The Restaurant Tech Dilemma: 3 Fixes for a More Profitable 2025

I haven’t met with a corporate restaurant team that isn’t dealing with a tech roadmap that is at capacity.?

As 2025 priorities get underway, getting creative with tech efficiencies can help operators navigate the headwinds of various cost centers in the business. Here are some of the most common issues our team hears:

?? 1. “We have partnerships that we’re not getting the most out of.”?

Every restaurant operator panel I’ve attended has touched on this in one way or another. A story from the 858 Partners build vs. buy panel at Food On Demand ‘24 comes to mind: Deena DePhilips told a story about two tech companies with HQs in the same city that were not communicating and resolving issues well. Deena ended up personally flying in to facilitate a meeting.

There is sometimes tremendous overhead for restaurant operators in making a tech stack work well together if various partners are not aligned to the brand’s roadmap. Fellow tech founders and CEOs, these solutions are on us to facilitate.?

Solutions for 2025:

• Tech partners need to ensure a strong partnerships layer accompanies their product if integrations are a core value proposition. If the vendors won’t do it, look for an integration services layer like my company Khumbu Systems to help on the tech side. On the digital program management side, partners like Figure 8 can step in and play this role.
• As echoed by Jon Hance in our Restaurant Tech Connects series, finding the right tech partners and doing due diligence is critical.?

?? 2. “We’ve already licensed tech that is sitting on the shelf.”

Matt Haselhoff and I had a conversation recently about restaurants licensing tech that doesn’t work well with other parts of the tech stack. There are plenty of reasons why this can happen, but the most important solution is finding a path to make the most of your investments in tech.?

Solutions for 2025:?

• Conduct an annual restaurant tech stack audit to evaluate where the gaps are. Internal and external data sources can help chart a path.
• Consider how a third-party partner can help check off the ‘long-tail’ part of the roadmap that ends up getting deprioritized. Companies like our team at Khumbu Systems are here with a mission to help accelerate your roadmap – buying more tech isn’t always the answer.?

?? 3. “We don’t need more tech – we need to get more out of our existing tech.”

More tech isn't always the answer. Sometimes making the tech that you already have work that needs to be optimized to work more efficiently is the key.

Making the most of the tech already in place will be a key theme next year. In the integrations world. We heard recently from both James Vitrano and Jarrod Bravo that systems integration is extremely important and an area for growth across the restaurant tech community.?

Solutions for 2025:

• Internal KPIs on product utilization milestones. Going live with a new hardware or software layer is only the starting line.?
• Explore partnerships that can help do the heavy lifting for you if your internal digital teams are at capacity.?
• Map out practical steps for getting started based on your existing systems. Abhinav Kapur spoke to us about some very practical ways to think about the tech and data integration journey.?

Would love to hear your thoughts below. And of course, if you feel like your tech stack is siloed and not as integrated as you think it could be, my team would love to have a conversation with you.?

Rahul Musunuri is the CEO of Khumbu, an integrations services provider. Khumbu helps connect the restaurant tech world by making integrations simple for both restaurant brands and tech platforms. The largest restaurant platforms and brands in the U.S. trust Khumbu to integrate their digital platforms. For more information, visit khumbu.com.?