Restaurant industry statistics can tell us how many locations opened, how much consumers spent and which technologies operators are deploying. But sometimes the most revealing numbers are the ones investors put real money behind. As an avid investor as well as a longtime observer of restaurant and self-service technology, Craig Allen Keefner has found that market performance can… Read More: Restaurant Industry Equity Index »
AI and Restaurants Buzz Research Report Deloitte’s “How AI is Revolutionizing Restaurants” The AI and Restaurants Buzz Research Report by Deloitte isn’t just another “AI is coming” puff piece. Instead, it delivers a data-rich, boots-on-the-ground look at how AI is actually being used in restaurants today and where it’s headed next1. That’s the AI take. Selling it. And you,… Read More: Deloitte Report on AI in Restaurants 2025 »
Olo Review — Should Toast Snap Them Up? Olo is an interesting company and lately there have been smoke signals that maybe it is time to cash in. That is the usual desired outcome. But consider its competitors: Toast, PAR, DoorDash, Square, Oracle, and yes, even NCR. And then the cautions coming from McDonalds and Wendy’s that sales are slowing significantly. McDonald’s reported… Read More: Olo Review — Should Toast Snap Them Up? »
Burger King Drive Thru From KioskIndustry — ACRELEC News from Around the World Maybe the most accomplished of all kiosk providers in the world is ACRELEC (and especially ACRELEC America). We actually awarded “Best of 2024” to two separate kiosk models (K27). Here is our awards page. ACRELEC might be the smartest acquisition Glory ever makes. The ACRELEC AI Voice article… Read More: Burger King Drive Thru with AI Voice Ordering »
Chipotle Robots For Peeling Avocados Nice writeup Excerpt: The “Autocado” machine is installed at a Chipotle in Huntington Beach and cuts, cores and peels avocados before a human mashes them up into guacamole. The “Automated Makeline” is at a store in Corona Del Mar. The locations were chosen for their proximity to corporate headquarters and the chain’s restaurant… Read More: Chipotle Robots Peeling Avocados »
Change of Plans for Sweetgreen Robots Excerpt: “I don’t think you’ll see them in every single store for the reason that we have a lot of older smaller stores in the D.C. area and Philadelphia, and we would probably not go back and retrofit,” Reback said. “We’ve disclosed that 50% of new stores will use the Infinite Kitchen… Read More: Sweetgreen Robots – Not So Fast ! »
Payment Processors – Shift4 is really Shaft4? Thanks to Jordan at Reforming Retail. Nice article. If you are interested in the full picture when it comes to payments, subscribe to Jordan is our very strong recommendation. We have no financial relationship. RR simply grants us permission to provide education and information via their articles. Note that the kiosk… Read More: Payment Processors – Shift4 is really Shaft4? »
Market Research Restaurant Report for McDonalds and Other – Worldwide Report on restaurant market research and kiosks worldwide by Dataos (RBR). Much better than the usual internet scrapes for the Indian datamarts like Research & Markets. They actually contacted us and we provided input on McDonald’s and Burger King. Wendy’s too. Other research conpanies do not canvas people… Read More: McDonald’s WW Market Research 2024 »
The Legitimate Concerns for Toast’s TAM As published on Reforming Retail May 2024 — Not much of a kiosk is shown on their website. Almost appears to be card swipe and is the quintessential lollipop on a stick config. Another scintillating article by Jordan Thaeler this time on Toast, which seems to come up quite a bit. We’ve… Read More: Restaurant Research – Concerns for Toast’s TAM »
Revel & Shift4 Analysis of acquisition of Revel by Shift4 — From Reforming Retail. Excerpt Mistruth #1 Shift4 offers payments and other technology to a range of industries, including restaurants. Its restaurant POS system, SkyTab, is used by operators of many large chains, including Burger King, Applebee’s and Denny’s. Huh? Here’s how Shift4’s communications will go: Shift4 to… Read More: Revel Acquisition by Shift4` »