The pandemic sped the innovation cycle for restaurants. And with costs surging at this stage of the recovery, from labor to materials, supply, and more, operators continue to lean on technology to increase efficiency and answer some of the current climate’s pressing concerns.
Ordering systems like kiosks and automation have become buzzing topics. Will restaurants need cashiers in the future? It’s a world GRUBBRR CEO Sam Zietz is actively preparing for. GRUBBRR is a self-ordering technologies company focused on automating commerce. Zietz and Karl Goodhew, the chief technology officer of fast casual BurgerFi, joined QSR editors Danny Klein and Ben Coley to discuss their vision of the future. What do guests want from quick-serves at this juncture? How can brands deliver? And what’s coming next?
After a four-store pilot, where 52 percent of customers opted into an upsell and average ticket bumped 18.5 percent, Burger Fi tapped GRUBBRR—a rollout that’s begun to spread across the system. The kiosks, which don’t require cashiers, are turning in more revenue per customer, Goodhew said, as well as deflecting labor so employees can focus on customer service. BurgerFi saw 50–75 percent of all in-store orders placed on a kiosk. They absorbed up to 133 orders per day on average, which accounted for 75 percent of total orders placed in the store and 78 percent of net sales.
Listen below to Zietz and Goodhew’s chat with the QSR team on those results, as well as a broader view of where the industry heads from here.
