments), rapid onboarding (often live in 5–10 minutes per channel), and how their new AI models turn weather, behaviour and lookalike patterns into recommended campaigns you can run in minutes, not months.

Brought to you by Lightspeed. This festive season, let your tech do the heavy lifting. Close the year strong with Lightspeed Restaurant.

In this episode of the Stacked Podcast, host Chris Fletcher sits down with David Dillon, Founder and CEO of UROCKED, the digital tipping platform making gratuities transparent, compliant, and fair for everyone in hospitality.

Born from a real operator problem, watching his mum spend hours calculating tips by hand, David built UROCKED to make life easier for hospitality teams and ensure every pound of gratuity reaches the people who earned it.

A year on from the UK Tipping Act, Chris and David unpack what’s changed (and what hasn’t), how technology is helping to close the trust gap, and why transparency is now essential to both compliance and culture.

They cover:
💡 The origins of UROCKED and how it simplifies tipping for operators and staff
⚖️ One year on from the Tipping Act – has it worked?
📱 Why digital tipping boosts transparency, retention, and guest trust
💷 What customers still misunderstand about service charges
📊 UROCKED’s latest research, 65% of staff rely on tips as part of their income
🤝 How tech can balance fairness, compliance, and business sustainability

From “tipping land” to the future of cashless gratitude, this is a refreshingly honest look at how digital innovation can make hospitality fairer, and how small changes can make a big difference to people’s lives.

🎧 Listen now and find out why UROCKED is redefining what it means to earn your tips.

🔗 Learn more at urocked.com

Powered by Lightspeed

This series, Business in Better Shape, was born from new research by Stacked and Square, The Long-Term Case for Smarter Tech Investment.We spoke to more than 150 hospitality leaders across the UK, uncovering an industry stuck between ambition and hesitation.The data showed that while most operators see technology as essential to their future, only 18% would currently recommend their existing systems, and a striking 94% only adopt new tech when absolutely necessary. Fear of disruption, complex integrations, and a lack of vendor support are holding progress back.

That insight inspired this series, real conversations with operators who are finding ways to move forward, to simplify, to modernise without losing what makes hospitality human.In this first episode, host Chris Fletcher talks with Maria McCann, Operations Director at Blacklock, about fear of change, leading people through transformation, and how curiosity and courage can help hospitality get into better shape.Maria’s career spans Hard Rock Café, Shake Shack, Living Ventures, and now Blacklock, where she’s helping scale one of London’s most characterful restaurant brands without losing its soul.This conversation dives into the industry’s long-standing fear of change, how to lead teams through disruption, and why curiosity and calculated risk-taking are essential for hospitality’s future.Episode Highlights🥩 Blacklock’s identity: A modern British chop house, famous for roasts, chops, and sharing culture.🎓 Career path: From studying dietetics to falling in love with hospitality via Hard Rock, then on to Shake Shack and now Blacklock.😨 Why we fear change: Hospitality people are problem solvers who learn from crises, so change is often associated with past mistakes.💬 Communication platforms: When Meta shut down Workplace, Blacklock had to pivot fast without losing team connection.🤖 Tech adoption: The secret is listening to staff frustrations first, then finding solutions to those exact pain points.📊 Sentiment analysis: A “quiet revolution” for guest feedback, giving operators clarity without the overwhelm.🚴 Personal challenge: Maria is training for a 400km cycle in Cuba with the hospitality community, despite being scared of bikes!This series is powered by Square, helping hospitality operators put their business in better shape through connected commerce, payments, and restaurant technology.

In this episode of the Stacked Podcast, Chris Fletcher sits down with Joel Robinson, founder of Openr – a data orchestration platform transforming how enterprise hospitality brands manage their tech stacks.Joel shares his journey from Sainsbury’s digital transformation team to leading digital strategy at Azzurri Group, before building Openr to solve one of hospitality’s biggest headaches: fragmented data and disconnected systems.💡 What you’ll learn in this episode:Why mid-market operators (20–30+ sites) need dedicated digital leadership earlier than ever.How Openr creates a single source of truth for product, pricing, and menu data across POS, delivery, websites, kiosks, and more.The three big wins for operators: efficiency, agility, and accuracy.How Stonegate Group went from updating prices just 3–4 times a year to hundreds of changes with confidence.Why Joel prefers “agile pricing” over “dynamic pricing” in hospitality.How AI is helping automate event menus and unlock new revenue streams.The future vision for Openr: optimising profitability across sales, volume, and margin.🎶 Bonus: Joel reveals his surprising past as a classical singer, with appearances at Carols from King’s and even on stage with Dizzee Rascal!Chapters:00:00 – Intro & Lightspeed sponsor02:00 – Meet Joel Robinson, Founder of Openr06:30 – Lessons from Sainsbury’s digital transformation13:40 – Moving into hospitality tech at Azzurri Group19:25 – Why mid-market brands need digital leaders sooner24:50 – The birth of Openr: solving fragmented data32:15 – Efficiency, agility & accuracy – Openr’s three key outcomes39:10 – Stonegate case study: price changes at scale47:30 – Agile pricing vs. dynamic pricing53:50 – Integrations & sweating your tech stack1:02:00 – Practical AI use cases in menu management1:11:20 – ROI stories & customer success1:18:40 – Openr’s future vision1:23:00 – Joel’s unexpected singing career 🎤1:28:00 – Where to find Joel & OpenrLinks & Resources:🌐 Openr: https://www.weareopener.com🔗 Connect with Joel Robinson on LinkedIn: Joel Robinson

In this episode of the Stacked Podcast, Chris Fletcher sits down with Sean Trevaskis, co-founder of Growdash, to explore how restaurants can turn delivery data into powerful marketing strategies.

Sean shares his journey from working at Talabat and Deliveroo to launching Growdash, a restaurant growth platform that integrates with aggregators like Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and Just Eat. Together, they discuss:

• Why restaurants often struggle with overwhelming delivery data

• How Growdash helps operators measure incrementality vs. cannibalisation

• The role of AI agent Aisha in becoming “the analyst in your pocket”

• Key marketing metrics every operator should track

• Differences between the Middle East and UK restaurant markets

• The future of AI in restaurant marketing

If you’re a marketer or operator navigating the complexities of delivery platforms, this episode is packed with insights to help you optimise campaigns, grow sales, and take control of your data.

👉 Learn more about Growdash at mygrowdash.com

Chris chats with James Fahy, co-founder of JustTip, about building a tipping and tronc platform straight out of school, the UK’s evolving tipping legislation, and why faster, more transparent payouts matter for teams.

James shares what he’s learnt as a first-time founder, how operators can save £5–6k per year through compliant tronc schemes with no NIC for businesses or staff (as discussed), and why partnerships now beat cold calls.

We also touch on weekly “JustTip Tuesdays”, EU expansion, and practical AI use across support and outbound sales.

Thanks to our friends at Lightspeed — the point-of-sale and payments platform helping restaurants run smoother during peak season.

James Fahy — Co-founder, JustTip
Web: justtip.net / justtip.co.uk

• Origin story: a coffee-shop moment that sparked JustTip at age 19

• What JustTip does (the “CAT” pitch): Compliance, Automation of payouts, and Tax savings

• Tronc clarity: paying tips correctly so no NIC for business or staff (as discussed)

• Weekly payouts and transparency for teams (“JustTip Tuesdays”)

• UK vs Ireland: legislation, grey areas, and why big brands move first

• Cost pressures: using tronc compliance to unlock savings and time back

• Holiday pay, agencies, and the realities of complex staffing models

• From cold calls to partnerships and integrations (scaling the lean way)

• EU growth and embedded tipping with merchant services partners

• Sane AI adoption: repeat-issue support bots and smarter outbound — without losing the human touch

• Founder lessons: impatience, resilience, and being the final line of defence as CEO

• Transparency + speed = trust. Weekly, predictable tip payouts boost morale and word-of-mouth.

• Compliance can save real money. Correct tronc flows can mean £5–6k annual savings for a typical site (as discussed).

• Legislation is tightening. UK requirements (e.g., paying collected tips into staff accounts within a month) are pushing operators to formalise tronc and record-keeping.

• Partnerships scale better. Integrations and ISO/VAR channels beat one-by-one selling once the product fits.

• AI helps with the boring bits. Use it for repeat support and structured outbound — keep people for nuanced, emotional interactions.

• Founder reality. Titles mean little; being there “when it goes wrong” is what wins and keeps customers.

• “They don’t care about the product — it’s, are you going to be there when it goes wrong?”

• “JustTip Tuesdays became a thing — like a mini payroll each week.”

• “If you push tips correctly through a tronc scheme, the business pays no NIC and the employee pays no NIC.”

• “I got one of the lowest grades in entrepreneurship — then learnt it all on the job.”

• Intro & sponsor

• James’s backstory and the coffee-shop spark

• What JustTip does (CAT: Compliance, Automation, Tax)

• UK/Ireland legislation & tronc reality

• Weekly payouts, team impact & transparency

• Cost savings, holiday pay & agency complexity

• Scaling: partnerships, integrations, embedded tipping

• Practical AI in support and sales

• Founder lessons & what’s next

• JustTip — justtip.net / justtip.co.uk

• Slush (Helsinki) — tech conference referenced by James

• Connect with James Fahy via the JustTip website.

• If you’re an operator reviewing tipping and tronc, map your current flow and payout cadence — then compare the potential NIC and admin savings from a compliant scheme.

• Subscribe to Stacked⁠ for more operator-first, tech-that-works conversations.

Host: Chris Fletcher
Guest: James Fahy, Co-founder at JustTip
Producer: Stacked⁠

Powered By Lightspeed

This week, Chris sits down with Victor Lugger, co-founder of Big Mamma and Sunday, to unpack how “invisible tech” (think: pay-at-table that just works) can lift guest experience, speed up service, and actually reduce the tech clutter on the floor. From 31 trattorias across 8 countries to Sunday now processing $4.2bn and hitting ~90% adoption in London, Victor shares the operator’s lens on what matters: faster, simpler payments; more time for hospitality; and real-world KPIs that move the P&L.

• Why “less tech, better service” wins: replacing terminals with phone-based payment, not piling on more tools.

• Adoption that sticks: 70% in months → ~85–90% in the UK when teams offer the option properly.

• Guest experience uplift: table turns +12–16% at busy brands; reviews surge when the Google prompt sits right after payment.

• Tips up, teams happier: 2–4× tips (UK) and ~+12% (US) thanks to AI-powered tip prompts.

• Loyalty that finally works in full-service: ~52% of Sunday payers enrol vs 2–5% on terminals; earn/burn becomes seamless.

• Enterprise scale: POS-agnostic (24+ integrations), terminals + pay-at-table + hybrid ordering where it fits.

• The “guest app” vision: payment as the universal touchpoint to identify 70–100% of guests and trigger CRM/loyalty, not just bookings.

• 00:00 Intro & sponsor: Lightspeed Restaurant

• 01:05 Meet Victor: Big Mamma (affordable luxury) → Sunday (pay-at-table)

• 07:20 Why paying is broken — and how Sunday made it 5-second simple

• 12:10 Staff first: freeing servers for real hospitality, not card machines

• 16:40 Adoption drivers: the team makes the metric

• 21:15 Fine dining vs casual: why higher spenders adopt more

• 25:30 Reviews & revenue: faster turns, Google love, real KPIs

• 31:45 Loyalty that isn’t cringe: enrol, earn, burn without friction

• 38:20 US scale, data-led operators, +12% tips

• 44:05 AI in practice: smarter tip options; ordering patterns; service recovery

• 51:10 UK market maturity: bookings, POS, checkout, CRM

• 56:00 What’s next: Dubai & US for Big Mamma; Sunday’s guest-app flywheel

• 59:30 Where to find Sunday & wrap-up

• “We’re not adding tech — we’re replacing old tech with something guests already have in their pocket.”

• “Give guests the option. If 82% choose phone, we’re doing something right.”

• “With Sunday, tips are 2–4× higher in the UK and about +12% in the US.”

• “On Sunday payments, ~52% of guests enrol to loyalty. On terminals it’s 2–5%.”

• “Dishoom Shoreditch went from ~10k reviews at 4.4 to ~38k at 4.8 in 18 months.”

Victor Lugger — Co-founder, Big Mamma & Sunday
Website: sundayapp.com
(Also live on the Stacked⁠ Marketplace.)

Lightspeed Restaurant — the point of sale and payments platform helping operators fly through the festive rush and beyond.

• Big Mamma: 31 sites, 8 countries; Dubai opening; US expansion.

• Sunday: pay-at-table, terminals, hybrid ordering; 24+ POS integrations; $4.2bn processed YTD.

• Operators: want the numbers behind adoption, tips and table turns? Take our Tech Check and we’ll map your stack and intros.

• Suppliers: interested in a case study or Shift Talk slot? Get in touch via Stacked⁠

What you’ll learnChapter markersPull quotesGuestSponsorLinks & mentionsCall to action