October 2, 2024 • 40 mins
Guests are very willing to adopt kiosks as a part of their ordering process, and the technology can boost check averages 20% or more for some restaurants, Bite CEO Brandon Barton tells Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode of the Choppin’ It Up podcast, Barton sits down with BI’s senior restaurant and foodservice analyst Michael Halen to discuss how kiosks are being used for upselling and can ease staffing challenges. He also comments on voice AI, facial recognition and McDonald’s new kiosks that accept cash.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to Chopping it Up. I'm your host, Mike Hanlon,
the senior Restaurant and food Service Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Our research and that of bi's five hundred analysts around
the globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal. Today,
we're joined by Brandon Barton, the CEO of Bite, the
leading provider of intelligent KIOSK solutions for fast, casual and
quick service restaurants. Thanks for doing this, Brandon.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Mike, thank you so much. Really appreciate having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, you got it, man. I know you've been traveling
a lot lately. Where you were at home this week?
You on the road? What have you been up to?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm mat this, this is the office, I'm at home.
It's nice to be on the road. Next week home,
the week after that, on the road next week after that.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Life will the startup CEO?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
You know? Yeah, yeah, I know. A last time we
spoke at Prosper he said you were busy. It's cool man,
I know you're a big wine guy. You have anything
you're looking forward to drinking this weekend?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, not even this weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
You know, I've tried to make a little you know
thing happen at every time I go to these events
in the conferences, I didn't do it a prosper because
I wasn't not there for a long enough amount of time.
But I like to bring big bottles of wine and
introduce people to you know, old wines and what they
taste like. So there's a nineteen eighty one shob that
I'm bringing to fs Tech next week. But other than that, no,
(01:40):
just you know, at home, just drink the casual stuff,
cheap stuff, just you know, dinner wine, table wine.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, cool. Talk to me a little bit about your
career journey prior to bite.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So I have spent my entire career in restaurants, if
you really want to go back to it starts when
I was fourteen years old and you know, needed to
make make some money to you know, get the new
Jordans and whatnot. So I was busing tables at this
amazing little burger restaurant in Bay Ridge called Skinflints. But
you know, I had not exactly realized that, let's say,
(02:16):
being a restaurant tour was a career path for me
until I was fortunate enough to go to Cornell.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
But I didn't go to the hotel school.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Figured out that there was the best hotel school in
the world there and immediately transferred in. So my passion
for a restaurant goes way back. But after college, I
worked in a couple of amazing restaurant groups, including Union
Square Hospitality Group, where you know, I didn't get an MBA,
but I got an MBA in hospitality from Danny and
the amazing crew that's there, Randy Gurrudy, Terry Coglin, Wilkodera,
(02:45):
those folks who were coming up at the same time
as I was. But then I made the switch over
to tech. You know, there was always a part of
me that wanted to make a big, scalable impact on
the business. And you know, after working in a couple
of different restaurant tech startups, I found myself as the
fourth employee at Rezi and so we set out with
(03:06):
an incredible aspiration to beat up Open Table. Open Table
was charging restaurants a dollar per guest to come in,
and we didn't think that that was right. The busiest
restaurants were being charged way more proportionally than they should
be than the value they were given to Open Table.
You know, by signing up all these people to Open
Table's platform, and I'm very proud of the work that
(03:26):
we did at Rezi to really be a contender.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
If not.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Now it's a two horse race, if you will, as
Resi's announced their acquisition of Talk, so we acquired Reserve,
which was a competitor at the time. So now it's
you know, Resie and Open Table still fighting that battle.
But needless to say, I've had a ton of years
in restaurants and restaurant technology, more than i'd probably like
to admit.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
On the air, bay Ridge man, that you got your
start in bay Ridge as some great restaurants there. In
the mid two thousands, I spent a lot of money
at the Pearl Room and one on one's you know,
it's funny, Mike, you'll you'll relate here. Everyone gets gaga
about this espresso martini thing, and let me tell you
the Pearl Room was serving espresso martinis back then.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, and you know, for what it's worth, you know,
I don't know if this is a New York scene,
but it certainly was a Brooklyn Third Avenue scene that
you and I both probably have shared drinks in the
same room. And it's fun there's a night life there.
It's its own little thing. And some of the funny
things that I think, you know, we look at today
(04:32):
and say that's like like an espresso martini or like
the obsession with bagels and everything. It's like, yeah, this
might have came out of you know, Italian American culture
in Bay Ridge, you know, twenty years ago.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So yeah, yeah, for sure, great spot. So how long
have you been at Bite and what attracted you to
the role.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah, I mean, look, I've been at Bite essentially since
the beginning. I after my time at Rezi, I met
the two co founders of Bite, Sas and Jeff and
and they were working on this you know, audacious project
to put kiosks into restaurants. It was after a little
bit of a pivot, and they came to me knowing
that I knew how to do go to market for
(05:11):
restaurant companies and I had the restaurant experience, and said,
we'd love to you know, we'd love to have you
consult And so I had breakfast with them at my Aleino.
Back then, I was like a four or five day
week breakfast at my Aleno, you know, meeting with people
type of schedule. And so I met with them and
after this breakfast, I said, this is a big deal.
And I went ahead and called my friends at Chickshak
(05:33):
at the time, who were using Kiosk in their astplace location,
and I said, Hey, is is this like a fad
or is this is this something that's going to change
the industry? And everyone said the latter. So I joined
up with the co founders. A few months later. They
made me CEO of the company, and Jeff, myself and
Thoughs have been really been running the company since together.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
So it's been.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Since twenty eighteen, so we've been on the journey for
a while.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, it's it's been interesting, you know, because Jack in
the Box tried to roll these out a long time ago,
and then they actually removed them from the restaurants. You know,
it's interesting how much consumer behavior has changed over the
last handful of years.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Right, Yeah, I mean clearly, things like the pandemic had
accelerated things now. Not in the beginning, of course, when
we were all afraid to touch a you know, a
shopping cart, never mind a kiosk, right, but you know,
the adoption of technology by consumers has skyrocked it in
every category. So This is not age restricted to gen
(06:33):
z likes.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Everybody knows how to order online, which means you know
how to order off a Kiosk. And in a lot
of cases, and I'm not saying nessay a lot of people.
I'm saying a lot of cases, meaning there are times
when somebody wants to go order from a cashier, and
there are times when you might have your hands full
or be listening to your favorite podcast like this one
and not want to talk to anybody and not want
to interrupt that to have to go into line and order.
(06:57):
And so there's just a lot of scenarios in which
Kiosk becomes the ideal scenario. And I think the prevalent
idea for the industry at this point is to meet
guess where they are. So you see a lot of
innovation in drive through. You see a lot of amazing
order ahead and voice AI and all this other stuff
coming out, and Kiosk is a part of that. You know,
(07:19):
it's not just going to be this one channel of
walk in order but order ahead sometimes sometimes with the Kiosk,
and we're part of that unifying the guest experience into
a solid hospitality experience.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I'd imagine you've gain a lot of inquiries from restaurant
chains with significant exposure to California.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Totally true, and you'd have to think that part of
that is the increase in minimum wage two twenty dollars
an hour any attack. Look Throughout my career, the through
line has been how do I help restaurants create more
ebitdah like, how do I help them become more profitable
by using and leveraging technology? And that's purely based on
(08:03):
my love for restaurants.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I want to see.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I was part of one of the most amazing restaurants
in New York called Tabla. It had an amazing, you know,
incredible eleven year twelve year run and then closed and
the number of the number of things that we tried
to do to make a three hundred and fifty seat
Indian restaurants survive in New York at the time, it
really spurred this idea of how do we make sure
(08:27):
that we can preserve restaurants the way that they are
and have people who operate well stay open. And you
can see, you know, there's been a slew of bankruptcies lately,
and you might point, you know, there might be a
through line here on the folks that were not early
enough to adopt new technologies, order ahead, move on to
the third parties and not innovate as part of these
(08:49):
these folks that are essentially you know, not surviving, and
so long story short, you know, we strive to kind
of make the profitability of the restaurant better. In Californi,
there's increased pressure on the P and L because of labor,
and so if we can enable their staff to do
more by just keeping the staff the way they are.
(09:10):
There's a misnomer that there's people getting fired because of chaosis.
This is just not true. It's really about supplementing what
they can do so they may be able to get
the drinks faster if they're not taking the order, which
is a really transactional part of the hospitality experience.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, for sure, you're freeing them up for more high
value jobs, right than just taking that.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Order exactly, and not even just high value.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
There's very few pure play cashiers in the entire restaurant industry.
That is always a fraction of their job. Okay, and
so if we could take that fraction away, can the
dining room be cleaner, can the bathrooms be cleaner, can
the food come out quicker? And so we see our
restaurants have increased revenue, not just because we are efficient
(09:55):
and great at presenting them the guests with items that
they want to order. We'll talk about our AI that
does that, but also because food production can go quicker
and the line can be smaller. There's all these other
benefits that don't get factored in. But we're happy about
all the brands that we work with in California. It
certainly is a place. But now Washington, Oregon, New York,
(10:17):
other places that are considering raising the minimum wage will
see the same effects.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, for sure. Congrats on the Portillo's deal.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I've read that they're testing that they're kios in California.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Right, Yeah, they are, well, not just in California, downtown
Chicago to some of their busiest stores. That test is
going really well, and probably by the time we're talking
about this is even more news to come of that.
And you know, talk about an environment where you're putting
Kiosk to the test. Those restaurants, I believe their average
(10:51):
store volume is nine million dollars. That's so on the
far end of what an average unit volume for a
restaurant brand like that is uh, you know, we have
tons and tons of volume that are being done and
the guests are adopting it. It just this is the
this is the thing that's different than five years ago
or six years ago. If you put Kiosk in your
(11:11):
restaurant and do it smart and in the right way
and have the right hospitality that you're teaching your your
team that goes along with that, guests are very willing
to adopt Kiosk as part of their ordering process.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, we had uh, we had mic Osamlu the CEO
on the pod. I guess it was last year. I'm
a fan, super sharp, sharp guy. Great conversation. What kind
of average check increases are your Kiosk customers getting from
the technology and how much of the improvement is more
consistent up selling versus maybe just giving customers more time
(11:44):
to browse the menu.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's hard to
parse the division of those things. We have been, you know,
using AI before it was cool to say you are
and even from the beginning. One of the reasons that
I joined Bite was because Sauce our Cto was so
incredible at this and he was able to create an
(12:07):
algorithm using you know, some of the most advanced kind
of machine learning technologies to learn how people like to order,
and then you know, offer items to guests that may
or may not know those items exist and might go
along with the meal that they're having. And so we
typically will see a twenty percent increase in average check.
(12:27):
Sometimes it's way bigger than that. Sometimes, you know, in
certain scenarios where there's not tons of things to upsell,
that might be more in the ten to fifteen percent range.
And the idea of upselling, we as consumers know that
as somebody asking you to buy something, but it's very different.
On a kiosk, it's just presenting a bunch of options,
(12:48):
and so there is this light touch to it where
it's just a guest opting in to the idea of
buying something or adding double meat or I didn't know
that you could put extra chi on this for fifty cents,
where those are not questions that you would get when
you're ordering with somebody. Imagine if every time you ordered
a burger, like you want double cheese, you want double meat,
(13:08):
do you want you know sidur fries? Would you like
to know upsize that This is not a hospitality experience,
whereas using a digital experience you could put a lot
of options to people they opt their way into them.
But our intelligence is showing guests things that they are
highly likely to want to order. And that's based off
of our data that we have with the restaurant. But
(13:29):
not only that data, but we use the data from
the entire you know, eight years of doing this, and
we can draw conclusions about what, I don't know, what
trends there might be in certain regions, or if it's
cold not to sell ice cream, you know, which seems
pretty simple to do, but yet at the same time
it's very effective for guests increase in average.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Check Okay, cool, I guess kind of on that same vein.
Are any of your customers using the data in their
loyalty programs or face recognition to provide customers in even
more personalized Kiosk experience?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Oh? Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
We do have facial recognition. It was also something that
wowed me back at that breakfast. Facial recognition is opt
in by a guest and it's opt in by the brand.
Every brand doesn't necessarily have to use that, and the
facial recognition is great because sometimes the idea of let's
say type your phone number in for loyalty, or scan
this thing so that we can recognize who Mike is
on this next order, that sometimes feels.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Like a lot to do.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And imagine you could just walk up to a screen
and it knows that's you, and it says your last order,
you know, was this exact bowl with this add on
and not this one and take this out and put
this in. It's a lovely way to have a very
light touch loyalty, right, and recognize somebody and then give
them personalized recommendations. So one of the things the algorithm
(14:51):
will do is understand if you like things that are spicy,
will suggest more things that are spicy to you.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
That might be, you know, instead of just the regular prize,
maybe it's the spiced curly fries I don't know, that
go along with something.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And therefore we.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Are moving more towards that personalization. I think the next
step here is not just to understand your behavior as
a guest on a Kiosk, but your behavior as a
guest in the entire ecosystem for that restaurant. So that
means if I could pull your order from the app
last time and say do you want to reorder this?
(15:26):
It might not be what you want to do at
that moment because you were ordering for you and your
family versus ordering for just yourself, But that becomes the
next step in this idea of personalization. You have one
account with this and regardless of the digital channel that
you go through, you'll have access to that order history.
And this is why you hear many brands, I'm sure
as you listen into earnings calls as I do, talking
(15:47):
about one hundred percent digital because they want to have
this holistic view of the guests and make sure to
service them the best way they can in each one
of these channels.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, it's really interesting what percentage of people are opting
in and how are restaurant chains kind of motivating them
to do so.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think it varies. You know,
it's above fifty percent. You know, the opt in is again,
it's light. It's not an idea of having to let's say,
use a clear machine at the airport where it's like
put your irises in the exact spot. Okay, you know,
we have a fairly high accuracy, and I think the
(16:26):
motivation is for your the customers that are our frequent customers.
I remember the first restaurant that we launched in New York.
I would sit it was a couple of blocks away
from our office, and I would sit there and watch,
and we had some people that would come in and
clearly they were like busy at work, they had a
half hour to get lunch. They'd come in and with
a couple of taps on a screen, they'd have their
(16:48):
order done. Whereas if it's the first time you're experiencing
the brand, you might want to, as you said, take
your time browse the menu.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I have.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
We've had some fun with Dig. Tracy Kim, the CEO there,
she's actually and uh And it was just on on
my podcast a Simmer talking about how some guests are
using this to better navigate a menu because a menu
board doesn't have a full description of it and if
it did, it would be overwhelming. Right, So what is
in the health bowl or the Caesar salad bowl or
(17:19):
you know, in their case, like the roast chicken plate.
You can look much deeper into it on a person,
you know, a screen that's personalized to you.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So, yeah, Digs great, they have great chicken thighs. I'm
I frequent it when I'm up at our seven thirty
one lev.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I think it's one of the best values, especially if
you are factoring in your health. They have such an
incredible healthy menu, So if you're looking at to you know,
for a healthy lunch, option digs the spot.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, they do a great job. What's the forty five
percent role?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Le?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So I listened to one of your podcasts you were
on with Rev. Ciancio, and I think it was something
about about customers walking by, you know, I you know,
because some places the line is too long, right. We
see that in a you know, I see that, you know,
in drive throughs.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
McDonald's some years ago was talking about how they have
five more than five cars in the line, people will
just drive past. And ye know, Chick fil A has
a lot higher to like demand and people are more
willing to wait, so it might be twenty five cars, right,
And so that is impacting restaurants, especially in the city. Right,
if people see long lines, they might go elsewhere, right.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It impacts restaurants everywhere. Yeah, so I think the status
forty five percent of guests that see a line are
going to are gonna, you know, walk out the door right,
a lot of more than three people, right, And so
you know, thank you for bringing that up. Even in
places that are you know, pay less, like at Chipotle,
where you're going to walk through an experience, they always
(18:52):
will have a line. But when that line gets long enough,
there's something that we call que rejection. And so the
idea is that you know, same thing, whether it's within
your car or not. You're seeing a line and you're saying, no,
I'm not going here, that's gonna take too long.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Now. By the way, the Chipotle line, the Sweet Green line.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
They're fast. That it's not that these lines are slow,
but the perception of it is that it is. And
so if you can offset some of those orders to
a kios that's sitting on the side, you know, easily
accessible by the guests, people are way more willing to
wait for their food than they are to wait to
order their food, because then it seems like you're waiting twice,
(19:30):
you know, Like I said before, I mean, I'm a
very digital focused person. So I'd love to get my
order in and then check my app and see what
the score of the game was last night. Check Fantasy
you know, see the Giants lose again and and then
you know my salads ready perfect?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, all right, good stuff. What's the impact of kios
on on employee turnover and satisfaction?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I mean, look, I think we'd love to have a
lot more hard data on this, but generally speaking, if
you're a tip ticking res tips go up, right we
are we're offering an experience that can make sure to
prompt a guest for tipping if they want to do that,
and you could set percentages on whatever you want. Doesn't
(20:13):
have to be a twenty percent tip, but the overall
tips go up. I also think that it takes a
lot of pressure off their job responsibilities. I think you
would know when you're trying to juggle two or three
balls at the same time, like taking an order, putting
the order together, getting drinks, and doing all those things
at once. You could take one of those things away
and just cut it down to two, you're going to
(20:35):
be better and more efficient at it. So we have seen,
and this might perhaps be counterintuitive, but we've seen a
lot of staffs embrace the idea of Kiosk ordering so
that they can actually execute on their job better. And look,
people don't get into the restaurant industry for just a job.
A lot of people want to do this because they
feel making others happy is part of that bonus. It's
(20:58):
not just the wage that I can, but I want
to make have an impact on other people's lives, right,
And so I think it allows Kioskodering allows that person
to do more of the personal interaction. Again counterintuitive, take
the transaction part out of it and give somebody take
an extra few seconds to hand somebody their order and say, Mike,
(21:19):
thanks so much for coming in today. And I guarantee
you those hospitality employees feel the impact of the smile
that Mike gives back to them before they leave, and
they and Mike might say have a great day, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
One hundred percent. Man. I think that's part of the
issue that we're seeing with Starbucks, is right, that was
the cafe where the barista knew your name right when
you walked in, and they've they've gotten away from that, right,
It's kind of become soulless, transactional, and I think it's
really impacted their sales. So it's really important to be
able to free up your employees to provide hospitality, no
(21:54):
matter what the concept.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Is yeah, And I think that's kind of the point.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
With Starbucks is that the the the increased variations on
their menu have made it ever so much more difficult
to be a barista. And so never mind that you
now have to be a barista in a cashier or
barisa and a you know, you know, the person that's
handing you all your food fulfillment. Right, So I totally
(22:18):
agree with that.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I think.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Look, I think I probably am one who thinks that
Brian is going to do great things there in his
new role. So you know, he's already come out with
a little statement on how he's going to change the
environment to be that third place again. And happy to
uh to receive a call from them if they want
to do some stuff with bite.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Nice nice plug. I I yeah, I'm looking forward to
seeing what what he can accomplish at Starbucks. That's going
to be. That's gonna be a fun one to track,
for sure. I'd imagine the technology is helping sun Chains
ease the issue of late night staffing.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Late night and midday okay, right, so Midge, you know
shift changes even you know, even the idea that a
restaurant is drive through heavy. So we have some restaurants
that we work with that are over seventy percent drive
through and again, multiple balls in the air. Can we
take one away? So, if you have the majority of
(23:15):
your staff and the majority of your revenue coming through
drive through, and everyone's focused on this one or two
windows out the side of the restaurant, how can you
have your eyes in the back of your head to
be in both places at once? And so how great
is it to be able to have your focus on
that seventy percent revenue channel and then the other thirty
percent coming in the store? You hot, you know that
(23:37):
you have to deliver on that that handoff that hospitality
experience when you're giving people what they've ordered or even
making sure that the dining room's clear. So I think
that applies to late night when you might be shorter staffed.
I think it applies to, you know, the shoulder periods
as well. We've had a restaurant brand who actually has
quite an older clientele. You know, if you were to
(23:58):
compare them to the Chipotles and and maybe the Sweet
Greens of the world, and they found that that the
Kiosk always being able to be there to take an
order and not having somebody wait, while there's shifting things
happening in the kitchen and people are trying to do
multiple things at the same time. Really added to that,
let's say two to five pm time period where people
(24:20):
are coming in and just want to get something and
you know, have a very quick and easy experience.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, and that's a home run. You're leveraging the box
in a slow time, right, and so you're leveraging your
fixed costs. It's it's helpful, for sure. Sure. I've read
in one of the case studies on your website that
bite help to lower food cost So does that mean
food costs are going down as a percentage of sales
due to the higher AUVs and average checks and the
up selling higher margin menu items or is there something
(24:50):
more to it than that.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, typically the things that are additive to the main
part of a meal are lower food costs. Your French
fries are cheaper than the burg The soda is way
cheaper than the French fries. And so if we can
help to remind people that they forgot to put a
drink in their cart, or they forgot to you know,
add that extra side, or maybe it's a dessert, these
(25:13):
are lower costs. Lower food cost items, and therefore you know,
food cost is going to go down as a total
percentage of sales. Also, as you mentioned, all the variable
costs go down as sales go up. That's that's how
that works, right, you know, So you know, the the
cost of labor so to speak, is going to go
(25:34):
down as sales go up if you're not adding more
labor to do that. Now, food cost doesn't exactly act
the same way. But but if we're adding the sales
on these higher margin items, it's going to bring down
the food costs in a you know, significant way.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, that's great. Talk to me about the secret menu
at Shacks che Big Chicken.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Let me can I just start by saying, Shaquille O'Neil
is He is exactly who you think Key is in
terms of how kind and generous and amazing he is.
I spent nearly an hour with him at the Big
Chicken conference in Las Vegas. Shout out to Josh and
Josh and all and Sam and all the team out
there for getting that to happen. And and you know,
(26:16):
we set off on this project to try to bring
Shack's personality into a Kiosk experience, and so We didn't
just say hey, let's just do this in a small way,
in the big Chicken way with the capital big. We
did it in a big way. We actually have changed
our entire user experience to be able to do this
not just for them, but to do this for many
(26:38):
other brands. So before we were saying, hey, this is
a great way to get the transaction done, but now,
how do we add a hospitality experience? How do we
add fun to that transaction to make guests want to
come use the kiosk? And there was no better path
or you know, initial place to do this. And with
Shaquille O'Neil probably the most memorable you know, celebrity that
(26:58):
I know, Okay, and so we have instances of Shack
throughout the entire you know, chicken menu, flapping chicken wings
and doing all this. But the kicker and the best
part in my mind, was we had a little area
where if you click it, and you figure out that
you can click this area, you get into Shack's secret menu.
And it's not just Shack, it's the entire O'Neal family.
(27:20):
So his mother has an item's there that she wants
or done Lucille's way, his daughter. He has menu items
that are done her way, and so it's really about
appealing to multi generational but also putting a little fun.
I mean McDonald's, you know, did some good stuff here
when they had the Travis Scott menu, for example, and
(27:40):
they you didn't have to change what you have in
your kitchen, but how do you do a shacksway?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
You know?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
And I think that's really cool. So there's so much
more that is going to come out of that. I
hope that some of our restaurants will embrace us and
maybe even look to local celebrities or influencers and say,
you know, you see this on old school menus. This
is the way Brandon has his martini, So we're going
to put it on the menu. That's honoring the people
and the regulars around you. I would love to see
(28:06):
people say this is this is just a salad for
us here and it's double chicken caesar kale, and that's
exactly the way Sally does it every Tuesday, and now
we have it on the menu for her.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that's very cool. I'm not really sure. I'm a
huge fan of Shaq and the Inside the NBA show,
so I haven't heard any updates about what's going to
happen with it. But now that like TNT lost that contract,
I'm kind of like heartbroken.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Me too, me too.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
I think it's I don't know, it's fairly improbable to
me that they're going to keep Shaq and Chuck off
at the NBA TV circuit in some way.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I hope the idea.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Of having Shaq and Chuck still involved with, you know,
commenting on basketball is going to be there. Maybe they'll
go the Peyton and Eli way and you could just
tune into T and T and have them sitting there
watching a game.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That'd be cool. Also, where do I got to touch
on the menu? Because I noticed there's a big chicken
on my way home from work, so I'm going to
have to get one of those up. It's in Bridgewater,
New Jersey. So where do I have to touch the menu?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Sure, sure to find that menu.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
If you look at it long enough, it'll say, you know,
like something like a shosh you know, don't touch here,
but chat On the bottom left hand side of it.
Shack is sitting there and telling you know, if you
hit Shack kind of like a little whack a mole
if you hit shack at the menu will come up.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Okay, very cool. I got to check that out. All right.
What do you think of McDonald's move to test these
kiosks that accept cash.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I mean, you know, you talk about you were talking
a little bit about the news cycles on kiosk and
this that it was like stop and go for Jack
and other places. Also, the commentary around McDonald's kiosk program
has been wrapped up in a bunch of noise like there,
you know, total digital transformation being I don't know, six
(29:56):
figures for franchisees and the franchisees revolting and some people
took that a revolting on kiosk and guess what they
were not. And so it's just a signal to me.
McDonald's is certainly the leader in so many categories. Innovation
is one of them as well, And it's just a
signal to me that they see more and more use
cases and more and more guests that want to come
(30:17):
and use the kiosk, and they're maintaining their value proposition
while also increasing the hospitality by saying you can now
you know, do a cash transaction here. You know, we're
partnered with a great company glory to be able to
do that as well in certain cases. And look, I
think cash transactions are declining. I think that's not a
controversial thing to say, but in certain scenarios, in certain
(30:40):
states and certain locations, you want to be able to
take cash because you want to have a hospitality experience
for everybody. Okay, you don't want to exclude people from
that because they, you know, didn't use a credit card
or just we're using cash today. So I love it,
and I think it underscores the idea that kiosk are
(31:00):
going to be in every QSR and fast casual restaurant
in the next few years.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, I agree. Ten years later, Chili's brought back xiosks. Right,
why did he work last time? Was it just were
they just too early? And what do you think about
them bringing that technology back?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Well, you know, you know my non professional opinion here,
I guess, or you know, not fully educated on what
the Chili's team has in mind. I think the idea
of having something to assist their service staff to provide
better service by allowing guests to order the second round
(31:37):
of drinks at the table makes sense.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Going back to the comment abound around some of the
brands that have not innovated, having struggles and bankruptcy and
things like that. This is Chili's way to perhaps try
to move into innovation cycle. I will say frankly that
that whole let's say family dining, casual dining category, you know,
as well as I is getting smushed. I mean, more
people want to go to Kava and sit down and
(32:02):
not have table service, then they might want to go
to a more casual and then they'll save the table
service for a higher end experience, maybe something like a Hillstone.
And so the category is getting crushed, and that means
the margins are getting hurt and they have to figure
out something. So I applaud Chilis for doing it. I
will say, you know, the majority of my background, you know,
(32:25):
has been in fine dining and has been at my
hospitality background has been in table service. I think that
that's probably the highest level where you want to see,
you know, tablet assisted ordering. That that's where it stops
to me. If I, you know, I don't think Hillstone,
you know, if we go up a level should adopt
something like this, I think you will start to degrade
(32:47):
the relationship between server and guests. Which is a part
of the full service experience, and so you know, for
what it's worth. You know that that's something that we've
even tried with with higher end like fast casuals or
even i should say casual dining, and it's not the best.
It's not the best experience for guests. And if we
(33:09):
do anything at Bite, we care about the guest experience
more than anything.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yep, yeah, for sure. Yeah, Chili's has done a great job.
And it also eliminates another pain point, which is like
paying the check. You know sometimes you know, if you
got young kids, they tear it into a pumpkin after
a certain amount of time at the table or whatever
it is, and you have to get out of there.
So I think it makes sense for a chain that's
catering more to families.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
The paying the check thing is interesting because everyone there
was there's always been a ton of companies in the
restaurant technology space that's like, you can pay your check faster.
And yes, I understand that that is a pain point
that the guest feels, and that's great, But the thing
that the promise of it always has been and you'll
turn that table faster. Okay, Well, if you don't have
(33:53):
another guest to go fill that table immediately, and it's
going to just sit empty for the time the guests,
those initial guests would have been paying the check. You're
actually not generating more revenue through table turns. It's a
big misnomer that I think, especially as you get to
maybe some of the smaller table service restaurants concepts. You know,
(34:15):
unless you're filling nine point thirty turning your what are
you turning your tables to to what? To an empty
dining room? So but I do I do you know,
I know that there's pain in getting a check and
getting it paid.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
So heard, Yeah, all right. We touched on this a
little bit, the voice AI. Right, So McDonald's recently ended
their trial after some well publicized issues. On the other hand,
Taco Bell is ramping up their trial this year. So
what have been the issues with voice AI And when
will this really be a viable technology that everybody's going
(34:48):
to start adopting.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I think it's already passed viable yet I don't think
it's past scale, okay, And so the viability of this
could work in certain environ in certain restaurants, but I
don't think it's going to work at scale for another
few years. The acceleration of artificial intelligence will help this
(35:09):
because we are talking about a very complicated piece of AI.
It's not just suggesting items, but it's trying to understand accents,
regional accents. I mean, this is you know, not you know,
non English speaking language. You know, guests that are coming
and trying to communicate makes.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It very hard.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
By the way, in the future, it's going to make
it very easy because if you speak Japanese, it will
speak Japanese back to you.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
How lovely is that? But it's not the case today.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
The thing I think most about is some of the
stats that have been out about the order accuracy and
how many orders can can be put in without an intercept. Okay,
and an intercept might be a staff employee, but sometimes
maybe what I what I don't like about it is
the intercept is coming from a third party. And I
know that there's been issues with our people listening into
(36:00):
this conversation in California. That's that there's some lawsuit that
was there. And you know, I think restaurants need to
be experimenting with this for sure and move at a
very deliberate pace with it. Be very diligent about understanding
how the guest feels. One of the lovely things about
(36:21):
Kiosk is usually somebody's grabbing their order and sitting in
a restaurant. You can ask them if you want. If
they're driving off, you don't actually know how they felt
about that experience. Sure there's a survey, Sure there's a this,
but man, I would be really inspecting how the guest
feels and if the guest feels like that was done
well and without issue. And by the way, I have
(36:41):
there are many customer service experiences now that include this
that are outside of restaurants, right, and you're talking to
a bot. You all, we all have been there and
been like operator operator operator, right, and so so we
don't want that level of frustration ever in the hospitality industry.
But I have had some in certain scenarios that have
been beautiful and seamless. We were talking about internet problems before.
(37:04):
There's a way Optimum reset your internet in five seconds
you talked to about it's over and you don't actually
need to talk to anybody on the phone. And so
I have a lot of hope for this category, and
I think we're in the early inning.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Great excluding Kiosk ordering, what restaurant pain points are AI
best suited to solve.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I'll go to something that's probably even a little bit
further than voice voice ordering.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
But kitchen robotics.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Okay, just by the nature of cooking, it's a repeatable process,
there are steps to it. And again at the higher
levels of dining, this is not this is we're very
far out from that. But at the levels of dining
and QSR, you know, cooking French fries seems like something
(37:53):
that can be an automated process. I applaud the Sweet
Green team for what they've did and alleged they've they've
gone out on with you know, with regards to buying
spice and and and putting in the Infinite kitchens. I
went to the Infinite Kitchen store and Penn Station area
recently just to check out the newest one because it's like,
the question was, can we make the footprint an urban
(38:15):
footprint for Sweet Green? And it was cool and you know,
by the way plug again, they went ahead and adopted Kiosk,
and they built something in house because it had to
be perfect with the Infinite Kitchen. But they took this
this step of automating the back of house in front
of house at the same time. And you know, I've
even had a chance to visit Kernel, which is Cevel's
(38:38):
new spot in New York. They're doing well. They're not
doing Vegan anymore, which is interesting. But I have a
lot of hope that artificial intelligence and machine learning and
all the intelligence around cameras and vision of what to grab,
when to grab it, when it's cooked, infrared, all of
these things add up and yeah, we could we can
(39:00):
automate some steps in that hospitality or in the cooking experience.
So I have a lot of hope for that category.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah. Well, I know a lot of restauranteurs do too,
looking forward for that those investment costs to come down. Yep,
all right, great stuff, man, Brandon, thanks for doing this.
Where can listeners find out more about bite?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, I mean get bitte dot com. I mean I
if people are listening, want to reach out to me,
I'm a Brandon at gatbyte dot com. I love talking
to people that have used kios. Want to do any
of that, and then look out for I have this
wonderful podcast myself with Chris and Hawley of Expedite do
a shameless plug there and The podcast is called the
simmer Apple Spotify Listen Up. We talked to incredible restauranteurs,
(39:44):
the tech CEOs, everything, and maybe we'll have Mi co
on too.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, that'd be awesome. And your podcast experience definitely shown
through on this episode. Man, you're great. You're a pro
for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I appreciate that. Man. Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
You got it, and thanks for to Audio for tuning in.
If you liked the episode, please share it with your
friends and colleagues. Check back soon for another episode of
Chopping It Up.
Welcome to Chopping it Up. I'm your host, Mike Hanlon,
the senior Restaurant and food Service Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Our research and that of bi's five hundred analysts around
the globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal. Today,
we're joined by Brandon Barton, the CEO of Bite, the
leading provider of intelligent KIOSK solutions for fast, casual and
quick service restaurants. Thanks for doing this, Brandon.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Mike, thank you so much. Really appreciate having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, you got it, man. I know you've been traveling
a lot lately. Where you were at home this week?
You on the road? What have you been up to?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm mat this, this is the office, I'm at home.
It's nice to be on the road. Next week home,
the week after that, on the road next week after that.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Life will the startup CEO?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
You know? Yeah, yeah, I know. A last time we
spoke at Prosper he said you were busy. It's cool man,
I know you're a big wine guy. You have anything
you're looking forward to drinking this weekend?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, not even this weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
You know, I've tried to make a little you know
thing happen at every time I go to these events
in the conferences, I didn't do it a prosper because
I wasn't not there for a long enough amount of time.
But I like to bring big bottles of wine and
introduce people to you know, old wines and what they
taste like. So there's a nineteen eighty one shob that
I'm bringing to fs Tech next week. But other than that, no,
(01:40):
just you know, at home, just drink the casual stuff,
cheap stuff, just you know, dinner wine, table wine.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, cool. Talk to me a little bit about your
career journey prior to bite.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So I have spent my entire career in restaurants, if
you really want to go back to it starts when
I was fourteen years old and you know, needed to
make make some money to you know, get the new
Jordans and whatnot. So I was busing tables at this
amazing little burger restaurant in Bay Ridge called Skinflints. But
you know, I had not exactly realized that, let's say,
(02:16):
being a restaurant tour was a career path for me
until I was fortunate enough to go to Cornell.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
But I didn't go to the hotel school.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Figured out that there was the best hotel school in
the world there and immediately transferred in. So my passion
for a restaurant goes way back. But after college, I
worked in a couple of amazing restaurant groups, including Union
Square Hospitality Group, where you know, I didn't get an MBA,
but I got an MBA in hospitality from Danny and
the amazing crew that's there, Randy Gurrudy, Terry Coglin, Wilkodera,
(02:45):
those folks who were coming up at the same time
as I was. But then I made the switch over
to tech. You know, there was always a part of
me that wanted to make a big, scalable impact on
the business. And you know, after working in a couple
of different restaurant tech startups, I found myself as the
fourth employee at Rezi and so we set out with
(03:06):
an incredible aspiration to beat up Open Table. Open Table
was charging restaurants a dollar per guest to come in,
and we didn't think that that was right. The busiest
restaurants were being charged way more proportionally than they should
be than the value they were given to Open Table.
You know, by signing up all these people to Open
Table's platform, and I'm very proud of the work that
(03:26):
we did at Rezi to really be a contender.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
If not.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Now it's a two horse race, if you will, as
Resi's announced their acquisition of Talk, so we acquired Reserve,
which was a competitor at the time. So now it's
you know, Resie and Open Table still fighting that battle.
But needless to say, I've had a ton of years
in restaurants and restaurant technology, more than i'd probably like
to admit.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
On the air, bay Ridge man, that you got your
start in bay Ridge as some great restaurants there. In
the mid two thousands, I spent a lot of money
at the Pearl Room and one on one's you know,
it's funny, Mike, you'll you'll relate here. Everyone gets gaga
about this espresso martini thing, and let me tell you
the Pearl Room was serving espresso martinis back then.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, and you know, for what it's worth, you know,
I don't know if this is a New York scene,
but it certainly was a Brooklyn Third Avenue scene that
you and I both probably have shared drinks in the
same room. And it's fun there's a night life there.
It's its own little thing. And some of the funny
things that I think, you know, we look at today
(04:32):
and say that's like like an espresso martini or like
the obsession with bagels and everything. It's like, yeah, this
might have came out of you know, Italian American culture
in Bay Ridge, you know, twenty years ago.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So yeah, yeah, for sure, great spot. So how long
have you been at Bite and what attracted you to
the role.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah, I mean, look, I've been at Bite essentially since
the beginning. I after my time at Rezi, I met
the two co founders of Bite, Sas and Jeff and
and they were working on this you know, audacious project
to put kiosks into restaurants. It was after a little
bit of a pivot, and they came to me knowing
that I knew how to do go to market for
(05:11):
restaurant companies and I had the restaurant experience, and said,
we'd love to you know, we'd love to have you
consult And so I had breakfast with them at my Aleino.
Back then, I was like a four or five day
week breakfast at my Aleno, you know, meeting with people
type of schedule. And so I met with them and
after this breakfast, I said, this is a big deal.
And I went ahead and called my friends at Chickshak
(05:33):
at the time, who were using Kiosk in their astplace location,
and I said, Hey, is is this like a fad
or is this is this something that's going to change
the industry? And everyone said the latter. So I joined
up with the co founders. A few months later. They
made me CEO of the company, and Jeff, myself and
Thoughs have been really been running the company since together.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
So it's been.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Since twenty eighteen, so we've been on the journey for
a while.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, it's it's been interesting, you know, because Jack in
the Box tried to roll these out a long time ago,
and then they actually removed them from the restaurants. You know,
it's interesting how much consumer behavior has changed over the
last handful of years.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Right, Yeah, I mean clearly, things like the pandemic had
accelerated things now. Not in the beginning, of course, when
we were all afraid to touch a you know, a
shopping cart, never mind a kiosk, right, but you know,
the adoption of technology by consumers has skyrocked it in
every category. So This is not age restricted to gen
(06:33):
z likes.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
No, no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Everybody knows how to order online, which means you know
how to order off a Kiosk. And in a lot
of cases, and I'm not saying nessay a lot of people.
I'm saying a lot of cases, meaning there are times
when somebody wants to go order from a cashier, and
there are times when you might have your hands full
or be listening to your favorite podcast like this one
and not want to talk to anybody and not want
to interrupt that to have to go into line and order.
(06:57):
And so there's just a lot of scenarios in which
Kiosk becomes the ideal scenario. And I think the prevalent
idea for the industry at this point is to meet
guess where they are. So you see a lot of
innovation in drive through. You see a lot of amazing
order ahead and voice AI and all this other stuff
coming out, and Kiosk is a part of that. You know,
(07:19):
it's not just going to be this one channel of
walk in order but order ahead sometimes sometimes with the Kiosk,
and we're part of that unifying the guest experience into
a solid hospitality experience.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
I'd imagine you've gain a lot of inquiries from restaurant
chains with significant exposure to California.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Totally true, and you'd have to think that part of
that is the increase in minimum wage two twenty dollars
an hour any attack. Look Throughout my career, the through
line has been how do I help restaurants create more
ebitdah like, how do I help them become more profitable
by using and leveraging technology? And that's purely based on
(08:03):
my love for restaurants.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I want to see.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I was part of one of the most amazing restaurants
in New York called Tabla. It had an amazing, you know,
incredible eleven year twelve year run and then closed and
the number of the number of things that we tried
to do to make a three hundred and fifty seat
Indian restaurants survive in New York at the time, it
really spurred this idea of how do we make sure
(08:27):
that we can preserve restaurants the way that they are
and have people who operate well stay open. And you
can see, you know, there's been a slew of bankruptcies lately,
and you might point, you know, there might be a
through line here on the folks that were not early
enough to adopt new technologies, order ahead, move on to
the third parties and not innovate as part of these
(08:49):
these folks that are essentially you know, not surviving, and
so long story short, you know, we strive to kind
of make the profitability of the restaurant better. In Californi,
there's increased pressure on the P and L because of labor,
and so if we can enable their staff to do
more by just keeping the staff the way they are.
(09:10):
There's a misnomer that there's people getting fired because of chaosis.
This is just not true. It's really about supplementing what
they can do so they may be able to get
the drinks faster if they're not taking the order, which
is a really transactional part of the hospitality experience.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, for sure, you're freeing them up for more high
value jobs, right than just taking that.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Order exactly, and not even just high value.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
There's very few pure play cashiers in the entire restaurant industry.
That is always a fraction of their job. Okay, and
so if we could take that fraction away, can the
dining room be cleaner, can the bathrooms be cleaner, can
the food come out quicker? And so we see our
restaurants have increased revenue, not just because we are efficient
(09:55):
and great at presenting them the guests with items that
they want to order. We'll talk about our AI that
does that, but also because food production can go quicker
and the line can be smaller. There's all these other
benefits that don't get factored in. But we're happy about
all the brands that we work with in California. It
certainly is a place. But now Washington, Oregon, New York,
(10:17):
other places that are considering raising the minimum wage will
see the same effects.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, for sure. Congrats on the Portillo's deal.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I've read that they're testing that they're kios in California.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Right, Yeah, they are, well, not just in California, downtown
Chicago to some of their busiest stores. That test is
going really well, and probably by the time we're talking
about this is even more news to come of that.
And you know, talk about an environment where you're putting
Kiosk to the test. Those restaurants, I believe their average
(10:51):
store volume is nine million dollars. That's so on the
far end of what an average unit volume for a
restaurant brand like that is uh, you know, we have
tons and tons of volume that are being done and
the guests are adopting it. It just this is the
this is the thing that's different than five years ago
or six years ago. If you put Kiosk in your
(11:11):
restaurant and do it smart and in the right way
and have the right hospitality that you're teaching your your
team that goes along with that, guests are very willing
to adopt Kiosk as part of their ordering process.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, we had uh, we had mic Osamlu the CEO
on the pod. I guess it was last year. I'm
a fan, super sharp, sharp guy. Great conversation. What kind
of average check increases are your Kiosk customers getting from
the technology and how much of the improvement is more
consistent up selling versus maybe just giving customers more time
(11:44):
to browse the menu.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's hard to
parse the division of those things. We have been, you know,
using AI before it was cool to say you are
and even from the beginning. One of the reasons that
I joined Bite was because Sauce our Cto was so
incredible at this and he was able to create an
(12:07):
algorithm using you know, some of the most advanced kind
of machine learning technologies to learn how people like to order,
and then you know, offer items to guests that may
or may not know those items exist and might go
along with the meal that they're having. And so we
typically will see a twenty percent increase in average check.
(12:27):
Sometimes it's way bigger than that. Sometimes, you know, in
certain scenarios where there's not tons of things to upsell,
that might be more in the ten to fifteen percent range.
And the idea of upselling, we as consumers know that
as somebody asking you to buy something, but it's very different.
On a kiosk, it's just presenting a bunch of options,
(12:48):
and so there is this light touch to it where
it's just a guest opting in to the idea of
buying something or adding double meat or I didn't know
that you could put extra chi on this for fifty cents,
where those are not questions that you would get when
you're ordering with somebody. Imagine if every time you ordered
a burger, like you want double cheese, you want double meat,
(13:08):
do you want you know sidur fries? Would you like
to know upsize that This is not a hospitality experience,
whereas using a digital experience you could put a lot
of options to people they opt their way into them.
But our intelligence is showing guests things that they are
highly likely to want to order. And that's based off
of our data that we have with the restaurant. But
(13:29):
not only that data, but we use the data from
the entire you know, eight years of doing this, and
we can draw conclusions about what, I don't know, what
trends there might be in certain regions, or if it's
cold not to sell ice cream, you know, which seems
pretty simple to do, but yet at the same time
it's very effective for guests increase in average.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Check Okay, cool, I guess kind of on that same vein.
Are any of your customers using the data in their
loyalty programs or face recognition to provide customers in even
more personalized Kiosk experience?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Oh? Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
We do have facial recognition. It was also something that
wowed me back at that breakfast. Facial recognition is opt
in by a guest and it's opt in by the brand.
Every brand doesn't necessarily have to use that, and the
facial recognition is great because sometimes the idea of let's
say type your phone number in for loyalty, or scan
this thing so that we can recognize who Mike is
on this next order, that sometimes feels.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Like a lot to do.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And imagine you could just walk up to a screen
and it knows that's you, and it says your last order,
you know, was this exact bowl with this add on
and not this one and take this out and put
this in. It's a lovely way to have a very
light touch loyalty, right, and recognize somebody and then give
them personalized recommendations. So one of the things the algorithm
(14:51):
will do is understand if you like things that are spicy,
will suggest more things that are spicy to you.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
That might be, you know, instead of just the regular prize,
maybe it's the spiced curly fries I don't know, that
go along with something.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
And therefore we.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Are moving more towards that personalization. I think the next
step here is not just to understand your behavior as
a guest on a Kiosk, but your behavior as a
guest in the entire ecosystem for that restaurant. So that
means if I could pull your order from the app
last time and say do you want to reorder this?
(15:26):
It might not be what you want to do at
that moment because you were ordering for you and your
family versus ordering for just yourself, But that becomes the
next step in this idea of personalization. You have one
account with this and regardless of the digital channel that
you go through, you'll have access to that order history.
And this is why you hear many brands, I'm sure
as you listen into earnings calls as I do, talking
(15:47):
about one hundred percent digital because they want to have
this holistic view of the guests and make sure to
service them the best way they can in each one
of these channels.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, it's really interesting what percentage of people are opting
in and how are restaurant chains kind of motivating them
to do so.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think it varies. You know,
it's above fifty percent. You know, the opt in is again,
it's light. It's not an idea of having to let's say,
use a clear machine at the airport where it's like
put your irises in the exact spot. Okay, you know,
we have a fairly high accuracy, and I think the
(16:26):
motivation is for your the customers that are our frequent customers.
I remember the first restaurant that we launched in New York.
I would sit it was a couple of blocks away
from our office, and I would sit there and watch,
and we had some people that would come in and
clearly they were like busy at work, they had a
half hour to get lunch. They'd come in and with
a couple of taps on a screen, they'd have their
(16:48):
order done. Whereas if it's the first time you're experiencing
the brand, you might want to, as you said, take
your time browse the menu.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I have.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
We've had some fun with Dig. Tracy Kim, the CEO there,
she's actually and uh And it was just on on
my podcast a Simmer talking about how some guests are
using this to better navigate a menu because a menu
board doesn't have a full description of it and if
it did, it would be overwhelming. Right, So what is
in the health bowl or the Caesar salad bowl or
(17:19):
you know, in their case, like the roast chicken plate.
You can look much deeper into it on a person,
you know, a screen that's personalized to you.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So, yeah, Digs great, they have great chicken thighs. I'm
I frequent it when I'm up at our seven thirty
one lev.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I think it's one of the best values, especially if
you are factoring in your health. They have such an
incredible healthy menu, So if you're looking at to you know,
for a healthy lunch, option digs the spot.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, they do a great job. What's the forty five
percent role?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Le?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
So I listened to one of your podcasts you were
on with Rev. Ciancio, and I think it was something
about about customers walking by, you know, I you know,
because some places the line is too long, right. We
see that in a you know, I see that, you know,
in drive throughs.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
McDonald's some years ago was talking about how they have
five more than five cars in the line, people will
just drive past. And ye know, Chick fil A has
a lot higher to like demand and people are more
willing to wait, so it might be twenty five cars, right,
And so that is impacting restaurants, especially in the city. Right,
if people see long lines, they might go elsewhere, right.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It impacts restaurants everywhere. Yeah, so I think the status
forty five percent of guests that see a line are
going to are gonna, you know, walk out the door right,
a lot of more than three people, right, And so
you know, thank you for bringing that up. Even in
places that are you know, pay less, like at Chipotle,
where you're going to walk through an experience, they always
(18:52):
will have a line. But when that line gets long enough,
there's something that we call que rejection. And so the
idea is that you know, same thing, whether it's within
your car or not. You're seeing a line and you're saying, no,
I'm not going here, that's gonna take too long.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Now. By the way, the Chipotle line, the Sweet Green line.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
They're fast. That it's not that these lines are slow,
but the perception of it is that it is. And
so if you can offset some of those orders to
a kios that's sitting on the side, you know, easily
accessible by the guests, people are way more willing to
wait for their food than they are to wait to
order their food, because then it seems like you're waiting twice,
(19:30):
you know, Like I said before, I mean, I'm a
very digital focused person. So I'd love to get my
order in and then check my app and see what
the score of the game was last night. Check Fantasy
you know, see the Giants lose again and and then
you know my salads ready perfect?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, all right, good stuff. What's the impact of kios
on on employee turnover and satisfaction?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I mean, look, I think we'd love to have a
lot more hard data on this, but generally speaking, if
you're a tip ticking res tips go up, right we
are we're offering an experience that can make sure to
prompt a guest for tipping if they want to do that,
and you could set percentages on whatever you want. Doesn't
(20:13):
have to be a twenty percent tip, but the overall
tips go up. I also think that it takes a
lot of pressure off their job responsibilities. I think you
would know when you're trying to juggle two or three
balls at the same time, like taking an order, putting
the order together, getting drinks, and doing all those things
at once. You could take one of those things away
and just cut it down to two, you're going to
(20:35):
be better and more efficient at it. So we have seen,
and this might perhaps be counterintuitive, but we've seen a
lot of staffs embrace the idea of Kiosk ordering so
that they can actually execute on their job better. And look,
people don't get into the restaurant industry for just a job.
A lot of people want to do this because they
feel making others happy is part of that bonus. It's
(20:58):
not just the wage that I can, but I want
to make have an impact on other people's lives, right,
And so I think it allows Kioskodering allows that person
to do more of the personal interaction. Again counterintuitive, take
the transaction part out of it and give somebody take
an extra few seconds to hand somebody their order and say, Mike,
(21:19):
thanks so much for coming in today. And I guarantee
you those hospitality employees feel the impact of the smile
that Mike gives back to them before they leave, and
they and Mike might say have a great day, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
One hundred percent. Man. I think that's part of the
issue that we're seeing with Starbucks, is right, that was
the cafe where the barista knew your name right when
you walked in, and they've they've gotten away from that, right,
It's kind of become soulless, transactional, and I think it's
really impacted their sales. So it's really important to be
able to free up your employees to provide hospitality, no
(21:54):
matter what the concept.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Is yeah, And I think that's kind of the point.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
With Starbucks is that the the the increased variations on
their menu have made it ever so much more difficult
to be a barista. And so never mind that you
now have to be a barista in a cashier or
barisa and a you know, you know, the person that's
handing you all your food fulfillment. Right, So I totally
(22:18):
agree with that.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I think.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Look, I think I probably am one who thinks that
Brian is going to do great things there in his
new role. So you know, he's already come out with
a little statement on how he's going to change the
environment to be that third place again. And happy to
uh to receive a call from them if they want
to do some stuff with bite.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Nice nice plug. I I yeah, I'm looking forward to
seeing what what he can accomplish at Starbucks. That's going
to be. That's gonna be a fun one to track,
for sure. I'd imagine the technology is helping sun Chains
ease the issue of late night staffing.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Late night and midday okay, right, so Midge, you know
shift changes even you know, even the idea that a
restaurant is drive through heavy. So we have some restaurants
that we work with that are over seventy percent drive
through and again, multiple balls in the air. Can we
take one away? So, if you have the majority of
(23:15):
your staff and the majority of your revenue coming through
drive through, and everyone's focused on this one or two
windows out the side of the restaurant, how can you
have your eyes in the back of your head to
be in both places at once? And so how great
is it to be able to have your focus on
that seventy percent revenue channel and then the other thirty
percent coming in the store? You hot, you know that
(23:37):
you have to deliver on that that handoff that hospitality
experience when you're giving people what they've ordered or even
making sure that the dining room's clear. So I think
that applies to late night when you might be shorter staffed.
I think it applies to, you know, the shoulder periods
as well. We've had a restaurant brand who actually has
quite an older clientele. You know, if you were to
(23:58):
compare them to the Chipotles and and maybe the Sweet
Greens of the world, and they found that that the
Kiosk always being able to be there to take an
order and not having somebody wait, while there's shifting things
happening in the kitchen and people are trying to do
multiple things at the same time. Really added to that,
let's say two to five pm time period where people
(24:20):
are coming in and just want to get something and
you know, have a very quick and easy experience.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, and that's a home run. You're leveraging the box
in a slow time, right, and so you're leveraging your
fixed costs. It's it's helpful, for sure. Sure. I've read
in one of the case studies on your website that
bite help to lower food cost So does that mean
food costs are going down as a percentage of sales
due to the higher AUVs and average checks and the
up selling higher margin menu items or is there something
(24:50):
more to it than that.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Well, typically the things that are additive to the main
part of a meal are lower food costs. Your French
fries are cheaper than the burg The soda is way
cheaper than the French fries. And so if we can
help to remind people that they forgot to put a
drink in their cart, or they forgot to you know,
add that extra side, or maybe it's a dessert, these
(25:13):
are lower costs. Lower food cost items, and therefore you know,
food cost is going to go down as a total
percentage of sales. Also, as you mentioned, all the variable
costs go down as sales go up. That's that's how
that works, right, you know, So you know, the the
cost of labor so to speak, is going to go
(25:34):
down as sales go up if you're not adding more
labor to do that. Now, food cost doesn't exactly act
the same way. But but if we're adding the sales
on these higher margin items, it's going to bring down
the food costs in a you know, significant way.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, that's great. Talk to me about the secret menu
at Shacks che Big Chicken.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Let me can I just start by saying, Shaquille O'Neil
is He is exactly who you think Key is in
terms of how kind and generous and amazing he is.
I spent nearly an hour with him at the Big
Chicken conference in Las Vegas. Shout out to Josh and
Josh and all and Sam and all the team out
there for getting that to happen. And and you know,
(26:16):
we set off on this project to try to bring
Shack's personality into a Kiosk experience, and so We didn't
just say hey, let's just do this in a small way,
in the big Chicken way with the capital big. We
did it in a big way. We actually have changed
our entire user experience to be able to do this
not just for them, but to do this for many
(26:38):
other brands. So before we were saying, hey, this is
a great way to get the transaction done, but now,
how do we add a hospitality experience? How do we
add fun to that transaction to make guests want to
come use the kiosk? And there was no better path
or you know, initial place to do this. And with
Shaquille O'Neil probably the most memorable you know, celebrity that
(26:58):
I know, Okay, and so we have instances of Shack
throughout the entire you know, chicken menu, flapping chicken wings
and doing all this. But the kicker and the best
part in my mind, was we had a little area
where if you click it, and you figure out that
you can click this area, you get into Shack's secret menu.
And it's not just Shack, it's the entire O'Neal family.
(27:20):
So his mother has an item's there that she wants
or done Lucille's way, his daughter. He has menu items
that are done her way, and so it's really about
appealing to multi generational but also putting a little fun.
I mean McDonald's, you know, did some good stuff here
when they had the Travis Scott menu, for example, and
(27:40):
they you didn't have to change what you have in
your kitchen, but how do you do a shacksway?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
You know?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
And I think that's really cool. So there's so much
more that is going to come out of that. I
hope that some of our restaurants will embrace us and
maybe even look to local celebrities or influencers and say,
you know, you see this on old school menus. This
is the way Brandon has his martini, So we're going
to put it on the menu. That's honoring the people
and the regulars around you. I would love to see
(28:06):
people say this is this is just a salad for
us here and it's double chicken caesar kale, and that's
exactly the way Sally does it every Tuesday, and now
we have it on the menu for her.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that's very cool. I'm not really sure. I'm a
huge fan of Shaq and the Inside the NBA show,
so I haven't heard any updates about what's going to
happen with it. But now that like TNT lost that contract,
I'm kind of like heartbroken.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Me too, me too.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
I think it's I don't know, it's fairly improbable to
me that they're going to keep Shaq and Chuck off
at the NBA TV circuit in some way.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I hope the idea.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Of having Shaq and Chuck still involved with, you know,
commenting on basketball is going to be there. Maybe they'll
go the Peyton and Eli way and you could just
tune into T and T and have them sitting there
watching a game.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That'd be cool. Also, where do I got to touch
on the menu? Because I noticed there's a big chicken
on my way home from work, so I'm going to
have to get one of those up. It's in Bridgewater,
New Jersey. So where do I have to touch the menu?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Sure, sure to find that menu.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
If you look at it long enough, it'll say, you know,
like something like a shosh you know, don't touch here,
but chat On the bottom left hand side of it.
Shack is sitting there and telling you know, if you
hit Shack kind of like a little whack a mole
if you hit shack at the menu will come up.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Okay, very cool. I got to check that out. All right.
What do you think of McDonald's move to test these
kiosks that accept cash.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I mean, you know, you talk about you were talking
a little bit about the news cycles on kiosk and
this that it was like stop and go for Jack
and other places. Also, the commentary around McDonald's kiosk program
has been wrapped up in a bunch of noise like there,
you know, total digital transformation being I don't know, six
(29:56):
figures for franchisees and the franchisees revolting and some people
took that a revolting on kiosk and guess what they
were not. And so it's just a signal to me.
McDonald's is certainly the leader in so many categories. Innovation
is one of them as well, And it's just a
signal to me that they see more and more use
cases and more and more guests that want to come
(30:17):
and use the kiosk, and they're maintaining their value proposition
while also increasing the hospitality by saying you can now
you know, do a cash transaction here. You know, we're
partnered with a great company glory to be able to
do that as well in certain cases. And look, I
think cash transactions are declining. I think that's not a
controversial thing to say, but in certain scenarios, in certain
(30:40):
states and certain locations, you want to be able to
take cash because you want to have a hospitality experience
for everybody. Okay, you don't want to exclude people from
that because they, you know, didn't use a credit card
or just we're using cash today. So I love it,
and I think it underscores the idea that kiosk are
(31:00):
going to be in every QSR and fast casual restaurant
in the next few years.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, I agree. Ten years later, Chili's brought back xiosks. Right,
why did he work last time? Was it just were
they just too early? And what do you think about
them bringing that technology back?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Well, you know, you know my non professional opinion here,
I guess, or you know, not fully educated on what
the Chili's team has in mind. I think the idea
of having something to assist their service staff to provide
better service by allowing guests to order the second round
(31:37):
of drinks at the table makes sense.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Going back to the comment abound around some of the
brands that have not innovated, having struggles and bankruptcy and
things like that. This is Chili's way to perhaps try
to move into innovation cycle. I will say frankly that
that whole let's say family dining, casual dining category, you know,
as well as I is getting smushed. I mean, more
people want to go to Kava and sit down and
(32:02):
not have table service, then they might want to go
to a more casual and then they'll save the table
service for a higher end experience, maybe something like a Hillstone.
And so the category is getting crushed, and that means
the margins are getting hurt and they have to figure
out something. So I applaud Chilis for doing it. I
will say, you know, the majority of my background, you know,
(32:25):
has been in fine dining and has been at my
hospitality background has been in table service. I think that
that's probably the highest level where you want to see,
you know, tablet assisted ordering. That that's where it stops
to me. If I, you know, I don't think Hillstone,
you know, if we go up a level should adopt
something like this, I think you will start to degrade
(32:47):
the relationship between server and guests. Which is a part
of the full service experience, and so you know, for
what it's worth. You know that that's something that we've
even tried with with higher end like fast casuals or
even i should say casual dining, and it's not the best.
It's not the best experience for guests. And if we
(33:09):
do anything at Bite, we care about the guest experience
more than anything.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yep, yeah, for sure. Yeah, Chili's has done a great job.
And it also eliminates another pain point, which is like
paying the check. You know sometimes you know, if you
got young kids, they tear it into a pumpkin after
a certain amount of time at the table or whatever
it is, and you have to get out of there.
So I think it makes sense for a chain that's
catering more to families.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
The paying the check thing is interesting because everyone there
was there's always been a ton of companies in the
restaurant technology space that's like, you can pay your check faster.
And yes, I understand that that is a pain point
that the guest feels, and that's great, But the thing
that the promise of it always has been and you'll
turn that table faster. Okay, Well, if you don't have
(33:53):
another guest to go fill that table immediately, and it's
going to just sit empty for the time the guests,
those initial guests would have been paying the check. You're
actually not generating more revenue through table turns. It's a
big misnomer that I think, especially as you get to
maybe some of the smaller table service restaurants concepts. You know,
(34:15):
unless you're filling nine point thirty turning your what are
you turning your tables to to what? To an empty
dining room? So but I do I do you know,
I know that there's pain in getting a check and
getting it paid.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
So heard, Yeah, all right. We touched on this a
little bit, the voice AI. Right, So McDonald's recently ended
their trial after some well publicized issues. On the other hand,
Taco Bell is ramping up their trial this year. So
what have been the issues with voice AI And when
will this really be a viable technology that everybody's going
(34:48):
to start adopting.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I think it's already passed viable yet I don't think
it's past scale, okay, And so the viability of this
could work in certain environ in certain restaurants, but I
don't think it's going to work at scale for another
few years. The acceleration of artificial intelligence will help this
(35:09):
because we are talking about a very complicated piece of AI.
It's not just suggesting items, but it's trying to understand accents,
regional accents. I mean, this is you know, not you know,
non English speaking language. You know, guests that are coming
and trying to communicate makes.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It very hard.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
By the way, in the future, it's going to make
it very easy because if you speak Japanese, it will
speak Japanese back to you.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
How lovely is that? But it's not the case today.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
The thing I think most about is some of the
stats that have been out about the order accuracy and
how many orders can can be put in without an intercept. Okay,
and an intercept might be a staff employee, but sometimes
maybe what I what I don't like about it is
the intercept is coming from a third party. And I
know that there's been issues with our people listening into
(36:00):
this conversation in California. That's that there's some lawsuit that
was there. And you know, I think restaurants need to
be experimenting with this for sure and move at a
very deliberate pace with it. Be very diligent about understanding
how the guest feels. One of the lovely things about
(36:21):
Kiosk is usually somebody's grabbing their order and sitting in
a restaurant. You can ask them if you want. If
they're driving off, you don't actually know how they felt
about that experience. Sure there's a survey, Sure there's a this,
but man, I would be really inspecting how the guest
feels and if the guest feels like that was done
well and without issue. And by the way, I have
(36:41):
there are many customer service experiences now that include this
that are outside of restaurants, right, and you're talking to
a bot. You all, we all have been there and
been like operator operator operator, right, and so so we
don't want that level of frustration ever in the hospitality industry.
But I have had some in certain scenarios that have
been beautiful and seamless. We were talking about internet problems before.
(37:04):
There's a way Optimum reset your internet in five seconds
you talked to about it's over and you don't actually
need to talk to anybody on the phone. And so
I have a lot of hope for this category, and
I think we're in the early inning.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Great excluding Kiosk ordering, what restaurant pain points are AI
best suited to solve.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I'll go to something that's probably even a little bit
further than voice voice ordering.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
But kitchen robotics.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Okay, just by the nature of cooking, it's a repeatable process,
there are steps to it. And again at the higher
levels of dining, this is not this is we're very
far out from that. But at the levels of dining
and QSR, you know, cooking French fries seems like something
(37:53):
that can be an automated process. I applaud the Sweet
Green team for what they've did and alleged they've they've
gone out on with you know, with regards to buying
spice and and and putting in the Infinite kitchens. I
went to the Infinite Kitchen store and Penn Station area
recently just to check out the newest one because it's like,
the question was, can we make the footprint an urban
(38:15):
footprint for Sweet Green? And it was cool and you know,
by the way plug again, they went ahead and adopted Kiosk,
and they built something in house because it had to
be perfect with the Infinite Kitchen. But they took this
this step of automating the back of house in front
of house at the same time. And you know, I've
even had a chance to visit Kernel, which is Cevel's
(38:38):
new spot in New York. They're doing well. They're not
doing Vegan anymore, which is interesting. But I have a
lot of hope that artificial intelligence and machine learning and
all the intelligence around cameras and vision of what to grab,
when to grab it, when it's cooked, infrared, all of
these things add up and yeah, we could we can
(39:00):
automate some steps in that hospitality or in the cooking experience.
So I have a lot of hope for that category.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah. Well, I know a lot of restauranteurs do too,
looking forward for that those investment costs to come down. Yep,
all right, great stuff, man, Brandon, thanks for doing this.
Where can listeners find out more about bite?
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, I mean get bitte dot com. I mean I
if people are listening, want to reach out to me,
I'm a Brandon at gatbyte dot com. I love talking
to people that have used kios. Want to do any
of that, and then look out for I have this
wonderful podcast myself with Chris and Hawley of Expedite do
a shameless plug there and The podcast is called the
simmer Apple Spotify Listen Up. We talked to incredible restauranteurs,
(39:44):
the tech CEOs, everything, and maybe we'll have Mi co
on too.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, that'd be awesome. And your podcast experience definitely shown
through on this episode. Man, you're great. You're a pro
for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
I appreciate that. Man. Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
You got it, and thanks for to Audio for tuning in.
If you liked the episode, please share it with your
friends and colleagues. Check back soon for another episode of
Chopping It Up.
Host
Michael Halen
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