The Digital Restaurant

The #food_delivery world is CRAZY when you think about it. In June 2020, Just Eat Takeaway.com bought Grubhub for $7.3BN In November 2024, Just Eat Takeaway.com sold Grubhub for $650M Today, Prosus Group bought Just Eat Takeaway.com for €4.1BN. As a colleague said to me earlier, the consolidation continues. This is a global move. Prosos owns?iFood and?has stakes in?Tencent/ 4% in China’s?Meituan, 28% in Germany’s?Delivery Hero,?and 25% in India’s?Swiggy. Big news that we'll reflect on in our next episode of the The Digital Restaurant out next Monday with special guest Olga Berkovich Lopategui

100 Episodes! The Digital Restaurant Podcast just hit a major milestone, and while we’re celebrating, we’re also shaking things up. Big and exciting news (and if you've been on a beach somewhere): Meredith Sandland is off to Starbucks! She’s taking on an EVP role leading development, and I'm thrilled for her, and while we’ll all miss her insights, it gives the show a chance to move in a new direction. As such, I’m looking for guest hosts. If you’re in #restaurants, #restauranttech, #AI, #automation, or #restaurantoperations, let’s collaborate on a future episode. DM me or comment below if you’re interested in supporting. So what’s in this special episode? I discuss the end of SaaS as we know it and why APIs and integrations aren’t enough. We get into AI-powered decision-making—how Chain of Thought Reasoning will change restaurant and retail tech for the better. I reflect on the Amazon’s API mandate back in the day and what it can teach the rest of us—breaking silos for real business transformation. We get into how chain of thought reasoning will help with so many use cases from demand forecasting to hyper-personalized guest experiences Key takeaway: Businesses relying on fragmented tech stacks are falling behind. The winners are moving towards AI-driven orchestration that unifies data and decision-making across departments. Let’s discuss. Do you think SaaS will evolve into AI-driven agents? Or are we still waiting for better integrations? Drop your thoughts below. Shawn P. Walchef, Jason Berkowitz, Abhinav Kapur, ???Zack Oates??, Geoff Alexander, Gregg Majewski, Lisa W. Miller, CSP, Mike Lee, Sam Oches, Danny Klein, Anand Gala, Kyle Inserra, Chip Klose, MBA, Eric Cacciatore, ???????? David "Rev" Ciancio, Angelo Esposito, Jeremy Julian, Josh Kopel, Justin Ulrich ?????, Michael Beck, Joseph Szala, GSD, DCMJ, DNSME, Joe Guszkowski, Bernadette Heier, Kristen Hawley and Paul B. #DigitalRestaurant #100Episodes #AIinRestaurants #RetailInnovation #ChainOfThought #RestaurantTech

2025 restaurant tech predictions are here! Listen in as Carl and I review 2024 and look ahead to what's next! Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen to this episode on your preferred podcast platform! Links in the comments!

New Year. New #Podcast and this time I'm talking to one of my own on the other side of the pond. Chris Fletcher and I talk through the role of #AI in hospitality, the fall-out on the #dynamicpricing volatility of last year and what lies ahead as company's like Invisible Technologies push the needle for #multiunit operations everywhere. The Digital Restaurant

Is this the next evolution of #pricing dynamically?? Taco Bell pushing the innovation envelope once again. Meredith Sandland Carl Orsbourn

Well that’s the first time I’ve done an Ellen type selfie before starting a panel. Scott, Nenye, Brennan - you guys were awesome. We could have gone on for another hour but so many more folks to speak yet at the #FoodAI summit here at University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Congrats to the lady in the front row for winning a copy of Delivering the Digital Restaurant. Efficiency and productivity are at the heart of how #AI capabilities will transform #restaurants. Invisible is there to help you find out how (and Curbit, Leanpath and Virtual Dining Concepts)! The Digital Restaurant

Reducing waste is integral to the success of #restaurants. It’s the key to: - Improving #operationalefficiency - Optimizing the front and back-end of your chain - Driving profitability and #ROI Here’s how today’s #foodandbeverage leaders are reducing waste: https://bit.ly/3XT7id1 #AI #digitaltransformation Carl Orsbourn

Scott Murphy, Chief Brand Officer of Inspire says they’ve developed a #Revenuemanagement tool for all their franchisees across the 32000 locations. This includes price recommendations, competitor app price scraping and more! Wonder how the lawyers felt about that!! Pretty bold and impressive move to help such a large contingent of independent businesses get insights about the most important concern out there: “value for money” amidst a year of traffic challenges. #qsrevolution Danny Klein

#qsrevolutionconference serves up the insights. Getting #ai right is about getting the underlying #data right.

Tom Curtis of Burger King says that social media has to be authentic and organic. He goes on to say that “mouldy whoppers” wasnt getting them the attention they wanted. I think this emphasizes the importance of social agility by marketing teams as we saw from Dawn Keller at California Pizza Kitchen who did just that with the mac n cheese viral play a few weeks back. Great start here as four presidents of four RBI kick off this year’s #qsrevolution conference! Danny Klein Katerina Glyptis Mike Hancock Jeff Klein