Last Updated on May 9, 2026 by Elliot Maras
National Restaurant Show, May 16-19, McCormick Place, Chicago
The race is on in the restaurant space. Consumers, time pressed and increasingly tech savvy, rely on commercial foodservice for their daily meals, inflation notwithstanding.
To meet this demand, foodservice operators cannot take a breather in acquiring the most cost efficient tools at their disposal. No small feat for an industry undergoing a technology revolution affecting just about every aspect of its operations.
Next week’s National Restaurant Show, May 16 to 19 at Chicago’s McCormick Place, will showcase the latest product, equipment and technology offerings available.
“The decisions operators make today carry more weight across labor, cost and menu performance,” Tom Cindric, president of exhibitions for Informa Connect Foodservice Group, organizer and managing exhibitor/media partner of the show, said in a prepared statement. “The show gives them a way to compare suppliers, evaluate products and stress-test those choices against real operating conditions. That kind of side-by-side evaluation is hard to replicate anywhere else.”
Leading every attendee’s “must see” list once again will be self-service demonstrations, an area where restaurants have already taken a leadership role on the global stage. Restaurants, more than any high-profile industry, require time-consuming labor and time-sensitive customer service.
Restaurant automation and self service: A new beginning
But while self service has long presented itself as a “must have” add-on for operators, this year’s show will demonstrate ways in which current automation technology incorporates self service as part of a comprehensive operating ecosystem. One that includes ordering, payments, analytics, labor optimization, delivery, inventory, marketing, loyalty and more.
“Restaurant operators are no longer looking for isolated kiosks; they are looking for a unified operating system that handles throughput, accessibility and high-level data processing simultaneously,” said Craig Keefner, chief editor for The Industry Group, a network of self-service industry resources. “The restaurant industry is shifting from standalone kiosks connected to POS systems toward unified commerce ecosystems where the kiosk is simply one node in a larger AI-driven transaction network.”
Where AI vendors have long presented tools for restaurant analytics, ordering, customer engagement and labor optimization, a new crop of AI innovators have developed consolidated restaurant operating systems, encompassing self-serve kiosks, digital menus, POS and online ordering.
The consolidated platform: Who will rule?
The question remains: what established tech sector will offer this consolidated platform? Will AI restaurant platforms incorporate kiosks, POS and digital signage or will kiosk and POS hardware vendors incorporate AI stacks with separate kiosk software, POS software, voice software, loyalty software, etc.?
“Will restaurant AI evolve like Shopify — a unified platform — or like enterprise IT, where specialized vendors dominate?” asked Keefner. “Will kiosks become independent endpoints — or just another screen controlled by large restaurant AI platforms?”
Operators will need to evaluate which model scales better, which vendors they trust and which offerings survive over the next few years.
In the meantime, kiosk and POS vendors continue to merge functions.
POS manufacturers increasingly feature kiosks as an endpoint in their ecosystems, including unified cloud platforms, payments, reporting, customer identities, menu databases and loyalty engines. Companies such as NCR Voyix, POSitouch POS and Micros Integrated Payments can integrate Pyramid Technologies, Olea and Acrelec kiosks to handle the touchscreen, user interface and ordering flow.
Kiosk manufacturers such as POSBank, 365 Retail Markets and Appsuite similarly are expanding into cloud platforms to offer customer engagement, order management, payments, upsells and analytics.
In evaluating these hardware choices, operators need to consider more than just pricing and capabilities. Operators must also consider deployment cost, system flexibility, upgrade cycles, ease of AI adoption and vendor lock-in. If a POS manufacturer such as Toast or Square owns the hardware, they will most likely have “approved integrations” for kiosks.
Attendees will have an opportunity next week to explore choices now available under the emerging ecosystems. The North Hall at McCormick Place will host the Tech Pavilion, aisles 5500 to 6500, while the Emerging Brands Pavilion located at the end of aisles 9100 to 9200 in the North Hall will highlight companies with innovative technology, equipment and food.
Self-Service Innovation Pavilion
To see how the convergence of POS and kiosk systems with unified commerce ecosystems is playing out in practice, the show floor will offer a live snapshot at the Industry Group Self Service Innovation Pavilion at Booth 5829. This exhibit, co-sponsored by the Kiosk Manufacturer Association, will demonstrate how edge computing — specifically Intel-powered platforms — serves as the backbone for modern restaurant automation, from AI enabled age verification to conversational voice ordering.
The Industry Group exhibit will include five kiosk vendors collaborating on a coordinated ecosystem covering kiosk hardware, AI and conversational interfaces, accessibility compliance (ADA and EAA), payment orchestration and edge computing infrastructure. Designed for 5- to 7-year lifecycle deployments, the exhibit will demonstrate how to avoid fragmented pilots and deploy scalable, standards-based self-service systems.
The exhibit will include:
- High-performance hardware: Pyramid Computer will showcase sleek, industrial-grade self-order kiosks designed for QSR environments.
- Universal accessibility: Vispero/JAWS for Kiosk will demonstrate screen-reading technology, ensuring self-service is accessible to blind and low-vision guests in compliance with ADA accessibility standards.
- Secure infrastructure: SiteKiosk will present its software stack for unattended digital signage and kiosk management.
- Conversational AI: URway will feature natural-language voice-ordering systems that reduce friction at the point of sale.
- Identity and compliance: Innovative Technology will display its MyCheckr AI-based age verification platform, a critical tool for automated restricted-item sales.
The Industry Group exhibit will also highlight the role of Intel-powered edge infrastructure, illustrating how modern processors, including the Core Ultra series, enable real-time AI workloads without the latency of cloud-only solutions.
A Show Floor Guide For Attendees
For attendees interested in exploring options under the emerging AI restaurant ecosystem, The Industry Group offers the walking show guide displayed above in the North Hall, beginning at The Industry Group exhibit, Booth 5829, and continuing as follows.
1)
Kiosk/pickup/POS convergence
- Apex Order Pickup Solutions – 5821
- Clover – 5834
- 365 Retail Markets – 6064
2)
POS payments
- Square – 6007
- Toast Inc. – 7012
- SpotOn – 5639
- Verifone – 6362
- PAX Technology – 6054
- Global Payments – 6427
3)
Voice AI
- SoundHound AI – 6857
- Code Factory – 6773
- Hostie AI – 5559
- EatFuti.AI – 8308
4)
AI edge compute/hardware integration
- NCR Voyix – 6227
- Advantech – 6470
- Axiomtek – 5649
- IBASE Technology – 8414
- NEXCOM USA – 8515
- MSI Computer Corp. – 8513
- Lenovo – 6479
5)
Kiosk hardware interface layer
- Elo – 6045
- POSBANK Co., Ltd. – 5728
- ID Tech – 6775
6)
Kiosk automation/robotics pickup
- Bear Robotics Inc. – 6217
7)
Platform data layer
- DoorDash – 5653
- Uber Eats – 8021
- Placer.ai – 7270
- Paytronix – 5631
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