Restaurant Innovation: 4 Technologies Transforming Hospitality Industry
No, not just your food delivery apps.
For the eaters and the feeders, the restaurant industry just got a lot more efficient.
If you’re like me or many others I know, restaurants are the go-to delight. They breed relationships, connect family & friends, create tradition, and much more. The only issue is, sometimes it can get a bit inefficient, slow, and downright annoying — for both those working and receiving in the restaurant hospitality industry. But the game’s been changed, and it’s only get better with the help of minds, coders, and this beautiful thing we call technology. Here are 4 innovative technologies transforming the restaurant industry.
1. Wearables
Upon first glance, it may be hard to even think as to why wearables would even be slightly relevant to restauranting. When we think of wearables, the first things that often come to mind are apple watches, fitbits, exercise trackers, or even phone holders.
Well, restaurant wearables have joined the club.
Wearable tech has now been adapted to the restaurant industry, allowing for waiters to be faster alerted to table needs, chef demands, or changes.
Buzz around devices like the Presto wearable, allow restaurant team members to quickly communicate between one another and improve customer service by responding to the restaurants operational needs.
Not only does it improve the waiters experience, but the guest’s. Need the manager? Buzz. A fork? Buzz. With restaurant wearables, there’s no need to aimlessly wave your hand in the air for a waiter that isn’t even yours to come to the rescue.
2. Reservation Tech
The dreaded reservation call. Click 1 to speak to a make an order, click 2 to make a reservation, click 3 to be directed to HR, you know the spiel. You call to make reservations and the times/dates just aren’t transparent enough. Or worse yet, showing up only to find that there’s a two hour wait — or no seats at all for that matter.
With reservation technology, you can bypass the hassle of annoying phone calls, holds, and muffled service. You’ll also save yourself the precious time wasted showing up to the restaurant beforehand.
Simply go to sites like Resy or OpenTable, see all the available times and dates, and boom — make the reservation. No BS. Whether it’s on vacation, a special occasion, or simply a nice night out, online reservation technology makes it easy not only for restaurant goers to get their seats at the table, but for restaurant owners to keep seats filled.
3. Self-Ordering
Unless your like a couple of my friends who enjoy casually flirting with the waiter, sometimes you just wish you could order the food without talking to anyone. You may have ordering anxiety, decision making dilemmas, or would simply just like more time to make the order without the pressure-inducing presence of a waiter hovering over you waiting on a response after everyone else has ordered!
And if you’re on the service side of restauranting, order overload can bring down quality of service as you rush from table to table.
When restaurants get overloaded, self ordering technology can make for a lower pressure environment that leads to better quality service.
Besides freeing up staff for other restaurant needs, self-ordering tech helps to lower labor costs and gather useful customer data that can lead to better business transaction. Products like the Zivelo kiosk, and platforms like Lightspeed, allow for easy self ordering that makes for quick and pressureless service execution.
4. Eco-conscious waste management technology
As the environmental consequences of the restaurant industry become increasingly worrisome, it’s definitely appropriate for some eco-conscious waste management technology to come to the forefront and play it’s part in saving our environment.
Platforms like Rubicon have developed restaurant recycling solutions that allow for less leftovers to be sent into landfills, recycling systems to be implemented, increased cost effectiveness, and a cleaner restaurant space. Other platforms like Uncorkd, allow restaurants to go paperless and cut back on all the waste that comes with menus, sales reports, and ordering sheets.
So no, it isn’t only the number of food delivery apps on your phone completely changing the way we restaurant, it’s much more. Once we get back out there, expect restauranting to look quite different.
