QSR December 2022

DIGI TAL INNOVAT ION

across the country. The brand will be available at more than 30 Gopuff Fresh Food Halls, which is equivalent to adding five to 10 franchise restaurants in terms of revenue and EBITDA. Additionally, BurgerFi is working through a revamped loyalty program and more behind the-scenes innovation around a new network stack, security, enterprise resource planning, inventory, and a human resources information system. As for what Goodhew thinks the fu ture of restaurant technology will be, dynamic pricing appears to be on the horizon. “The restaurant industry is a lot like retail in that there are fixed costs that must be endured no matter if you have customers or not,” Goodhew says. “It’s also a lot like hotels and flights in that there is a limited number of dining slots available for a given period. There may be incentive to eat a little bit earlier or a bit later to ease that rush. There may be incentives placed to order in a typical lull to drive demand. Dynamic pricing is not something the customer is used to in a res taurant so careful testing is needed to ensure there’s little downside.”

“I could see how ripe the restaurant space was for a digital transformation and I really wanted to be part of it, as my career has been built on using technology to change consumer behavior,” Neiman says. Neiman adds one technology innovation people need to talk about more is better inte gration across tool sets. “On the consumer side, this means start ing with a customer data platform across all components,” she says. “But there is a lot of integrated back office technology that is easy to use, integrate, and requires limited skill sets that are really the next frontier.”

Sam Zietz GRUBBRR C E O Sam Zietz helms GRUBBRR, a self ordering tech nologies company focused on auto mating commerce, which includes kiosks, smart lock ers, kitchen display

GRUBBRR

systems, order progress boards, digital menu signage, mobile ordering, online ordering, and more. Zietz also leads TouchSuite, a payment processing company he founded nearly 20 years ago. His work with TouchSuite certainly had connections to the restaurant industry with its involvement in credit card processing, commerce solutions, and POS. He noticed the shift toward mobile and kiosk ordering and, four years ago, looked into getting into the sector because of it. He met GRUBBRR founder Bhavin Asher, who also saw this shift in ordering technol ogy, and became CEO and majority owner of the company. Zietz focused on developing the company and its products as well as making strategic partnerships, including a partnership with Samsung. COVID-19 popularized self-ordering tech nology much quicker than Zietz once thought feasible, bringing GRUBBRR’s suite of options to the forefront of the industry’s response. Zietz says the next battleground will be customer personalization, AI forecasting, us ing automation to integrate front and back-of house operations, and gathering and reporting data in real time. GRUBBRR is working on conversational AI-based voice ordering for different channels. It is using a machine learning process called deep learning that uses a structure resembling the human brain to process data. “One of the biggest issues with AI ordering is that it lacks a human touch: it cannot al ways accurately pick up on the idiosyncrasies contained in regular human speech,” Zietz says. “This is the next iteration of AI ordering software.”

Tony Smith Restaurant365 C O F O U N D E R A N D C E O Tony Smith loves to solve problems and has done so for many busi nesses throughout his career using software. This inter

Hope Neiman Tillster C M O

RESTAURANT365

est drew he and his cofounders to a largely underserved and fragmented market—the restaurant industry. When his group learned of the difficulties faced by operators and the complexities of different software solutions only meeting partial needs, they sought to create a unified answer. That was the genesis of Restaurant365, an all-in-one cloud-based accounting, inventory, scheduling, payroll, and HR solution developed specifically for restau rants. Customers run the gamut—major fran chise brands, enterprise restaurant groups, multi-location groups, small businesses, and accounting firms in the industry. “Over the years, the industry’s pain points continue to change based on market condi tions and outside factors,” Smith says. “While I loathe to hear about operators facing difficul ties, that always provides us an opportunity to continually evolve our solution and solve more problems for this industry I’ve grown a deep love for.” Restaurant365 invests heavily into re search and development to continually release new innovations. These efforts are informed by customers’ needs and the industry’s overall evolution. Human resources management appears to be the most common pain point, which is why the company is working toward expanding its payroll solution, driving food cost improvement, and providing better com munication between workers and managers. This includes a new Mobile Manager Logbook, which allows managers to keep a digital re cord of customer concerns, personnel issues, vendor mishaps, and other impactful events.

TILLSTER

Before Hope Neiman joined Tillster, a company that provides quick-serves with digital tools like mobile and online ordering, kiosk ordering, coupon and loyalty programs, delivery in-restaurant solutions, and messag ing, she worked in ecommerce for large companies and digital-only brands. She saw how much opportunity there was in the restaurant industry for the introduction of more solutions, though many were hesitant to implement technology into their businesses. Now, restaurants have had to embrace innovation in order to keep up with the consumer and their competition.

Brendan Sweeney Popmenu C E O A N D C O F O U N D E R

The idea for Popmenu wasn’t born from a complicated place. Brendan Sweeney, with a background in internet product development, user experience, and marketing, had a clear observation: marketing a restaurant with a

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DECEMBER 2022 | QSR | www.qsrmagazine.com