Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants
Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants is the go-to podcast for restaurant tech founders and revenue leaders who want to win. Hosted by Paul Molinari of Popcorn GTM, this show is your filter in a market flooded with 1,500+ tech vendors and AI-powered hype. Paul gets down to brass tacks, talking with the sharpest minds in the business to uncover strategies that actually move the needle. If you’re serious about growth, you’re in the right place. Let’s get into it.
Episodes
The QR code menu won the adoption war and lost the popularity contest. Roughly 75% of restaurants use them. In a blind survey of 850 diners, exactly 1% called them their favorite way to view a menu.
This week, Paul puts the sticker on trial. First, an honest steel-man for the code: $5K a year in prin...
The National Restaurant Association just asked Congress for a two-year delay on a federal ban that could wipe out a $1.6B opportunity for restaurants. Paul Molinari breaks down the THC beverage story hiding in plain sight: a November 12, 2026 deadline, thin margins pushing operators toward low-dose THC drinks as alcohol alternatives, and a tech and insurance gap nob...
McDonald's just rewrote their playbook. Here's what it really means for the restaurant tech industry.
McDonald's unveiled McDonald's > NEXT — a sweeping new strategy covering menu upgrades, influencer marketing, restaurant redesigns, and a brand new AI operating s...
Restaurant operators are sitting on more data than ever — and more confused about what to do with it than ever. In this episode of Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants, Paul Molinari sits down with Eric Lehto, CEO of OpSage by CONVX, to cut through the noise around AI in restaurants and get honest about what it actually takes to make it work.
...Restaurant labor is an unparalleled growth engine for skill development and leadership. Whether you've worked a shift in a dining room or managed a busy kitchen, these transferable skills are invaluable in any industry. This episode challenges the misconceptions about restaurant jobs and highlights their role in fostering unmatched personal and professional growth. From teamwork to technology fluency, learn why your next great hire...
In this episode of Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants, Paul Molinari of Popcorn GTM talks with Coca-Cola’s Angela Diffly and Freestyle’s Anthony Bonitatibus about Coca-Cola Freestyle as a connected restaurant technology platform, not just a touchscreen beverage dispenser. They explain how Freestyle functions as an insights engine that turns every pour into data operators can use, and how it can integrate via API wi...
It's another Thirsty Thursday! Paul and Matt interview Sterling Douglass, co-founder and CEO of Chowly, about building the company over a decade from POS integrations into an off-premise platform serving 17,000+ restaurants and the shift from “tablet hell” to today’s dashboard overload. Sterling argues restaurants are embracing the AI wave and that open data access and APIs will beat walled gardens. He explains wh...
Paul Molinari breaks down why April 15 Tax Day restaurant promotions (free items, BOGOs, and 10.40-themed discounts from brands like Burger King, Krispy Kreme, Shake Shack, Potbelly, BJ’s Brewhouse, Hooters, and Grubhub) are really loyalty and data-capture strategies built on sophisticated tech stacks. He explains the behind-the-scenes requirements—CRM, segmentation, promo validation, POS integration, real-time data pip...
Is drone delivery the future of restaurants—or just expensive hype? From DoorDash to Amazon Prime Air, drones are already dropping off pizzas and burritos in suburban America. But the numbers tell a wild story: ground delivery costs ~$8 per package, while Amazon projects drone delivery at $63 per drop. That's a 90% cost reduction needed before this takes off for most restaurant operators. In this video, we break down: ✅ Who's...
In this episode of Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants, host Paul Molinari delivers something more personal — a 40-year journey through restaurant technology through the lens of a Gen X operator. From washing dishes at a Long Island Italian restaurant in 1985 to navigating AI-driven tech stacks today, Molinari traces how his generation lived through every major disruption the industry has seen — the first POS system...
In this Thirsty Thursday episode, we welcome Scott Siegel of Curbit to discuss digital order orchestration and kitchen capacity management to reduce late pickups, cold food, and crowded pickup areas. Scott explains Curbit’s origins as a curbside pickup solution and how the pandemic-driven surge in digital ordering revealed a need to coordinate guest arrival with real-time kitchen production.
In early March, McDonald’s CEO posted a LinkedIn video taking a careful bite of the new Big Arch burger, sparking widespread mockery and triggering response videos from Burger King and Wendy’s in what became the “great fast food CEO war of 2026.” Paul Molinari, founder of Popcorn GTM breaks down how the moment became a data and tech story: McDonald’s saw 47,000+ mentions and 5.8B reach, yet Burger King...
Breaking down Olo’s new customer-facing ordering app and asking who really benefits—guests, restaurant brands, or Olo. It frames the app as a “remote control” for ordering across many Olo-powered restaurants, potentially reducing app clutter, avoiding marketplace-style price inflation, and enabling “second-party ordering” where brands retain guest relationships while benefiting from network reach...
Paul and Matt are joined by Kerry Leo, Vice President of Technology at Shipley Donuts, to discuss Shipley’s modernization journey since he joined in 2021. Leo explains how Shipley moved from fragmented franchise technology to a cloud-based, franchise-ready ecosystem by standardizing POS and networking across 340 locations, standing up Oracle NetSuite for ERP and back office, and launching online ordering with Olo and a mobile...
It's another Thirsty Thursday episode! This time Paul and Matt welcome Laurens Pitts, VP of Technology at Salsarita’s Fresh Mexican Grill, a Charlotte, North Carolina–based fast-casual Tex-Mex chain founded in 2000 with 80+ locations. Drawing on Laurens' experience on both the vendor and operator sides, they discuss how vendor–operator relationships have become less healthy over the past 5–15 years, with les...
Guest Joanna Fantozzi, Senior Editor at Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality, joins Paul and Matt to discuss where restaurant loyalty is headed. Fantozzi argues “is loyalty dead?” is the wrong question and explains that loyalty programs mainly attract already-loyal guests, that consumers have limited appetite for downloading multiple apps, and that loyalty is evolving beyond points. The group discus...
In this episode of 'Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants,' host Paul Molinari from Popcorn GTM explores the implications of the flipped food pyramid. Highlighting the USDA's updated nutritional guidelines, Paul discusses how protein has become foundational in modern diets and how guests are more nutrition-aware than ever. He examines how restaurant brands like Fogo de Chão, Chipotle, Sweet Green, Cava, and True Food Kitchen are ...
In this episode of 'Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants', host Paul Molinari of Popcorn, GTM, addresses the pressing challenges restaurant owners face due to immigration enforcement and labor issues. Through real-world examples from Minnesota, Maine, and Texas, Paul explores how these factors disrupt operations, impact staffing, and alter customer behavior. To help restaurant operators succeed amid these uncertainties, the epis...
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