🚀TODAY on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we sit down with Greg Zamfotis, Founder of Gregorys Coffee — a specialty coffee brand that’s grown to 50+ locations while staying laser-focused on tech, unit economics, and coffee as a true social connector. ☕

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 Why Gregorys partnered with Craveworthy Brands to accelerate franchising, and how their shared-services model is helping fuel nationwide growth

👉 How Greg balances hospitality first ("coffee as a third space") with automation and tech — from equipment that dispenses cold brew to personalization powered by AI

👉 Why he thinks the future of coffee tech is all about personalization and creating the perfect custom guest experience

➕ PLUS: Rapid-fire answers on espresso vs. cold brew, the Gregorys menu item he’d go out of his way for (SPOILER: 🍂🥤 Fall Oat Boy), and why he finds testing new tech exhilarating.

Huge thanks to Greg for joining and sharing how Gregorys is scaling while staying true to its roots. 🚀

🚀 New episode drop on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends! Incept AI co-founder Justin Foster sat down with John Schattinger, VP Technology at Robeks, a fast-growing smoothie and juice brand turning tech into throughput across POS, loyalty, digital, and ops. 

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

 👉 Why Robeks moved to a new POS solution and how it unlocked easier integrations and faster rollouts with partners.

 👉 How shifting from dollars-for-points to a tiered, item-based structure improved margins and increased visit frequency for members hunting that free smoothie. 

 👉 Learn how Robeks' Harmonious Bites rollout is tracked with product mix plus retention and check analytics and guest sentiment to ensure upsell without cannibalization 

 👉 Where John sees practical AI: personalization and agentic coaching

➕ PLUS - What’s next at Robeks: John discusses first-party catering and digital voice ordering.

➕ PLUS PLUS: Shout-out to the vendors mentioned in this episode who are helping make it possible at Robeks: Toast, Olo, Bikky, Tattle, and PAR Punchh . Vendor teamwork makes the dream work!

Huge thanks to John for a candid, metrics-forward convo. 

#restaurants #qsr #loyalty #pos #AI #customerdata #smoothies #robeks #operations

🚀 On TODAY’S 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we're talking scale, edge, and resilience with THE ONE AND ONLY Niko Papademetriou, Co-Founder & SVP Sales & Business Development at Qu, a company that is lighting the enterprise restaurant POS space - and *beyond* - see what I did there - ON FIRE 🔥🔥🔥

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 Why 'edge' matters in restaurants: how Qu’s Qube A/E/IQ platform is pushing intelligence into the four walls for speed, uptime, and resiliency

👉 How Qube E uses sensors and equipment monitoring to catch fryer and HVAC failures before they happen

👉 The future of AI at the edge: Qube IQ demos showed how a $30 webcam + AI can identify ingredients, open checks, and add upsells - all offline

👉 Lessons from rolling out 2,200+ Jack in the Box locations in just 15 months, and what great change management looks like at the store level

➕ PLUS: Niko shares why he says Qu isn’t just selling POS they’re in the business of expectations and change management. Personally, I think this is a lesson 90%+ of revenue-side restaurant tech execs should learn.

Huge thanks to Niko for joining and breaking down what’s next for enterprise restaurant tech. This one’s a must-watch if you care about speed, uptime, and real-world AI in QSR.🚀🍔🚀🍕🚀🐔

Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we’re talking brunch tech with Mark W. Landes, VP Technology at Snooze AM Eatery: the better-for-you brunch brand known for craveable pancakes, bright dining rooms, and waitlists that move because the tech actually WORKS. 🌞🥞🥂

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How Snooze’s Toast POS rollout + handhelds unlocked more table time for Snoozers and gave guests faster, more accurate orders. Even with Snooze’s famously customizable menu (allergies included!)

👉 Why adding QSR Automations KDS was a game-changer for handling modifiers and complexity in the back of house.

👉 How Snooze partnered with Bikky to connect POS data and guest behavior, using insights to tweak menu items monthly and boost retention.

👉 Where AI is making a real difference – from Axial Shift forecasting to new automation that frees staff to focus more on guests - and less on repetitive tasks.

➕ PLUS: Mark shares how Snooze’s rebrand rollout was fueled by data, his favorite brunch order (HINT: pancakes all day🥞🥞🥞), and why classic maple syrup is still in it FTW! lol

Thank you Mark for giving us a peek at how Snooze is scaling hospitality and tech side by side. 🚀

“It’s more than just a restaurant. It’s a platform.” - Jason Rusk, EVP of Restaurant Operations at Wonder

Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends, Jason joins Incept AI co-founder Justin Foster and breaks down how Wonder is scaling a vertically integrated mealtime platform after a major raise, a brand refresh, and rapid expansion toward 90+ locations.

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 The playbook to hit ~90 stores and why Wonder expects to pass 100 soon

👉 How QR-coded items turn expo into scan-and-bag accuracy that doesn’t clear the KDS until everything is in the bag

👉 Vision AI on the makeline: moving from “made” to “made right”

👉 Training at scale: replacing memorization with AI assistance and simulation-based decision training

➕ PLUS: Jason’s favorite pick from the Wonder roster, which expansion city he's most bullish on, and Wonder's entire 2025 summarized in one word!

Thanks for joining, Jason! 🙌

🏔️"We are at the base camp of Mount Everest and have a beautiful climb ahead of us."🏔️

Today 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends welcomes a true industry heavyweight: Noah Glass, Founder & CEO at Olo.

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How Noah sees digital hospitality breaking out of the app and touching 100% of transactions with Olo Pay and POS-linked data, so operators can personalize even in drive-thru and in-store.

👉 Why the next phase of restaurant marketing is agentic AI and true one-to-one personalization that remembers each guest and recommends what actually moves visits and check.

👉 First-party vs marketplaces: why Noah sees the real win as not just margin: it’s about owning the guest relationship and the data that powers smarter decisions.

➕ PLUS: A peek at OrderReady AI, kitchen 🏎️“race car in the red”🏎️ ops, and Noah’s founder mantra of being “grateful and unsatisfied.”

➕➕PLUS PLUS: Learn what one capability Olo dropped Noah would revisit if he could. HINT: 🔠

Huge thanks to Noah for joining and for the candid take on where hospitality at scale is headed.

Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends I sit down with Bill Lindsey, Partner & Co-Founder at COGS-Well. Bill’s a 🏢builder🏢 and a TRUE entrepreneur: cash flow positive from day one and on his fifth back-office product for restaurants.

Working with his team, Bill's shipping fixes for the messy parts of managing restaurant inventory - and helping operators see value fast. 🏎️

On a personal note, I admire Bill for taking the hard path in entrepreneurship. Building a bootstrapped startup is no joke in any industry; it's especially tough in restaurant tech and Bill is an example of perseverance to many - including me. Keep rocking it, Bill! 🎸🚀 🎸

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How COGS-Well helps restaurants get set up in days (not months) by providing a standard packaging library that auto-maps vendor pack sizes to recipe units.

👉 How operators can get cleaner inventory counts by reducing garbage-in garbage-out errors

👉 Why taking a different approach to inventory management can lead to less busy-work and more time to run the restaurant.🕰️

➕ PLUS: Bill’s 3 cold calls → 3 customers origin story, and why actual vs theoretical is still the hill to die on.

ROCK ON, BILL! 🚀

🧠 RESTAURANT INDUSTRY NERD ALERT 🚨

My absolute favorite kind of guest - a self-described restaurant industry nerd. Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we’re talking with Joseph Ortiz, President & COO at Farmer Boys, the Southern California-based fast casual chain known for farm-fresh burgers and all-day breakfast. YUM. 🌅🍔🥓

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How Farmer Boys cut its drive-thru times by 3 minutes without chasing flashy new gadgets and how better use of data and operational focus made it happen

👉 Lessons learned revamping loyalty: from heavy discounting (👀 free burger abuse) to smarter guest engagement with PAR Punchh and consultants helping to drive real retention gains

👉 Where Farmer Boys is placing early AI bets (including feedback analysis with Chatmeter, future labor scheduling with UKG) and where they’re holding back (drive-thru voice ordering… not yet)

➕ PLUS: Joseph shares which underrated piece of tech he swears by, what Farmer Boys’ next big growth markets are (hint: 🌵 Arizona now, Utah/Colorado/Texas ahead), and his go-to menu item that made me hungry just hearing it. We need a Farmer Boys in Seattle!

Thank you Joseph for the candid conversation and for sharing a peek behind the curtain at how Farmer Boys is modernizing while staying true to its roots. 🚀

TODAY on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we sit down with Tim Newton, Chief Technology Officer at Long John Silver’s. With nearly three decades of restaurant tech leadership (Papa John’s, Fat Tuesday, Waitr, now LJS), Tim is leading a modernization push at one of America’s most iconic seafood brands.

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 How Tim and team are rolling out kiosks across 220+ corporate-owned restaurants — and why they started selling more baskets

👉 The growth path ahead for digital ordering and delivery (currently 7% of sales) and why doubling that mix in the next two years is a must

👉 How Long John Silver’s is reaching Gen Z through mobile, gamification, TikTok, and influencer marketing — while still honoring the nostalgic brand experience generations grew up with

👉 Tim’s candid view on AI: from demand forecasting to menu innovation, all the way down to fryer automation and voice AI ordering in the car

➕ PLUS: Rapid fire answers on cloud vs. on-prem, the #1 trait he hires for, and his go-to menu pick at LJS (spoiler: it’s not fish 🐔).

Thank you Tim! This one’s packed with leadership lessons and a clear-eyed view of where QSR tech is headed. 🚀

This may very well be my favorite 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends podcast episode to date.

Not because I have such immense respect for David Greschler, CEO and Co-Founder of NomadGo. Nor because his interview was flawless (it was). It's because I'm elated for the NomadGo team to see how all their hard behind-the-scenes work culminated in yesterday's announcement that Starbucks is rolling NomadGo's tech across 11,000+ corporate-owned restaurants!

(note: this episode was recorded last week, before the announcement dropped)

Whether you're on the restaurant side and want to get a sense of why Starbucks partnered with NomadGo, or you're on the tech side and want to get some insights into how to build winning products...

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 Why 🧿vision AI🤖 and 🛸spatial vision🧿 are not the same thing, and why a 3D understanding of the world is so crucial to achieving accurate inventory counts for restaurant operators

👉 Why David believes some of the best technologies are those that go deep to capture the minutiae and the edge cases. I agree. 🔎🔎🔎

👉 The best way to measure accuracy of tech products. HINT: it has nothing to do with how the vendor does it. 🤔

➕ PLUS David likely disagrees with Leon Davoyan, EMBA on the most important question of this interview: What is the most over-ordered condiment in America? 🤣

A huge shout out to the entire NomadGo team, and to Starbucks, for what has certainly been an extended collaboration filled with many lessons learned, but one that's led to a bright new opportunity for both companies ❤️

The ⚾HEAVY HITTERS⚾ keep on dishing knowledge on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends. Today, Deliverect President, Americas Justin Falciola (who also happens to be the former SVP Insights & Technology at Papa Johns and former CTO CKE Restaurants, Inc.) comes on to discuss how this restaurant tech heavyweight plans to crush it in North America and LATAM.📺WATCH AND LEARN📺👉 Why Justin made the leap from restaurant brand to the tech side, and how a global perspective is fueling Deliverect's next chapter - including Justin's prediction on how soon the company could reach its NEXT billionth order👉 Which lessons Justin took from his restaurant brand tech leadership experience, how he's applying those today. Solid NUGS here for anyone in a leadership role in this industry 🪙🪙🪙 ➕ PLUS which restaurant technologies Justin is most excited about. He's broken it down into TWO key areas where technology has the most potential to radically reshape the guest experience.➕➕PLUS PLUS get Justin's hot take on the never-ending pineapple on pizza debate 🍍🍕 😂 Thanks Justin and best wishes to you and Deliverect on your continued success!

We recently had the opportunity to connect with Momos' Co-Founder and CEO Sai Alluri and on today's 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends Sai shares a bit about the company's evolution and how he sees AI-powering the future of growth in his space. This is one you don't want to miss!

📺WATCH AND LEARN📺

👉 Learn about Momos' journey from enabling 3PD / reviews for restaurants, to aggregating feedback across channels, to leveraging AI to pinpoint location-specific problems among thousands of survey responses and reviews so operators can quickly identify what's most important and make needed improvements 📈

👉 How to move from getting 20%-30% survey reply rates to close to 100% response rates in just 90 days 😮

➕ PLUS: Meet Alfie and Rockie! And get Sai's hot take on the future of platform consolidation in the industry and which non-Momos AI technology he's most excited about. HINT: 🤖 📣

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