It’s a business tale as old as time: the newly-hired CMO figures he/she can move a whole lot of product if they can just get their hands on enough budget upfront to build out savvy online ordering tools, an app with a strong loyalty program, and a delivery solution with order injection, alongside the budget to market the brand on tv, build a social strategy injecting maximum snark and fun into social media, drive push notification strategy against marketing goals, and hire influencers from content houses to make TikToks about the drink menu.
What Will The Restaurant Industry Look Like Post-Pandemic?
For the last year, the U.S. restaurant industry has survived by any means possible, enduring against some of the most challenging market conditions in modern history. According to the National Restaurant Association (via Fortune), more than 110,000 U.S. restaurants closed temporarily or forever in 2020. To survive, many restaurants had to redefine everything about themselves. But, first and foremost, they had to become more flexible to fit into the patchwork of laws that guided (and continue to guide) our states and our cities through the rising and falling swells of the pandemic.
Restaurant Staffing Crisis Solutions: Experts Weigh In
While staffing has always topped the list of restaurant owner/manager pain points, it now seems to be at crisis proportions. And the situation isn’t likely to improve soon as more competition in the battle for talent is anticipated. According to the latest Yelp Economic Average (YEA) report, there were more new business openings than at any other period over the last 12 months and business reopenings are at the highest level since the second quarter of 2020.
How Two Restaurant Groups Navigated Virtual Kitchens
Though the terms are often used interchangeably, ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants are different. Ghost kitchens are (generally) third-party-run professional cooking facilities, often that house several different brands at once. One in my neighborhood houses seven different restaurants in one room, including Cheesecake Factory, Cinnabon and Ben & Jerry’s. Virtual brands are food concepts typically run by existing restaurants and housed in their existing brick-and-mortar locations. These new concepts are often more transferable to take-out than the existing concept.
How 2020 Will Influence Digital Ordering Trends
There was a time before the pandemic when digital ordering was slowly becoming an essential piece of the omnichannel brand ordering experience. The most forward-thinking quick-service restaurant brands adopted new ordering technologies early and used them to great advantage. But the rest of the pack lagged, wondering how much of an impact digital ordering tools and services could really have on their business model.
Welcome Break Selects Tillster to Provide Superior Guest Ordering Experiences
LOS ANGELES (February 1, 2021) – Tillster, the global leader in digital ordering solutions for restaurants, today announces its partnership with Welcome Break, one of the UK’s leading motorway service operators, to power in-store kiosk ordering and experiences for its Burger King franchises. Welcome Break selected Tillster during a competitive vetting process, noting the software provider’s best-in-class kiosk technology as a primary driver for the partnership.
Restaurant’s Digital Embrace Enhances Experiences
Digital channels were already gaining traction in the restaurant industry before the pandemic, but COVID-19 forced many restaurants to adopt and retool technology to meet new consumer demands, ensure safety and drive revenue. Hope Neiman, CMO at Tillster, which helps restaurants with digital technology, shared her thoughts on the evolving dining consumer with host Barbara Castiglia on this episode of The Main Course.
Contactless Ordering Forcing Restaurants to Adopt 9 Tech Strategies in 2021
"A new year; a new you."
We've heard the slogan every January for as long as we can remember, but for the restaurant industry it's never been truer. The 2020 pandemic is forcing restaurants to change operations more quickly than ever, and those changes are still evolving as we enter 2021. Although we are still in the middle of the chaos, we've already seen several trends emerge. Some will fade out as we leave COVID-19 behind, but one major player — contactless ordering — is not only here to stay but is driving restaurants to embrace nine specific technologies and strategies in order to adopt the service model.
How National Chains Can Make Local Waves During COVID
2020 Changed The Game: Digital Metrics Matter For Future Restaurant Success
The restaurant industry has changed drastically as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, and many of the new practices built to navigate these unprecedented times in food service are likely to remain long term. While nobody is sure when a "return to normal" might be, or what that will look like, but one thing that is certain: Our future "normal" won't be the same as our "normal" of January 2020.
Tortas Frontera Taps Tillster to Power Its Digital Ordering Future
Tillster, the global leader in digital ordering and engagement solutions for restaurants, announced today its partnership with Tortas Frontera to support the brand’s pivot to 100% digital ordering amid the Coronavirus pandemic. With the unanticipated closure of some of their locations, the restaurant selected Tillster to deploy a rapid solution for online ordering and delivery and increase operational efficiencies.
Delivery Is the Hot Topic, but Curbside Is Driving the Sales
Ever since the pandemic began, the restaurant industry has been in a sustained state of pivot. Many have started offering their menus on third-party delivery websites. Some have white-labeled those same delivery services for integration within their organizations, and others have built out programs for pick up or delivery entirely in house. Delivery, digital ordering and the digital tools associated are at the heart of many discussions in the industry.
Digital Pickup Surges in the New Normal, Likely Beyond
In a world of mostly off-premises operations, drive-thrus are exceptionally busy, delivery is up but digital pickup may be the habit that sticks. Hope Neiman, the chief marketing officer at the data, ordering, kiosk and digital ordering advisory firm Tillster, said the outlet has been explosive for a lot of reasons, but the biggest from her perspective is more control over the experience.
Best Practices To Consider When Reopening Restaurants
Tillster Now Available with PAR Technology’s Cloud-Based Brink POS® Software
ParTech, Inc. (ParTech), a leading global provider of point of sale (POS) software and integrated technical solutions to the restaurant and retail industries, announced today the addition of the Tillster digital ordering platform to PAR’s Brink POS partner ecosystem. The new partnership enables PAR customers to offer best-in-class online and mobile ordering capabilities through direct platform-to-platform integration with Tillster.
Retweeting, Sharing, Liking and Locating: Shifting Digital Restaurant Trends in the COVID-19 Era
As recently as last year, restaurant brands made media waves trolling one another (and customers) on Twitter. Wendy’s and Burger King traded jabs. The launch of the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich brought an unbelievable amount of press and customer engagement. Things were hot. Then COVID-19 disrupted everything, and restaurants had to adapt, shifting to take-out and delivery only, fundamentally reshaping the position of every single restaurant brand in the world.
COVID and Digital Ordering: What Have We Learned?
For quick-service restaurants around the country, the reality of business after coronavirus is becoming clear. More than eight million restaurant employees have been laid off or furloughed in recent months, and the broader restaurant industry has lost more than $80 billion in sales as of the end of April, a number assured to grow with figures from May and June. The challenges facing restaurants from fast food to fine dining, and everywhere in between, are simply unprecedented.
How Restaurants Can Navigate Uncertainty During A Crisis
For those of us in the restaurant industry, times of uncertainty can force us to do business as we’ve never done before. However, even when business seems to be upended, there are ways to navigate it. The greatest detail lies in knowing your customers, understanding their anxiety (as well as your own) and compassionately fulfilling their needs.
Understanding the Customer to Enhance Brand Experience
More than ever, brands, especially QSR and Fast Casual restaurants brands, are taking advantage of the vast and varied platforms available for consumer engagement; most notably social media. Scroll through Twitter, and you’ll notice Burger King receives more than 100 thousand retweets for their memes, posted with an added Whopper flair. In creating this social media persona, Burger King, and other brands, establish a voice.
Contactless Ordering and Other Tips to Navigate COVID-19
COVID-19 is impacting every industry and nearly all facets of everyday life, and many states and cities are implementing new social distancing guidelines for operations, including the restriction of dining-in at restaurants, and a shift to pick up and delivery models. The memo to the quick-service restaurant industry in the U.S. is clear: your brand must ensure it has the right technology to support no-contact ordering now and for the foreseeable future.
