This interview is made us hungry for tacos! Tacos from bartaco more specifically. With AUVs well over $5M and an expanding footprint, this chain is onto something big. Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we sat down with bartaco CEO and President Anthony Valletta to uncover how tech is driving this brand into the future.

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How a new hybrid 'high touch, high tech' guest experience is reducing turn times, superior hospitality, and putting control in the hands of guests. This innovative service model is already paying dividends 📈

👉 Why Anthony is so excited about personalization and what bartaco is doing with its data to supercharge growth. Anthony even shares one data-driven win that brought same store sales up by 6-7%. Dang! And hint: 🍚

👉 How bartaco is leveraging technology ranging from computer vision to AI-driven chargeback management to get a firmer grip on its business and drive efficiency and consistency across its operations. Shout outs go to Solink and Loop AI - Delivery Intelligence Platform!

➕ PLUS: Get Anthony's hot take on the best hospitality podcasts in the biz, including two that are standard fare for new employees onboarding at the company.

Thank you, Anthony! 🚀

UN-BELIEVE-ABLE guest! On today's 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we are discussing restaurant labor. Scheduling, time-tracking, payroll, and beyond. Jordan Boesch, Founder/CEO of restaurant tech heavyweight 7shifts is with us. With $128M raised to date, this company is redefining the future of how restaurant operators manage and excel at HR.

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How 7Shifts emerged from Jordan helping his dad solve a scheduling problem he faced at his Quiznos locations and into an industry behemoth serving 50,000 restaurants today 😮 📈 😮

👉 Which 🪄 magic 🗝️ key the company relies on to amp its scale-up, and why it's so important for restaurant tech companies to remain hyper-focused in this area

👉 How and why 7shifts is running a total ⚙️in-house vertical integration⚙️ of the HR stack, including a payroll space dominated by giants like ADP. And why Jordan thinks it will work.

👉 How AI can and should be used WISELY to create schedules: lessons from the ground 📆 📆📆

Plus if you're ever in Saskatoon, Jordan has a great restaurant reco! Thank you for coming on, Jordan! 🚀

Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we're getting into CDP-land with Bikky Co-Founder & CEO Abhinav Kapur! Abhinav is at the forefront of this rapidly evolving space and on this episode he shares lots of helpful, real-life examples of how CDP tech can help restaurant operators increase guest visit frequency while goosing sales of 🍕menu winners 🏆!

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How a CDP bridges the gap between top-line sales data and loyalty platform data to help restaurant operators make smart decisions

👉 What Dave's Hot Chicken did to turn a cauliflower product launch into a smokin' hot menu update in more ways than one

👉 How Bikky uses a partner-first mindset in the loyalty game to create win-win-win outcomes for restaurants, guests, and ecosystem players

👉 Why Bikky's new Data Assistant is "ChatGPT on top of your Bikky data" and how that helps operators get answers to complex questions in minutes that would otherwise have taken hours or even weeks!

Shout outs to former guest Adam Kinsinger in this video. Also shout out to Leon Davoyan, EMBA for continuing to crush it over at Dave's!

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