Restaurant operators at the FSTEC foodservice technology conference this week are getting introduced to some of the biggest advances in industry history, from bright kiosks to programs that manage reviews to an awful lot of artificial intelligence.
Yet, while many of these technologies look and sound cool, each of them has a hurdle before they can become commonplace inside U.S. restaurants: They must generate a return on investment.
Operating a restaurant remains challenging, and profitability has been tested with years of rising costs and now weakening traffic. Operators may like a technology, but they also want that technology to have a positive net result.
“If I ask them to spend a dollar, I have a show a return,” said Sherif Mityas, CEO of Brix Holdings, the Dallas-based owner of franchises such as Friendly’s, Red Mango and Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt. “You can’t just sell a shiny new ball. There has to be a business case, something that has a return.”
Mityas was talking during the C-Suite in the Hot Seat session at FSTEC, featuring a variety of executives of various chains sitting down for interviews with Restaurant Business Editor-at-Large Peter Romeo and Sam Oches, editor-in-chief of RB sister publication Nation’s Restaurant News.
The interviews provided some insight into the thinking of a variety of restaurant companies as they build their tech stack.
Many of these brands intensified their technology efforts when the pandemic hit four years ago.
At the North Carolina-based buffet chain Golden Corral, the pandemic was particularly devastating. The company reexamined its strategy to ensure that it could survive for 50 years post-pandemic.
“We stripped the walls down and came out with a new strategy,” said Dawn Gillis, Golden Corral’s chief information officer. “We wanted to make ourselves a great place to invest for our franchisees. So we looked at all the restaurant technology running in the restaurant.”
Some brands invested years ago in technology, which proved to be a lifesaver during the pandemic. At Habit Burger & Grill, the company invested in an
omnichannel guest platform to work with third-party delivery services and websites.
“We were able to turn on curbside service within two weeks of COVID hitting,” said Mike Repetti, chief digital and technology officer for the fast-casual burger chain.
Some brands find it easier to convince franchisees to get behind new technology simply through their ownership strategy.
The quick-service seafood chain Captain D’s operates just over 300 of the chain’s 526 restaurants. The company tests a lot of its technology before asking franchisees to adopt it.
“They know corporate would never bring a solution unless it worked for [our] 300 stores,” Chief Marketing Officer Bindi Menon said. “There’s a mutual respect there.”
But a return on investment is often more complicated than simple dollars and cents. Often it’s about speeding service or making life more efficient for employees. And some of it isn’t often obvious.
For instance, when Captain D’s added online orders, those orders went straight to the back of the house. That’s key for a chain with a generally complicated order, so counter workers don’t have to search for each of the items themselves. “It’s right there. It’s easier,” Menon said.
“Easy” is a common theme. Technology that simplifies life for general managers is key. At Habit, for instance, the company years ago acquired the source code enabling general managers to centralize user names and passwords for 27 online programs they needed to access to do their jobs.
The company created a tool to check off the 27 websites managers go through. “We want to get our GMs out of the office,” Repetti said. “We’re hiring smiling faces, not tech support. We want them out of the office and in the front of the house.”
At Friendly’s, the company gets more adoption among operators when they show how technology can make life easier.
“If I take something that takes an hour from my GM’s life so they could spend an hour with a guest or training a team member, that’s a huge win,” Mityas said.
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