Restaurant Kiosks – Restaurant of the (near) Future

By | June 1, 2021
Restaurant of Future

Full article on NRN May 2021

Technology Solving Restaurant Drive-Thru and Kitchen Modernization

After focusing tech investments on off-premise, restaurants will look for solutions to raise convenience and lower cost of labor

Highlights

  • Modern Drive-Thru Ordering – dual drive-thru lanes alongside pickup lanes, and perhaps walkup pickup windows. At first glance, the multitude of options that elevate the classic drive-thru experience might look like a complicated traffic jam. But the key here is to ease the customer experience.
  • Food Lockers Will See Increased Use — operators are responding with technology like preorder pickup lanes and food lockers.
  • Automats – Brooklyn Dumpling Shop — a New York City-based dumpling franchise that is opening its doors this spring — takes the food locker idea one step further by offering the automat 2.0. The 24-hour grab-and-go spot — which is ready to open its doors in Manhattan after delaying due to the pandemic — allows customers to place mobile orders for any number of dumpling varieties, then scan their smartphone and the correct UV-lit (for sanitation purposes) cubby will pop open.
  • Kitchens and Robots — Brooklyn Dumpling Shop is bringing robotics into the kitchen to add even more contactless precision, in partnership with Miso Robotics.
  • Effective and Useful Data Connection — Lunchbox organizes digital users into three categories: lost, regular and active customers.

Excerpt:

Taco Bell Restaurant Cubbies

Taco Bell Restaurant Cubbies

Ask almost any operator and they’ll agree that the restaurant industry was headed toward a digital, off-premise-focused business before 2020 and that COVID-19 just accelerated that process.

With shuttered dining rooms and mandated lockdowns in place, 2020 became the year of off-premise innovation, with a focus on delivery, digital ordering and payment and speeding the to-go process. But as the nation heads back to normal and dining rooms begin filling up, what’s next for must-have restaurant technology?

Here’s a look at some of the challenges the restaurant of the (near) future will likely face and the tech-based solutions that are expected to be in demand.\

Read Full article on NRN May 2021

Author: Staff Writer

Craig Keefner -- With over 40 years in the industry and technology, Craig is widely considered to be an expert in the field. Major early career kiosk projects include Verizon Bill Pay kiosk and hundreds of others. Craig helped start kioskmarketplace and formed the KMA. Note the point of view here is not necessarily the stance of the Kiosk Association or kma.global