October 27, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, Jeremy Julian hosts Jay Fiske, President of Powerhouse Dynamics. They discuss the impact of smart energy management on restaurant operations, with insights on how IoT and AI technology are revolutionizing areas from HVAC systems to fryers. Jay explains how these technologies reduce costs, waste, and maintenance issues. He dives into the specifics of HVAC and refrigeration management, emphasizing the importance of proactive maintenance and data-driven decision-making. The discussion also covers cooking equipment, particularly fryers, and how data can optimize oil use and quality. Jay shares the importance of automating repetitive tasks to allow restaurant staff to focus on more value-added activities. Additionally, the potential for AI in predictive maintenance and energy demand management is highlighted. The episode concludes with a call to restaurant operators to consider IoT solutions for efficiency and cost savings.
00:00 Power House Dynamics
00:14 Introduction and Welcome
01:24 Meet Jay Fiske: Background and Career Journey
03:10 Powerhouse Dynamics: From Energy Sensors to Food Service Solutions
05:49 Revolutionizing Restaurant Operations with IoT
07:12 Deep Dive: HVAC and Refrigeration Management
11:01 Automation and Efficiency in Food Service
13:33 Real-Time Data and Predictive Maintenance
17:07 Retrofitting Existing Equipment with IoT
19:26 Balancing Oil Usage with Data
19:56 Importance of Filtration in Fryers
20:36 Sophisticated Metrics in Frying Operations
22:28 Monitoring Water Usage
24:48 Energy Management in Food Service
37:00 The Role of AI in Energy Management
38:53 Conclusion and Contact Information
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides
podcast, helping you run yourrestaurant better.
Jeremy Julian (00:14):
everyone.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
Today's guest is Jay Fisk, thepresident of Powerhouse
Dynamics.
We dive into smart energymanagement and how it's changing
restaurant operations.
Jay shares some really greatinsights as how technology is
really impacting every area offacilities management from
H-V-A-C-E to.
(00:34):
Refrigeration to fryers, tocoffee machines.
He shares how iot and AI aretruly helping cut costs, reduce
waste, and automate the stuffthat used to make operators
crazy.
If you're tired of chasingmaintenance issues and wasting
dollars, this episode is a mustwatch.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officer ofCBS North Star.
(00:56):
We wrote the North Star Point ofSale solution for multi-units.
Please check us out.
At CBS northstar.com and nowonto our episode.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us, as I like to say
each and every time.
And my family likes to make funof me over the dinner table
'cause I can hear the,recordings outside of my office.
I say this every time, but Iknow that, I don't take for
(01:18):
granted that you guys hang outwith us each week.
Thank you for tuning in andthank you for, the feedback that
you guys give me on social and,when I see you in person.
Today is a cool episode because,I'm gonna let Jay talk a little
bit about his background.
But, Jay and his organizationhave been doing some really
unique things that I think aresuper bleeding edge as it
relates to tech, and I thinkthere's a lot of opportunities
for restaurants and really allfood service operators to be
(01:39):
better.
But Jay, before we jump intokind of what.
What you get a chance to do.
Tell me a little bit about yourbackground.
Who is Jay?
Where did you come from?
You know what?
What's your role where you're atnow?
Jay Fiske (01:49):
Sure.
yeah.
I'm Jay Fiske.
I'm the President of PowerhouseDynamics.
We are the makers of the OpenKitchen, internet of things
platform for multi-site foodservice operators.
my background, I grew up inupstate New York, on, on the
shores of Lake Ontario.
and pretty much the state in theMid-Atlantic and Northeast for
my whole life.
But I've always been fascinatedwith technology.
(02:10):
I've always despised waste andloved deficiency.
and these are concepts I'veworked on for pretty much the
entirety of my career.
and so I, I've mo most of mycareer has also been focused
around, The developmentintroduction of new technology,
enabled products and services.
And it's been various startups.
I spent a brief stint, as apartner in a very, boutique
(02:33):
venture capital, firm making,early stage investments in
renewable energy, technologies.
but hard to believe, 14 yearsago, I joined a very young, very
small.
I was the fourth employee, so Itechnically.
Not my, I wasn't a founder, butit still feels like my baby.
powerhouse dynamics.
And I joined, this fledglingstartup, leading business
(02:53):
development.
And, it's been a really, amazingjourney, building the company,
from essentially the verybeginning.
To getting acquired in 2019 andcontinuing and having the really
great fortune of having a chanceto lead the company for the past
three and a half years, as wewere part of our parent company,
Middleby.
But, we started out, I dunno ifthe sort of the history of the
(03:13):
company is interesting that westarted out making, energy
sensors for homeowners so theycould see where the electricity
was flowing inside their houseand.
make improvements.
The software would look at thisand say, you don't need to run
your pool pump for 24 hours aday.
You can run it for 12 hours andstill have a very healthy
environment.
Or you could yell at your kidsfor leaving their bedroom lights
on when they went to school.
all kinds of things like that.
(03:33):
And it was interesting and cool,but not a lot of energy nerds
out there like me to make for aterribly interesting market.
But, we saw an opportunity topivot the business when I joined
into, An area that feels the thepain of energy cost much more
acutely.
And that's food service.
'cause we just started lookingat, who really feels the pain
(03:54):
around energy acutely and insmaller facilities.
'cause we had originally startedout for, buildings the size of
homes like maybe you and I have.
and if you look at the math,it's restaurants, right?
compared to a house, it'sprobably 20 times more energy
intense in terms of kilowatthours per square foot.
If you look at other commercial,facilities, it's three to five
(04:16):
times.
So we said, ah, that's reallyinteresting.
And we don't see any technologyin the space helping these
organizations manage theirequipment, manage one of their
bigger spends on utilities.
And deliver that, that, thatsort of bottom line savings.
So really pivoted the companyinto that space and continued to
evolve and develop the platformto what it is today, which is
(04:37):
broadly speaking, helpingmulti-site food service
operators manage their criticalinfrastructure, whether it's
HVAC automation and diagnostics,automating lighting and signage
to tapping into the controls,and extracting data from a
commercial fryer.
And managing your oil and yourfryer operations better.
pushing recipe updates to rapidcook ovens, getting visibility
(04:58):
into, customer facing, superautomatic coffee bean to cup
coffee machines.
And so there's just, back to thetheme of who I am and what I do
and what motivates me.
My why is I despise waste.
I love efficiency.
And there's just, when we tookthe company and focused on this,
Very resource intensive industrycalled food service and applying
(05:20):
some clever software in thecloud and getting data,
impactful data to that software.
the results are prettycompelling and it's pretty
exciting to be part of this.
And we are, this is still arelatively new thing for the
food service industry, so I likethat.
I like.
going where no one has gonebefore and building new things,
and also evangelizing andsaying, whether it's my platform
(05:41):
or somebody else's, there's justpeople.
Please take, look at this.
There's just so much value outthere, waiting to be captured.
let us help you.
Jeremy Julian (05:49):
Yeah.
No, and I think, I mean it'sinteresting when you guys had
approached the show becauseagain, selfishly I get a chance
to sit on this side of the micand learn, and I love to learn
new things.
And, maybe there's a, maybethere's a.
A, a small piece of your brainthat needs to be, evaluated by
science, restaurants and newtech all in the same world.
there's a very small percentageof people that can figure this
(06:10):
out because it's a crazy worldout there innovating and
creating a space.
You share, Jay, this internet ofthings in general and I guess
I'd love to kinda start with.
I dunno.
I guess let's start withrefrigeration.
'cause Refrigeration's a bigpiece.
I think HVAC refrigeration arethe two biggest areas where
there's opportunities.
But let's start with kind offreezers and refrigerators.
(06:30):
What is traditional prior topowerhouse dynamics?
What is the ways that theymanage these devices?
Is it just.
They do temp checks and theyfigure it out.
Is that, walk us through, giveus a day in the life of those
restaurant owners, thoserestaurant managers that are out
there today prior toimplementing your solution, and
what changes after we, after weimplement this new tech that
you're talking about.
Jay Fiske (06:50):
Yeah, Great question.
And just to, I, I know youraudience is fairly tech savvy,
but.
If I can start, just explain, soit sometimes these frothy terms,
right?
Get people a little bit.
internet of Things is a verysimple concept.
It's literally a device that hasdata that is directly connected
to the cloud and sending thatdata to the cloud, right?
So it's giving, and that opensup all kinds of possibilities
(07:10):
about what you can do to driveefficiency.
So if you think about thingslike HVAC and refrigeration in,
a typical restaurant today, youmight have a programmable
thermostat.
to control the rooftop unitthat's conditioning the space.
In the summertime, it'sproviding air conditioning.
In the winter it's providingheating.
and same thing for your walk-insor regions.
(07:31):
there's a essentially anotherlittle thermostat in there
that's saying this region needsto be at 40 degrees Fahrenheit,
or the walk-in freezer needs tobe at minus 10.
and these devices are measuringthe temperature locally and
saying, oh, it's a little bittoo warm.
I'm gonna fire up thecompressor.
I'm gonna make cold air again.
Whether you're.
Providing, air conditioned airfor keeping your customers and
your staff happy.
(07:52):
Or providing a nice coldenvironment to keep, the bugs
and all the bad stuff outta yourfood.
and the way that staffhistorically has managed those
devices is on the refrigerationside a couple times a day, you
walk around, you're exposed to,you're supposed to
Jeremy Julian (08:06):
Yeah.
Whether they do or not is a
Jay Fiske (08:07):
right?
Supposed to with a piece ofpaper and a pen, and you're
write down the temperature andthe time and who you are, and
you sign.
Yes, this is true.
And but we all know food serviceoperations.
it is a really, tough industry.
really tough job.
There's a billion other higherpriority things that people have
to worry at.
My chef just quit.
Or a customer's complaining thatfood's not good or
Jeremy Julian (08:28):
the last 27 times the refrigerator was the same
exact temperature.
Why do I need to go check it a
Jay Fiske (08:32):
I forgot this morning, but you know what?
It's probably fine.
I'm just gonna write down 40degrees and get on with my day.
That's called pencil whipping,right?
It happens all the time andpeople know that, right?
So the historically that's been,it's labor intensive, it's
manual, it's air prone,whatever.
you lose the paper.
What?
You can't read your handwriting.
You forget to do it.
You make up the numbers.
All of this stuff, we're dealingwith people, right?
(08:53):
And just people, it's justsometimes
Jeremy Julian (08:55):
are people and they're typically the least
trained and the youngest.
Youngest in the, in ourindustry.
Right?
Jay Fiske (09:00):
and it's a similar story around HVAC that, if I'm
comfortable, I don't think aboutit, right?
Because I have a billion ofother things that are more
important.
And so what happens is a brandnew restaurant, I'm gonna put
that thermostat in, okay?
I'm gonna program it.
during occupied hours I'm at 72,and in the off hours when I'm
closed, I'll let that drift backto 78, maybe 80.
And in the winter I'm gonna, I'mgonna set it to 68 and maybe let
(09:21):
it drift back to 55 and the offhours.
So it's great.
what happens?
Super hot day.
Someone says, I'm working hard.
I'm, washing dishes, runningaround, serving meals, busing,
busting tables.
I'm gonna put it to 70.
I'm gonna press hold.
That's much more comfortable.
I'm gonna get on with my life.
guess what?
Nine months later it's still at70 hold, right?
And so every single evening it'sblasting the air conditioning at
(09:44):
2:00 AM whether or not there'ssomeone in the location.
That's very common, right?
Because again, it's one of thesethings like it's all that we're
talking about, all that stuffthat just It's supposed to work
well to allow you to focus onthe other things in having a
successful food serviceoperation.
And if you're comfortable,you're not gonna even think
about managing that HVAC unit,but you are literally just
(10:05):
lighting stacks of cash on fireby not letting that system
operate effectively.
So condition the space whenpeople are there, let it coast
when they're not right.
and that's, historically havethe thermostat.
If you've got it programmed,wonderful, you're ahead of, 90%
of the rest of the industry.
Mostly they're, even if they'reprogrammable, they're not
programmed.
but you're just not gonna thinkabout it.
(10:26):
You're not gonna worry about it.
You're just like, oh, energy'salways gonna be three to 5% of
my p and l.
I can't really do anything aboutit.
I'm gonna move on and worryabout getting more folks in the
front door.
Jeremy Julian (10:36):
where does life go as they engage with you guys,
just specifically on these twoareas, HVAC and kind of
refrigeration.
how do you guys help put theseiot devices in to really change
not just the behavior, but thereporting and all of those kind
of things?
'cause I'm excited becausethere's so few people that are,
you talk about the percentage ofpeople that even have a
programmable thermostat thenthat the program is right and
(10:56):
then where things go and how bigof a change it can make.
It's awesome.
Jay Fiske (11:00):
Yeah, it's really fun.
and you mentioned the wordbehavior, and that's a really
important word because.
We've learned sometimes the hardway, changing behavior is really
hard, and I know that's obvious,right?
when you have
Jeremy Julian (11:11):
back to people.
Jay Fiske (11:12):
we're going back to people.
And so a big sort of, epiphanymany years ago is changing
behavior is hard.
We've gotta automate, right?
If we really want to have acompelling solution, we have to
automate.
So you don't have to worry aboutthe fridge, you don't have to
worry about programming yourhvac, you're gonna be
comfortable.
The food's gonna be safe whenthere's a problem.
(11:33):
It'll let you know.
but you're also not wastefully,blasting air conditioning in the
middle of the night.
you're optimizing the use ofthat equipment and you're
optimizing the use of the, ofthe fridge.
And by the way, I just saved youmaybe between all the
refrigeration units in yourfacility.
Maybe I saved you and yourstaff, an hour of non-value
added administrative work everyday.
Because now someone doesn't haveto go around or they're not
(11:54):
well, they're supposed to goaround with that piece of paper
and writing things down andinitialing it and then filing it
away.
just to prove when the healthservices inspector shows up,
hey, someone complained or theygot de deli belly last Tuesday,
show me your logs.
And you know that task is nowoff of the shoulders.
It's all automated and online,and you can focus on things that
(12:15):
humans are good at, right?
Being hospitable, Let themachines just record the data.
'cause like you said, most ofthe time it's gonna be the same.
It's a very boring job, right?
So let people do the moreinteresting things.
Jeremy Julian (12:27):
So in, in that case, once you guys are in
there, is it constantly sendingdata to the cloud?
Is it once an hour?
help me understand.
and then really what's the flipside of that?
and I'll even just share apersonal experience.
we had a refrigerator problem.
Enter my home just this week.
and we lost some food becausethe refrigerator got too warm.
It wasn't so warm that it was,that it was, but it was, I
dunno, probably 45 degrees andit should have been 33 or 38 or
(12:50):
whatever the temperature wassupposed to be.
We got a couple of dings, weunplugged it, plugged it back
in.
We thought it was fine.
Ultimately it got fixedyesterday.
But, with that it would've beenfantastic.
And again, not a commercialrefrigerator, not tens of
thousands of dollars worth offood, but in my circumstance, I
had to throw away probably$50worth of food because it's
spoiled, because it got too hot.
I'd love to understand whathappens and what are the things
(13:13):
that this IOT device can do tohelp drive some of the
behavioral changes that mightneed to be changed.
Jay Fiske (13:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I should say, as an aside,as a family member myself.
It's not just necessarily aboutthe 50 bucks, if you're, my nose
is not terribly well calibrated,so you didn't feed your family
bad food,
Jeremy Julian (13:27):
Yep.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Jay Fiske (13:29):
so yeah, no, so there's different platforms out
there that, that behave indifferent ways.
Our platform, pushes data to thecloud once a minute.
So it's pretty, it's, we could,it's essentially real
Jeremy Julian (13:38):
Trail time.
Jay Fiske (13:39):
and that's for a couple reasons, because when you
have that level of granularity,patterns begin, you can see some
patterns that could beimportant, leading indicators as
opposed to lagging indicators.
so for example, if I'm, if we'relooking at the, both the power
consumption of the compressor,that's controlling a walk-in
freezer and the temperature ofthe box, right?
(14:00):
The temperature of the box.
That's a lagging indicator to aproblem.
Something has failed and nowthat freezer's at, 45 degrees,
blah, right?
Bad, bad.
Thousands of dollars.
You probably have to throw itaway, file an insurance claim,
all that headache.
If you had seen, the powerconsumption in real time, you
maybe you would see it was shortcycling, it was running
continuously, or it failed,right?
(14:21):
and, it fails.
There's a lot of thermal massinside that box.
So it's gonna take a little timefor the temperature to drift to
the point where it's.
Dangerous, right?
there's the ability to get outahead of problems.
go buy a bunch of bags of ice.
Call your buddy next door.
Can I borrow some space in your,you all the things, restaurant
operators are pretty, prettyscrappy
Jeremy Julian (14:39):
They're pretty resilient.
Jay Fiske (14:40):
very resilient, right?
very resourceful.
if you can get notified of theproblem before it really turns
into a multi-thousand dollarheadache, then they're going to
act and act on that.
So that's really the key thingis providing information.
as soon as it's, clear thatthere's a problem with the
system and not after the fact,and you gotta throw things away.
Jeremy Julian (15:00):
Yeah, so I just, I'll throw another personal
anecdote.
When I was working restaurants,one of our side work pieces was
always to make sure that thewalk-in was closed at the end of
our shift.
Do you see some of these samekind of things where the door
might not be closed on thewalk-in the door, might not be
walk, is that, are thosecircumstances that you guys can
help alert on as well?
Because again, back to non-valueadded, non-human, people would
(15:21):
have to walk, Hey, is everythingclosed up?
Is everything locked?
it just turns into this thingwhere you can automate it.
It.
Again, you've got humans andthey're in the loop and it's
gonna be a challenge.
Jay Fiske (15:30):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean that it's, it is verycommon to say there's an alert.
Your walk in cooler has been at55 degrees for 30 minutes.
Oh.
The door's also been open for 30minutes.
Oh, someone didn't wanna keepopening closing'cause they're
doing inventory, right?
They're restocking the shelves.
hey, you could call.
He said, please just close thedoor.
You're causing an unsafeenvironment, et cetera, et
cetera.
but you've also just avoided atruck roll, right?
(15:52):
you didn't have to pay 500 bucksfor a technician to go out and
close the door.
It's someone just not wanting todeal with opening and closing
doors constantly while they moveinventory back and forth from
their truck.
there's things like that where,yeah, again, just a little bit
of data.
If you have the state of thedoor.
The temperature of the box andthe power consumption profile.
(16:13):
That, and just those three datapoints with a little bit of
clever software can give you alot of insights about what's
going on.
Or, if there was some issue,maybe the door is propped open,
but the software can see, thetemperature's recovering at a
decent rate.
Again, call off the alarms.
You don't need to roll a truck.
So it's,
Jeremy Julian (16:29):
but alert somebody so that training gets
better for next week whenthey're doing inventory or
whatnot.
Jay Fiske (16:33):
Yeah, exactly.
And then the same goes on theair conditioning side.
There have been cases, we've hadsome pretty hot weeks here this
summer.
Someone will say, it's reallyhot in here.
I think I need to roll a truck.
And you can log in and say,actually.
your system is running fullblast.
It's providing as cold air as itpossibly can provide.
I'm really sorry.
it's undersized, it's unusuallyhot and you've avoided it.
(16:55):
I, it can't make you have morecold air until you buy a bigger,
larger capacity unit and put iton your roof.
But at least I've saved you acouple hundred bucks in, in
rolling a truck for somethingthat's not broken.
Jeremy Julian (17:06):
Yeah, no.
So Jay, for those listeners outhere that are like, oh, I need
something like this, does itrequire a complete rip and
replace of their walk-in?
Does it require, it sounds likeyou guys are able to put this
stuff in line into existingequipment.
Is that a, is that true?
And if so, what does theremediation look like to get
some of this kind of stuff in?
Jay Fiske (17:24):
and I'd say like anyone who's looking at IOT in
food service space, It typicallyhelps, and commonly we'll start
focused on one specific area andrefrigeration temperature
tracking is a perfect example,right?
and in, 99% of the time we'reretrofitting existing locations.
And my company and others,there's various and sundry other
bits of hardware out there,whether they're hardwired or,
(17:47):
they're powered, but wireless orthey're battery powered in
wireless, depending on.
the state of the facility, dropceilings, hard ceilings, all
these kind of things.
You learn about.
there's different tools anddifferent sort of types of
hardware available to make theretrofit fairly simple.
So no, does not require a new,walkin or reach in.
It's literally, it can be assimple as like popping in, a
(18:08):
sensor with two AA batteriesand, getting it on the cloud.
And then you're off, off to theraces and the batteries, go for
a couple years and you swap outthe batteries and keep going.
Jeremy Julian (18:16):
I love it.
so flipping around you, you,during kind of your, explanation
of what you guys do, you talkedabout some of the cooking
equipment.
I'd love for you to dig in alittle bit to what are some of
the things that you can figureout on the cooking side.
You talked about frying.
We've had, different frying oilcompanies on the.
On the show talking about thequality of the oil and how the
quality of the oil and thetemperature of the oil can
change the, the profile of thefood.
(18:38):
I'd love for you to talk throughboth power consumption and kind
of just in general how all ofthat works and what you guys are
doing in that, in that area.
Jay Fiske (18:45):
Yeah.
No, it's again, the mentionedfrying.
it's, it really is fascinating.
Like it's a, it's an expensiveasset to purchase.
It's an expensive asset tooperate, and you think about
that natural resource of cookingoil.
it's thousands of dollars permonth commonly spent on cooking
oil.
And if you look at cooking oil,it's just another resource that
you wanna manage in yourrestaurant.
(19:06):
You wanna manage oil, you wannahit that right balance because,
we've seen cases where someone'shanging onto their oil too long.
and modern fryer will have a TPMtotal polar material sensors or
oil quality sensors baked intoit.
If you have, and so getting thatdata does require a new fryer
with these kinds of capabilitiesin it that can connect to the
cloud, et cetera, et cetera.
(19:26):
But when you have that data,that really does allow you to
strike the right balance of,Hey, you really need to dispose
the oil because it willadversely affect your customer
experience and the quality ofproduct.
It's right.
But on the other side, we'vealso seen operators who are
using twice the volume of oilthat they should be because.
Bob shows up and every Tuesdaymorning when Bob shows up, he
(19:46):
just, he dumps the oil and gets,you don't need to do that.
the TPM is still totally fine.
you can't necessarily go just bythe color of the oil.
let's let data guide you and, dothings like, reinforce,
filtering the oil, right?
So modern, A full featured fryerwill have auto filtration
capabilities, and oftentimes theoperators just press, skip.
(20:08):
what's gonna happen?
and they're maybe doing it forgood.
Maybe they're super busy or whathave you, but you can't skip it
too much because that's gonnadegrade the life of the oil.
And you can see that in thedata, the oil quality goes down,
you'll dispose more often.
Your costs go up.
It's a very expensive resource.
And yeah, it's been fascinatingto me.
I've never been a, I'm not afryer guy, right?
I'm a tech guy.
but we learn a lot throughosmosis and working with our
(20:29):
partner, fryer manufacturers andworking with the operators who
have, frying as core.
to their operations andunderstanding what's important
to them.
And they're, they get, they'regetting, there's some operators
out there that are gettingpretty darn sophisticated about
looking at the metrics andreally understanding
benchmarking, how many cookcycles are we getting per
filtration?
How many cook cycles are wegetting, per disposal?
which, where are my outliers forour operators that are skipping
(20:52):
filtration cycles too much?
There's a training issue, right?
Because, internet of Things isnot just about making sure the
equipment is performing well.
Is it being used properly?
And we know, again, it's one ofthe challenges in food service,
200% employee turnover.
It's hard to make sure you'vegot folks there that always have
the latest, greatest standardoperating procedures and know
what to do.
(21:12):
A little bit of data will helpto reinforce best practices and
again, ensure you've got a highquality product coming out of
your kitchen and notoverspending, on your costs to
get that.
Jeremy Julian (21:23):
And so your guys as devices or other people that
you guys compete within thespace are able to monitor all of
this data within the environmentand kinda set thresholds and set
alerts and how people go solvethat.
That's amazing.
Jay Fiske (21:35):
Yeah, it does require, so it does require a, a
later generation friar that hasa digital controller on it.
And that digital control, ofcourse, it's like a little
computer that sits in there.
They've already got the data,but historically it's been
stranded to that asset, right?
So what we're doing is we'regetting that raw data from the
controller, oil temperature overtime.
filtration cycles, run oilquality data, all that
(21:56):
information that's relevant tooperating this.
Critical asset, getting it tothe cloud and then turning that
into useful actionableinformation.
Again, seeing where your bestpractices are, which
organizations, need moretraining, benchmarking and oil
consum, all that kind of stuffso that data is available.
So the key for us and othercloud software providers is like
getting it to the cloud and thenturning that into useful,
(22:17):
actionable, and it has to besuccinct.
It's gotta be actual, because aswe said, we're dealing with
people, they're super busy.
They need very clear and concisedirection on using these assets.
Jeremy Julian (22:28):
I love it.
Jay, another line of questioningis really around plumbing and
water usage.
Are you guys monitoring water?
again, my parents had a leakproblem in their home at one
point.
They put one of those alarms,and so every once in a while
when a toilet would, be running,continuously running or whatever
else.
But it is, again, it's somethingthat, that is a non-renewable
resource that we're using toomuch of from time to time.
(22:48):
Are you guys at that place aswell?
nothing in our notes, but I'dlove to know.
If it's not, where is it at andis it coming for those people to
think about?
Jay Fiske (22:55):
I'll give you some perspective and then I'll put my
plea out to the industry and toyour listeners.
So we have in the past,installed water meters tied to
the cloud with some analyticsand, saying, Hey, we can see
that.
The, the water consumption at 3Mis way higher than it should be.
There's a leak somewhere, right?
Is a toilet leaking, a sink isdripping, whatever it is, right?
So the, those technologies areout there and they exist.
(23:18):
The challenge we found is, wecan get, one of our trained
technicians, a licensedelectrician to go into your
electrical distribution panel,pop a bunch of sensors in there
really quickly, and you get thisbeautiful granular,
Disaggregated view of energyconsumption and all the,
typically a large piece ofequipment will have a dedicated
circuit.
So it's very easy for me to getgranular data down to the
(23:39):
equipment level on energy andfor the software to therefore
look at the patterns, draw someconclusions, make
recommendations, et cetera.
Water's tough, right?
I can get the data from thewater main.
Yeah.
But to disaggregate that, sohere's my plea to your
listeners, some clever engineerout there.
I've seen people try.
But if there's a way to put asensor on a water line and then
(24:01):
disaggregate that to say, oh,that signal is your, your
kitchen sink running that signalis your dish machine.
This is the unique signal from,your bathroom sink.
That would be really powerful.
and to help, because again.
we've done a limited amount ofwater monitoring primarily
because the cost to deploy, themeter to enable, access to that
(24:24):
data and versus the value that,that you can deliver when you're
looking at water consumption inaggregate, the math is
Jeremy Julian (24:30):
the math doesn't math quite yet.
Jay Fiske (24:32):
correct?
Correct.
The math is not pencil out quiteas well as if I'm putting in,
essentially we have is like neston steroids for multi-site
operators and fully automated.
The energy savings just happen.
That's easy, right?
That payback is really simple.
Jeremy Julian (24:47):
so I'd love to dig a little bit more into that.
That's where my next line ofquestioning what is the impact,
Jay, you talked about yourselfbeing an energy nerd earlier on,
and I, and I'm super fascinatedabout the different things.
'cause selfishly I love to, myhouse is all completely
automated.
I walk in, the lights, turn on,
Jay Fiske (25:00):
Right on.
Jeremy Julian (25:01):
lights turn off and my wife's every time it's,
I'm out of town and it doesn'twork.
She's like, why is this stuffnot working?
I'm like, always happens.
But, I'd love for you to talk.
What is the impact?
What is the financial impact?
What is the operational impact?
What is the business impact?
And really, let's get, a littlebit, I don't know, tree hugger.
what is the environmental impactif you can do it properly across
the board, because they are suchlarge consumers of energy in the
(25:21):
world.
Jay Fiske (25:21):
sure.
Yeah.
and, it's prettystraightforward.
we, when we go in, if someone isapproaching our internet of
things.
With a focus on energymanagement, we'll typically go
in and deploy HVAC automationand diagnostics.
It is the simplest, easiest wayto automate and deliver savings
to the bottom line withoutcustomers really having to lift
a finger.
And so typically, and this is a,it's a very good strategy for
(25:44):
the multi-site operators, andwe've got others who've been
more public about their strategyhere is to say, I'm gonna start
my IO OT journey focused onenergy management because it's
very, it's essentially justmath.
So I'm gonna go on, I'm gonnadeploy this asset and I'm going
to measure the before energyconsumption.
I'm gonna measure the energyconsumption after, and the
difference is the savings.
You can do the payback, or insome cases we can just do a pure
(26:05):
subscription and the savings aregreater than the subscription
cost your cashflow positive onday one.
So that's, again, typical is 10to 20% reduction in energy
consumption on average across,an enterprise.
And so that's just, again, theelimination of wasteful
consumption of energy throughautomation, straight drop
through to the bottom line.
It makes a meaningful impact onprofitability.
Jeremy Julian (26:27):
And when you look at those operators, they're
like, don't tell me how to runmy store.
I know how to do it better.
I'd love, the scientific answerto that says consistency and all
of that.
again, I realize what our stanceis.
Your stance and my stance and,but I'm sure you guys run into
that where operators are like,no.
You don't know my store.
I need it this way.
Jay Fiske (26:45):
I would say actually we say you're right.
You know how to run your storesbest.
We just help you enforce that.
I can guarantee you, you don'thave a procedure that says blast
the air conditioning at 3:00 AM.
Could almost guarantee that'snot in your SOP, it's not in
your employee manual, right?
So let's use software andconnectivity, internet of things
to help you enforce the way youknow how to run your operations
(27:06):
best.
That's really it, right?
And so there's a very simpleeconomic, value case to that.
It's helping to reinforcebecause every operator behaves a
little bit differently.
They have different rules.
And so you want software to beable to accommodate that.
And some folks, so for, here's asmall example.
some organizations will say, youknow what?
If it's uncomfortable, I want mystore manager to have to call
(27:27):
someone at a central office tomake a change.
more.
That's pretty uncommon, right?
More often than that.
It's like I want to give mystore staff agency to, someone
says it's cold in here, to goover the thermostat and, make a
tweak, address a comfortcomplaint, and then get on with
their day, But not, change it by10 degrees.
Jeremy Julian (27:44):
And leave it there and on hold for the next
nine months.
Jay Fiske (27:46):
Because there's this sort of belief that, if I, the
more I change the temperature,the harder that system's gonna
work.
And this time I really mean it.
So it darn well better get morecomfortable.
Now it doesn't work that way.
Once it's on Blas, it's on vBlas and it's just gonna you, so
yeah.
so there's ways to use thesoftware to enforce, the ways
the operators know.
to best operate their business.
And that's really all that we'redoing.
(28:07):
And there's that's very simsimple to measure, simple to see
benefit of utility bill beforeutility bill after direct bottom
line savings, payback, etcetera.
And then there's the stuffabout, for your facilities team.
And oftentimes, our main usersare on the facilities, right?
That, and it is a really hardjob.
Commonly it's, one facilitiesmanager for a hundred, 150
(28:27):
locations.
They're literally spending allday, every day fighting fires.
We can use data, to help directthem to say, here's your
prioritized list of rooftopunits that need some TLC
Jeremy Julian (28:36):
Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna go down that,
that PM side to, to extend thelife of that HVAC unit to extend
the life of that refrigerationunit, right?
Because proper cleaning, propermaintenance ends up keeping it
that much longer.
And you guys can tell from thedata
Jay Fiske (28:50):
Absolutely we can absolutely, you can tell from
the data of that.
And by the way, how about we fixsomething before you have to pay
time and a half to a technician?
'cause they have to show up at9:00 PM on a Friday when you're
super busy, right?
So there's the savings that canwe reduce the amount you're
spending on reactive maintenanceand get stuff more into the
planned, preventativemaintenance, get out ahead of
these expensive, reactive calls.
there's def it's the easiestthing to measure is the impact
(29:11):
in utility bills.
But when you, once thefacilities folks start seeing.
What they can accomplish and thevisibility that this remote
access gets them.
They want it, right?
it's just we're trying to take alittle bit of pain off of their
shoulders and make their lives alittle bit easier with a little
bit more visibility, a littlebit more, predictability and
frankly, more data to make smartdecisions and not just reacting
(29:34):
to the store manager who'syelling the loudest at you.
Jeremy Julian (29:37):
No, and I love that.
and again, I think that,everything is gonna be connected
at some point.
And I think even 10 years ago Iwas like, people are like, ah,
these things are gonna, they,why would I need a, why would I
need these things connected tothe internet that are my
refrigeration and therefrigerators work forever?
And it's like the, all of theseuse cases that you've talked
about truly change the game.
And, I'm excited to, to seewhere that goes.
(29:57):
Jay, you had asked me before we,we hit record, just this plea
that says if they're not gonnause powerhouse like dynamics,
like there are a lot of otherpeople out there.
Or is there just a couple ofpeople like, it sounds like this
is something that is here today.
It's not this futuristic thing,at a minimum HVAC and
Refrigeration.
Are we at a place where, ahundred percent of restaurants
by the year 2026 should havesomething helping?
(30:19):
I, help me paint a picture.
'cause I'm just not in this.
I'm certain we're gonna get,there's gonna be 20, 30, 40%,
maybe more of our listeners.
You can be like, dude, you'reright.
I need to make that phone call.
But I'd love for your, for youto share a little state of the
industry and then where wouldyou like to see it go.
Jay Fiske (30:34):
yeah, you used the word should.
Of course they should,
Jeremy Julian (30:36):
huh.
but it makes financial sense.
It makes environmental sense.
It makes operational sense.
there's almost no reason why youshouldn't, other than you've got
27 other things to do and youthink it's gonna be too hard to
manage.
Jay Fiske (30:47):
Yeah.
if it, so for us, when we thinkabout when we're engaged with an
enterprise, more often than not,it's just, we're competing for
capital.
and where does the enterpriseprioritize this?
This is, I hate to be sofatalistic about it, but it is,
it's inevitable, right?
This is because it just,because, the longer we do this,
the simpler it becomes for theoperators, the more efficient
everything becomes.
It's just easy.
(31:07):
it, so it's already happening.
I think, it's no longer.
A small number of earlyadopters, right?
This is becoming standardpractice.
It is the larger multi-sideenterprises that are driving
connectivity and internet ofthings, whether it's on the
energy side, whether it's on,fryers, refrigeration, coffee
machines.
That's where you'll, that'swhere it is being driven today.
we're in several, thousand pluslocation deployments now, for
(31:30):
various change.
And again, those are the oneswho, because of the size and
magnitude, you know, all thesecritical.
Assets distributed all over thecountry.
they want that visibility, butit'll, there's a long tail of
the mid-size and then mom popswill eventually, have a lot of
this capability.
it's happening.
It's happening now.
it certainly won't be industrywide by the end of 2026.
That would be pretty exciting.
(31:51):
but yeah, in 10 years, I thinkso, it just.
and look, we're not the onlyones out there making an energy
management solution.
There's certainly other playersout there.
We've decided, however, to do apretty, deep focus on the food
service space.
And so it's not just about thethermostats and lighting
automation, it's also about therefrigeration and the fryers and
(32:13):
the coffee machines and theshake machines and hot to lead
cabinet, rabbit, cook ovens, allthat stuff.
So we've taken a slightlydifferent angle than some other
folks in the space have taken.
there's other wifi thermostatsout there, right?
excuse me.
But that's, a bit, we, we.
Our, as I mentioned earlier,math led us to food service very
pretty early on in our journeyand we've learned a lot about
(32:34):
the industry, what theoperators, value their pain
points, and so I think we've gota bit more of a tuned solution
for this particular space.
I'm quite excited about that.
Jeremy Julian (32:43):
I love that.
I'm gonna ask one last quickquestion, just'cause this is
something anecdotal, but I'dlove your opinion on it.
I had heard, when you walk intocertain convenience stores or
certain restaurants, they've gotan open cooler versus a closed
cooler versus having the.
having just the plexi, plasticacross, I'd love your opinion.
There's an aesthetic aspect ofit, and then there's a true
energy management aspect of it.
(33:03):
But I'd heard somewhere thatthose things consume two or
three x more than what astandard refrigerator might with
a door on it.
And I'd love, I guess just helpeducate our listeners because
you might aesthetically likethat, but it might be costing
you an extra 20 bucks a month torun this open refrigeration unit
to be able to allow them to get.
again, I walk into my localbagel place and they used to
(33:24):
have it open and now they've gotit behind a closed door.
Clearly they changed for somereason to do that.
I don't know, I dunno if the oldone broke or what happened
there, but I'd love just kindayour opinion on some of these
things.
'cause I think sometimes theydesign these in without this,
in, in impact in mind and Ijust, I don't know, I guess
educate our listeners,
Jay Fiske (33:41):
Yeah, look, it's a great point.
as an energy nerd, I see theopen cases.
I'm like, oh gosh, but look,let's give credit where credit
is due.
These operators are not dumb.
They're very smart, very savvypeople.
and there I am sure someone hasdone multiple, people have
probably done the studiesbetween how much friction there
is in opening the door to getyour selection versus just
(34:01):
reaching it.
So probably, I would imaginesomeone has done that trade up.
I don't know the differencebetween how much revenue you can
drive from an open display caseversus one behind doors versus
the extra cost on energy youspend to keep it open.
So perhaps that calculus ischanging.
Perhaps, many years ago whenthese became popular, energy
(34:22):
wasn't as expensive as it istoday.
I know that's the case, right?
It's certainly not, it iscertainly much more expensive
today than it was, 20, 30 yearsago, and that's continuing to go
up and up.
So at some point that math maychange where it makes more sense
to, put the door there andreduce energy consumption
because you're now got thatenclosed space.
Jeremy Julian (34:40):
Got you.
Jay Fiske (34:41):
I tend to, I want to work with the, the challenges as
they are in front of me and justdeal with reality and try and
put, sensible solutions in, Iwanna meet my customers where
they are
Jeremy Julian (34:51):
Yeah.
sorry for the curve ball.
It was just
Jay Fiske (34:53):
yeah.
no, it's all good.
I, they do, yeah.
and there's, there's cleverthings, like there's air
curtains and I was a mechanicalengineer by training, so there's
things you can do to Minimizethe impact so it's not just
freely blowing out into theenvironment.
But yeah, of course it's not aphysically constrained space,
and so your energy consumptionto keep that product cool is
gonna be a little higher.
Jeremy Julian (35:12):
I love it.
Jay, what did we miss, ifanything, on, on today's show,
other than how do people get intouch with you and your team to
learn more?
Jay Fiske (35:18):
Yeah, I would just say, when operators are
considering, hey, I've heard alot about internet things.
I think that there's a lot ofopportunity there to weather.
It's reducing cost, protectingfood, reducing administrative
labor in my facilities.
It may f feel a littleoverwhelming and I would say, I
reach out, I'll be happy to do adiscovery call.
Most of our customers startpretty laser focused on one
(35:39):
area, right?
And say, let's just tackleenergy first, or let's in hvac,
or let's just tacklerefrigeration.
Or let's just, heck, let's justtackle your rapid cook ovens and
get'em rid of thumb drives.
We can do menu updates over theair.
'cause you do'em, many times ayear it costs you money.
Let's start laser focused andthen solve that problem.
But work, we like to workcollaboratively to say there's a
roadmap to digitizing youroperations to drive more
(36:01):
efficiency and eliminate morewaste, and have ultimately a
more successful business.
But start focused, right?
It doesn't have to, you don'thave to boil the ocean all at
once.
We can solve some very simple,very specific problems and then
go from there.
Jeremy Julian (36:12):
Awesome.
and again, I think for thosemulti-site operators, especially
facilities teams that are justconstantly gonna be what,
playing Whack-a-mole, trying tofigure this stuff out after it's
broken, not preventatively.
And so how do people get intouch?
How do people learn more?
How do people stay on the, onthat train to be able to learn
how can they, they solve theseenergy management challenges?
Jay Fiske (36:28):
Sure.
You can, website openkitchen.com or you can email me
directly, JAy@powerhousedynamics.com.
Happy to, to chat with anyonewho's curious to learn more.
Jeremy Julian (36:39):
Awesome.
Jay, thank you for educating me,quite frankly, and our
listeners.
I, while I'm not an energy nerdas you self proclaim, but I'm
like super excited about thisstuff'cause I really think
technology, and I say this oftenon the show, technology for
technology's sake is worthless.
But technology that truly solvesbusiness challenges and makes
our lives better is a huge pieceof where things are going.
(37:00):
I did forget, and we got through39 minutes without talking about
ai.
Where is AI coming
Jay Fiske (37:05):
Yeah, no, what not coming in.
It's here,
Jeremy Julian (37:07):
it's here and that's I'd love for you to share
a little bit about where thatfuture of AI is already here and
how it's truly automating someof the things that you guys are
doing.
Jay Fiske (37:14):
yeah.
so one example is we've layeredon some AI technology on the
energy side.
So if you think about a facilitythat say like a quick serve
restaurant may have threerooftop units conditioning the
space, normally they justoperate independently.
Whenever this one sees it, it'shot, it's gonna turn on, it may
turn on simultaneously with theone right next to it.
What that does is it driveswhat's called the peak demand,
(37:36):
right?
The peak power consumption atthe restaurant.
It drives it way higher.
And so the utilities actuallycharge you both for your total
energy consumption, but theyalso charge restaurants for peak
power consumption.
So we can
Jeremy Julian (37:48):
pricing like Uber when you're going to a concert.
Jay Fiske (37:50):
Great.
Great analogy.
so Metallica's in town andyou're gonna spend a lot for,
your Uber ride.
So yeah, when all three rooftopsreins are running
simultaneously, right?
So we can apply, we have appliedAI to that, to coordinate, say,
this one runs okay now this oneruns now.
So to try and prevent them fromrunning simultaneously to reduce
that, that demand charge.
And so there's one just veryspecific example of ai.
(38:13):
we've got some other ai, comingthat will enhance some of the,
the diagnostics.
believe it or not, may.
most multi-site operatorsactually don't have a
comprehensive and up-to-datelist of make model and specs for
things like HVAC equipment.
So we don't always know howthey're supposed to behave'cause
we don't have the specs, butwe're applying AI to say, oh,
(38:34):
here's how it behaves here.
We can deduce what using ai.
what this system is supposed tobe doing, and they get a little
bit more precise about when it'sexperiencing trouble.
So yeah, there's, and that'sjust, we're just scratching the
surface.
But yeah, there's, AI is alreadyhere on our platform and we're
adding more and more every day.
Jeremy Julian (38:50):
I love it.
Jay, thank you for educating me.
Thank you for educating ourlisteners.
as I said on the onset, guys, Iknow that you guys got lots of
choices, so thanks for hangingout.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do so on your
favorite player.
Check out Jay's organization,powerhouse Dynamics, open
Kitchen, and, give him a call.
Honestly, there's not, doesn'tcost you anything other than
maybe an hour of your time tokinda share what your problems
are and let them, let them seeif they can solve your problem.
(39:10):
to our listeners, make it agreat day.
Jay Fiske (39:13):
Thank you so much, Jeremy.
Speaker (39:16):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides
podcast, helping you run yourrestaurant better.
Jeremy Julian (00:14):
everyone.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
Today's guest is Jay Fisk, thepresident of Powerhouse
Dynamics.
We dive into smart energymanagement and how it's changing
restaurant operations.
Jay shares some really greatinsights as how technology is
really impacting every area offacilities management from
H-V-A-C-E to.
(00:34):
Refrigeration to fryers, tocoffee machines.
He shares how iot and AI aretruly helping cut costs, reduce
waste, and automate the stuffthat used to make operators
crazy.
If you're tired of chasingmaintenance issues and wasting
dollars, this episode is a mustwatch.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy Julian.
I'm the Chief Revenue Officer ofCBS North Star.
(00:56):
We wrote the North Star Point ofSale solution for multi-units.
Please check us out.
At CBS northstar.com and nowonto our episode.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
I thank everyone out there forjoining us, as I like to say
each and every time.
And my family likes to make funof me over the dinner table
'cause I can hear the,recordings outside of my office.
I say this every time, but Iknow that, I don't take for
(01:18):
granted that you guys hang outwith us each week.
Thank you for tuning in andthank you for, the feedback that
you guys give me on social and,when I see you in person.
Today is a cool episode because,I'm gonna let Jay talk a little
bit about his background.
But, Jay and his organizationhave been doing some really
unique things that I think aresuper bleeding edge as it
relates to tech, and I thinkthere's a lot of opportunities
for restaurants and really allfood service operators to be
(01:39):
better.
But Jay, before we jump intokind of what.
What you get a chance to do.
Tell me a little bit about yourbackground.
Who is Jay?
Where did you come from?
You know what?
What's your role where you're atnow?
Jay Fiske (01:49):
Sure.
yeah.
I'm Jay Fiske.
I'm the President of PowerhouseDynamics.
We are the makers of the OpenKitchen, internet of things
platform for multi-site foodservice operators.
my background, I grew up inupstate New York, on, on the
shores of Lake Ontario.
and pretty much the state in theMid-Atlantic and Northeast for
my whole life.
But I've always been fascinatedwith technology.
(02:10):
I've always despised waste andloved deficiency.
and these are concepts I'veworked on for pretty much the
entirety of my career.
and so I, I've mo most of mycareer has also been focused
around, The developmentintroduction of new technology,
enabled products and services.
And it's been various startups.
I spent a brief stint, as apartner in a very, boutique
(02:33):
venture capital, firm making,early stage investments in
renewable energy, technologies.
but hard to believe, 14 yearsago, I joined a very young, very
small.
I was the fourth employee, so Itechnically.
Not my, I wasn't a founder, butit still feels like my baby.
powerhouse dynamics.
And I joined, this fledglingstartup, leading business
(02:53):
development.
And, it's been a really, amazingjourney, building the company,
from essentially the verybeginning.
To getting acquired in 2019 andcontinuing and having the really
great fortune of having a chanceto lead the company for the past
three and a half years, as wewere part of our parent company,
Middleby.
But, we started out, I dunno ifthe sort of the history of the
(03:13):
company is interesting that westarted out making, energy
sensors for homeowners so theycould see where the electricity
was flowing inside their houseand.
make improvements.
The software would look at thisand say, you don't need to run
your pool pump for 24 hours aday.
You can run it for 12 hours andstill have a very healthy
environment.
Or you could yell at your kidsfor leaving their bedroom lights
on when they went to school.
all kinds of things like that.
(03:33):
And it was interesting and cool,but not a lot of energy nerds
out there like me to make for aterribly interesting market.
But, we saw an opportunity topivot the business when I joined
into, An area that feels the thepain of energy cost much more
acutely.
And that's food service.
'cause we just started lookingat, who really feels the pain
(03:54):
around energy acutely and insmaller facilities.
'cause we had originally startedout for, buildings the size of
homes like maybe you and I have.
and if you look at the math,it's restaurants, right?
compared to a house, it'sprobably 20 times more energy
intense in terms of kilowatthours per square foot.
If you look at other commercial,facilities, it's three to five
(04:16):
times.
So we said, ah, that's reallyinteresting.
And we don't see any technologyin the space helping these
organizations manage theirequipment, manage one of their
bigger spends on utilities.
And deliver that, that, thatsort of bottom line savings.
So really pivoted the companyinto that space and continued to
evolve and develop the platformto what it is today, which is
(04:37):
broadly speaking, helpingmulti-site food service
operators manage their criticalinfrastructure, whether it's
HVAC automation and diagnostics,automating lighting and signage
to tapping into the controls,and extracting data from a
commercial fryer.
And managing your oil and yourfryer operations better.
pushing recipe updates to rapidcook ovens, getting visibility
(04:58):
into, customer facing, superautomatic coffee bean to cup
coffee machines.
And so there's just, back to thetheme of who I am and what I do
and what motivates me.
My why is I despise waste.
I love efficiency.
And there's just, when we tookthe company and focused on this,
Very resource intensive industrycalled food service and applying
(05:20):
some clever software in thecloud and getting data,
impactful data to that software.
the results are prettycompelling and it's pretty
exciting to be part of this.
And we are, this is still arelatively new thing for the
food service industry, so I likethat.
I like.
going where no one has gonebefore and building new things,
and also evangelizing andsaying, whether it's my platform
(05:41):
or somebody else's, there's justpeople.
Please take, look at this.
There's just so much value outthere, waiting to be captured.
let us help you.
Jeremy Julian (05:49):
Yeah.
No, and I think, I mean it'sinteresting when you guys had
approached the show becauseagain, selfishly I get a chance
to sit on this side of the micand learn, and I love to learn
new things.
And, maybe there's a, maybethere's a.
A, a small piece of your brainthat needs to be, evaluated by
science, restaurants and newtech all in the same world.
there's a very small percentageof people that can figure this
(06:10):
out because it's a crazy worldout there innovating and
creating a space.
You share, Jay, this internet ofthings in general and I guess
I'd love to kinda start with.
I dunno.
I guess let's start withrefrigeration.
'cause Refrigeration's a bigpiece.
I think HVAC refrigeration arethe two biggest areas where
there's opportunities.
But let's start with kind offreezers and refrigerators.
(06:30):
What is traditional prior topowerhouse dynamics?
What is the ways that theymanage these devices?
Is it just.
They do temp checks and theyfigure it out.
Is that, walk us through, giveus a day in the life of those
restaurant owners, thoserestaurant managers that are out
there today prior toimplementing your solution, and
what changes after we, after weimplement this new tech that
you're talking about.
Jay Fiske (06:50):
Yeah, Great question.
And just to, I, I know youraudience is fairly tech savvy,
but.
If I can start, just explain, soit sometimes these frothy terms,
right?
Get people a little bit.
internet of Things is a verysimple concept.
It's literally a device that hasdata that is directly connected
to the cloud and sending thatdata to the cloud, right?
So it's giving, and that opensup all kinds of possibilities
(07:10):
about what you can do to driveefficiency.
So if you think about thingslike HVAC and refrigeration in,
a typical restaurant today, youmight have a programmable
thermostat.
to control the rooftop unitthat's conditioning the space.
In the summertime, it'sproviding air conditioning.
In the winter it's providingheating.
and same thing for your walk-insor regions.
(07:31):
there's a essentially anotherlittle thermostat in there
that's saying this region needsto be at 40 degrees Fahrenheit,
or the walk-in freezer needs tobe at minus 10.
and these devices are measuringthe temperature locally and
saying, oh, it's a little bittoo warm.
I'm gonna fire up thecompressor.
I'm gonna make cold air again.
Whether you're.
Providing, air conditioned airfor keeping your customers and
your staff happy.
(07:52):
Or providing a nice coldenvironment to keep, the bugs
and all the bad stuff outta yourfood.
and the way that staffhistorically has managed those
devices is on the refrigerationside a couple times a day, you
walk around, you're exposed to,you're supposed to
Jeremy Julian (08:06):
Yeah.
Whether they do or not is a
Jay Fiske (08:07):
right?
Supposed to with a piece ofpaper and a pen, and you're
write down the temperature andthe time and who you are, and
you sign.
Yes, this is true.
And but we all know food serviceoperations.
it is a really, tough industry.
really tough job.
There's a billion other higherpriority things that people have
to worry at.
My chef just quit.
Or a customer's complaining thatfood's not good or
Jeremy Julian (08:28):
the last 27 times the refrigerator was the same
exact temperature.
Why do I need to go check it a
Jay Fiske (08:32):
I forgot this morning, but you know what?
It's probably fine.
I'm just gonna write down 40degrees and get on with my day.
That's called pencil whipping,right?
It happens all the time andpeople know that, right?
So the historically that's been,it's labor intensive, it's
manual, it's air prone,whatever.
you lose the paper.
What?
You can't read your handwriting.
You forget to do it.
You make up the numbers.
All of this stuff, we're dealingwith people, right?
(08:53):
And just people, it's justsometimes
Jeremy Julian (08:55):
are people and they're typically the least
trained and the youngest.
Youngest in the, in ourindustry.
Right?
Jay Fiske (09:00):
and it's a similar story around HVAC that, if I'm
comfortable, I don't think aboutit, right?
Because I have a billion ofother things that are more
important.
And so what happens is a brandnew restaurant, I'm gonna put
that thermostat in, okay?
I'm gonna program it.
during occupied hours I'm at 72,and in the off hours when I'm
closed, I'll let that drift backto 78, maybe 80.
And in the winter I'm gonna, I'mgonna set it to 68 and maybe let
(09:21):
it drift back to 55 and the offhours.
So it's great.
what happens?
Super hot day.
Someone says, I'm working hard.
I'm, washing dishes, runningaround, serving meals, busing,
busting tables.
I'm gonna put it to 70.
I'm gonna press hold.
That's much more comfortable.
I'm gonna get on with my life.
guess what?
Nine months later it's still at70 hold, right?
And so every single evening it'sblasting the air conditioning at
(09:44):
2:00 AM whether or not there'ssomeone in the location.
That's very common, right?
Because again, it's one of thesethings like it's all that we're
talking about, all that stuffthat just It's supposed to work
well to allow you to focus onthe other things in having a
successful food serviceoperation.
And if you're comfortable,you're not gonna even think
about managing that HVAC unit,but you are literally just
(10:05):
lighting stacks of cash on fireby not letting that system
operate effectively.
So condition the space whenpeople are there, let it coast
when they're not right.
and that's, historically havethe thermostat.
If you've got it programmed,wonderful, you're ahead of, 90%
of the rest of the industry.
Mostly they're, even if they'reprogrammable, they're not
programmed.
but you're just not gonna thinkabout it.
(10:26):
You're not gonna worry about it.
You're just like, oh, energy'salways gonna be three to 5% of
my p and l.
I can't really do anything aboutit.
I'm gonna move on and worryabout getting more folks in the
front door.
Jeremy Julian (10:36):
where does life go as they engage with you guys,
just specifically on these twoareas, HVAC and kind of
refrigeration.
how do you guys help put theseiot devices in to really change
not just the behavior, but thereporting and all of those kind
of things?
'cause I'm excited becausethere's so few people that are,
you talk about the percentage ofpeople that even have a
programmable thermostat thenthat the program is right and
(10:56):
then where things go and how bigof a change it can make.
It's awesome.
Jay Fiske (11:00):
Yeah, it's really fun.
and you mentioned the wordbehavior, and that's a really
important word because.
We've learned sometimes the hardway, changing behavior is really
hard, and I know that's obvious,right?
when you have
Jeremy Julian (11:11):
back to people.
Jay Fiske (11:12):
we're going back to people.
And so a big sort of, epiphanymany years ago is changing
behavior is hard.
We've gotta automate, right?
If we really want to have acompelling solution, we have to
automate.
So you don't have to worry aboutthe fridge, you don't have to
worry about programming yourhvac, you're gonna be
comfortable.
The food's gonna be safe whenthere's a problem.
(11:33):
It'll let you know.
but you're also not wastefully,blasting air conditioning in the
middle of the night.
you're optimizing the use ofthat equipment and you're
optimizing the use of the, ofthe fridge.
And by the way, I just saved youmaybe between all the
refrigeration units in yourfacility.
Maybe I saved you and yourstaff, an hour of non-value
added administrative work everyday.
Because now someone doesn't haveto go around or they're not
(11:54):
well, they're supposed to goaround with that piece of paper
and writing things down andinitialing it and then filing it
away.
just to prove when the healthservices inspector shows up,
hey, someone complained or theygot de deli belly last Tuesday,
show me your logs.
And you know that task is nowoff of the shoulders.
It's all automated and online,and you can focus on things that
(12:15):
humans are good at, right?
Being hospitable, Let themachines just record the data.
'cause like you said, most ofthe time it's gonna be the same.
It's a very boring job, right?
So let people do the moreinteresting things.
Jeremy Julian (12:27):
So in, in that case, once you guys are in
there, is it constantly sendingdata to the cloud?
Is it once an hour?
help me understand.
and then really what's the flipside of that?
and I'll even just share apersonal experience.
we had a refrigerator problem.
Enter my home just this week.
and we lost some food becausethe refrigerator got too warm.
It wasn't so warm that it was,that it was, but it was, I
dunno, probably 45 degrees andit should have been 33 or 38 or
(12:50):
whatever the temperature wassupposed to be.
We got a couple of dings, weunplugged it, plugged it back
in.
We thought it was fine.
Ultimately it got fixedyesterday.
But, with that it would've beenfantastic.
And again, not a commercialrefrigerator, not tens of
thousands of dollars worth offood, but in my circumstance, I
had to throw away probably$50worth of food because it's
spoiled, because it got too hot.
I'd love to understand whathappens and what are the things
(13:13):
that this IOT device can do tohelp drive some of the
behavioral changes that mightneed to be changed.
Jay Fiske (13:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I should say, as an aside,as a family member myself.
It's not just necessarily aboutthe 50 bucks, if you're, my nose
is not terribly well calibrated,so you didn't feed your family
bad food,
Jeremy Julian (13:27):
Yep.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Jay Fiske (13:29):
so yeah, no, so there's different platforms out
there that, that behave indifferent ways.
Our platform, pushes data to thecloud once a minute.
So it's pretty, it's, we could,it's essentially real
Jeremy Julian (13:38):
Trail time.
Jay Fiske (13:39):
and that's for a couple reasons, because when you
have that level of granularity,patterns begin, you can see some
patterns that could beimportant, leading indicators as
opposed to lagging indicators.
so for example, if I'm, if we'relooking at the, both the power
consumption of the compressor,that's controlling a walk-in
freezer and the temperature ofthe box, right?
(14:00):
The temperature of the box.
That's a lagging indicator to aproblem.
Something has failed and nowthat freezer's at, 45 degrees,
blah, right?
Bad, bad.
Thousands of dollars.
You probably have to throw itaway, file an insurance claim,
all that headache.
If you had seen, the powerconsumption in real time, you
maybe you would see it was shortcycling, it was running
continuously, or it failed,right?
(14:21):
and, it fails.
There's a lot of thermal massinside that box.
So it's gonna take a little timefor the temperature to drift to
the point where it's.
Dangerous, right?
there's the ability to get outahead of problems.
go buy a bunch of bags of ice.
Call your buddy next door.
Can I borrow some space in your,you all the things, restaurant
operators are pretty, prettyscrappy
Jeremy Julian (14:39):
They're pretty resilient.
Jay Fiske (14:40):
very resilient, right?
very resourceful.
if you can get notified of theproblem before it really turns
into a multi-thousand dollarheadache, then they're going to
act and act on that.
So that's really the key thingis providing information.
as soon as it's, clear thatthere's a problem with the
system and not after the fact,and you gotta throw things away.
Jeremy Julian (15:00):
Yeah, so I just, I'll throw another personal
anecdote.
When I was working restaurants,one of our side work pieces was
always to make sure that thewalk-in was closed at the end of
our shift.
Do you see some of these samekind of things where the door
might not be closed on thewalk-in the door, might not be
walk, is that, are thosecircumstances that you guys can
help alert on as well?
Because again, back to non-valueadded, non-human, people would
(15:21):
have to walk, Hey, is everythingclosed up?
Is everything locked?
it just turns into this thingwhere you can automate it.
It.
Again, you've got humans andthey're in the loop and it's
gonna be a challenge.
Jay Fiske (15:30):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean that it's, it is verycommon to say there's an alert.
Your walk in cooler has been at55 degrees for 30 minutes.
Oh.
The door's also been open for 30minutes.
Oh, someone didn't wanna keepopening closing'cause they're
doing inventory, right?
They're restocking the shelves.
hey, you could call.
He said, please just close thedoor.
You're causing an unsafeenvironment, et cetera, et
cetera.
but you've also just avoided atruck roll, right?
(15:52):
you didn't have to pay 500 bucksfor a technician to go out and
close the door.
It's someone just not wanting todeal with opening and closing
doors constantly while they moveinventory back and forth from
their truck.
there's things like that where,yeah, again, just a little bit
of data.
If you have the state of thedoor.
The temperature of the box andthe power consumption profile.
(16:13):
That, and just those three datapoints with a little bit of
clever software can give you alot of insights about what's
going on.
Or, if there was some issue,maybe the door is propped open,
but the software can see, thetemperature's recovering at a
decent rate.
Again, call off the alarms.
You don't need to roll a truck.
So it's,
Jeremy Julian (16:29):
but alert somebody so that training gets
better for next week whenthey're doing inventory or
whatnot.
Jay Fiske (16:33):
Yeah, exactly.
And then the same goes on theair conditioning side.
There have been cases, we've hadsome pretty hot weeks here this
summer.
Someone will say, it's reallyhot in here.
I think I need to roll a truck.
And you can log in and say,actually.
your system is running fullblast.
It's providing as cold air as itpossibly can provide.
I'm really sorry.
it's undersized, it's unusuallyhot and you've avoided it.
(16:55):
I, it can't make you have morecold air until you buy a bigger,
larger capacity unit and put iton your roof.
But at least I've saved you acouple hundred bucks in, in
rolling a truck for somethingthat's not broken.
Jeremy Julian (17:06):
Yeah, no.
So Jay, for those listeners outhere that are like, oh, I need
something like this, does itrequire a complete rip and
replace of their walk-in?
Does it require, it sounds likeyou guys are able to put this
stuff in line into existingequipment.
Is that a, is that true?
And if so, what does theremediation look like to get
some of this kind of stuff in?
Jay Fiske (17:24):
and I'd say like anyone who's looking at IOT in
food service space, It typicallyhelps, and commonly we'll start
focused on one specific area andrefrigeration temperature
tracking is a perfect example,right?
and in, 99% of the time we'reretrofitting existing locations.
And my company and others,there's various and sundry other
bits of hardware out there,whether they're hardwired or,
(17:47):
they're powered, but wireless orthey're battery powered in
wireless, depending on.
the state of the facility, dropceilings, hard ceilings, all
these kind of things.
You learn about.
there's different tools anddifferent sort of types of
hardware available to make theretrofit fairly simple.
So no, does not require a new,walkin or reach in.
It's literally, it can be assimple as like popping in, a
(18:08):
sensor with two AA batteriesand, getting it on the cloud.
And then you're off, off to theraces and the batteries, go for
a couple years and you swap outthe batteries and keep going.
Jeremy Julian (18:16):
I love it.
so flipping around you, you,during kind of your, explanation
of what you guys do, you talkedabout some of the cooking
equipment.
I'd love for you to dig in alittle bit to what are some of
the things that you can figureout on the cooking side.
You talked about frying.
We've had, different frying oilcompanies on the.
On the show talking about thequality of the oil and how the
quality of the oil and thetemperature of the oil can
change the, the profile of thefood.
(18:38):
I'd love for you to talk throughboth power consumption and kind
of just in general how all ofthat works and what you guys are
doing in that, in that area.
Jay Fiske (18:45):
Yeah.
No, it's again, the mentionedfrying.
it's, it really is fascinating.
Like it's a, it's an expensiveasset to purchase.
It's an expensive asset tooperate, and you think about
that natural resource of cookingoil.
it's thousands of dollars permonth commonly spent on cooking
oil.
And if you look at cooking oil,it's just another resource that
you wanna manage in yourrestaurant.
(19:06):
You wanna manage oil, you wannahit that right balance because,
we've seen cases where someone'shanging onto their oil too long.
and modern fryer will have a TPMtotal polar material sensors or
oil quality sensors baked intoit.
If you have, and so getting thatdata does require a new fryer
with these kinds of capabilitiesin it that can connect to the
cloud, et cetera, et cetera.
(19:26):
But when you have that data,that really does allow you to
strike the right balance of,Hey, you really need to dispose
the oil because it willadversely affect your customer
experience and the quality ofproduct.
It's right.
But on the other side, we'vealso seen operators who are
using twice the volume of oilthat they should be because.
Bob shows up and every Tuesdaymorning when Bob shows up, he
(19:46):
just, he dumps the oil and gets,you don't need to do that.
the TPM is still totally fine.
you can't necessarily go just bythe color of the oil.
let's let data guide you and, dothings like, reinforce,
filtering the oil, right?
So modern, A full featured fryerwill have auto filtration
capabilities, and oftentimes theoperators just press, skip.
(20:08):
what's gonna happen?
and they're maybe doing it forgood.
Maybe they're super busy or whathave you, but you can't skip it
too much because that's gonnadegrade the life of the oil.
And you can see that in thedata, the oil quality goes down,
you'll dispose more often.
Your costs go up.
It's a very expensive resource.
And yeah, it's been fascinatingto me.
I've never been a, I'm not afryer guy, right?
I'm a tech guy.
but we learn a lot throughosmosis and working with our
(20:29):
partner, fryer manufacturers andworking with the operators who
have, frying as core.
to their operations andunderstanding what's important
to them.
And they're, they get, they'regetting, there's some operators
out there that are gettingpretty darn sophisticated about
looking at the metrics andreally understanding
benchmarking, how many cookcycles are we getting per
filtration?
How many cook cycles are wegetting, per disposal?
which, where are my outliers forour operators that are skipping
(20:52):
filtration cycles too much?
There's a training issue, right?
Because, internet of Things isnot just about making sure the
equipment is performing well.
Is it being used properly?
And we know, again, it's one ofthe challenges in food service,
200% employee turnover.
It's hard to make sure you'vegot folks there that always have
the latest, greatest standardoperating procedures and know
what to do.
(21:12):
A little bit of data will helpto reinforce best practices and
again, ensure you've got a highquality product coming out of
your kitchen and notoverspending, on your costs to
get that.
Jeremy Julian (21:23):
And so your guys as devices or other people that
you guys compete within thespace are able to monitor all of
this data within the environmentand kinda set thresholds and set
alerts and how people go solvethat.
That's amazing.
Jay Fiske (21:35):
Yeah, it does require, so it does require a, a
later generation friar that hasa digital controller on it.
And that digital control, ofcourse, it's like a little
computer that sits in there.
They've already got the data,but historically it's been
stranded to that asset, right?
So what we're doing is we'regetting that raw data from the
controller, oil temperature overtime.
filtration cycles, run oilquality data, all that
(21:56):
information that's relevant tooperating this.
Critical asset, getting it tothe cloud and then turning that
into useful actionableinformation.
Again, seeing where your bestpractices are, which
organizations, need moretraining, benchmarking and oil
consum, all that kind of stuffso that data is available.
So the key for us and othercloud software providers is like
getting it to the cloud and thenturning that into useful,
(22:17):
actionable, and it has to besuccinct.
It's gotta be actual, because aswe said, we're dealing with
people, they're super busy.
They need very clear and concisedirection on using these assets.
Jeremy Julian (22:28):
I love it.
Jay, another line of questioningis really around plumbing and
water usage.
Are you guys monitoring water?
again, my parents had a leakproblem in their home at one
point.
They put one of those alarms,and so every once in a while
when a toilet would, be running,continuously running or whatever
else.
But it is, again, it's somethingthat, that is a non-renewable
resource that we're using toomuch of from time to time.
(22:48):
Are you guys at that place aswell?
nothing in our notes, but I'dlove to know.
If it's not, where is it at andis it coming for those people to
think about?
Jay Fiske (22:55):
I'll give you some perspective and then I'll put my
plea out to the industry and toyour listeners.
So we have in the past,installed water meters tied to
the cloud with some analyticsand, saying, Hey, we can see
that.
The, the water consumption at 3Mis way higher than it should be.
There's a leak somewhere, right?
Is a toilet leaking, a sink isdripping, whatever it is, right?
So the, those technologies areout there and they exist.
(23:18):
The challenge we found is, wecan get, one of our trained
technicians, a licensedelectrician to go into your
electrical distribution panel,pop a bunch of sensors in there
really quickly, and you get thisbeautiful granular,
Disaggregated view of energyconsumption and all the,
typically a large piece ofequipment will have a dedicated
circuit.
So it's very easy for me to getgranular data down to the
(23:39):
equipment level on energy andfor the software to therefore
look at the patterns, draw someconclusions, make
recommendations, et cetera.
Water's tough, right?
I can get the data from thewater main.
Yeah.
But to disaggregate that, sohere's my plea to your
listeners, some clever engineerout there.
I've seen people try.
But if there's a way to put asensor on a water line and then
(24:01):
disaggregate that to say, oh,that signal is your, your
kitchen sink running that signalis your dish machine.
This is the unique signal from,your bathroom sink.
That would be really powerful.
and to help, because again.
we've done a limited amount ofwater monitoring primarily
because the cost to deploy, themeter to enable, access to that
(24:24):
data and versus the value that,that you can deliver when you're
looking at water consumption inaggregate, the math is
Jeremy Julian (24:30):
the math doesn't math quite yet.
Jay Fiske (24:32):
correct?
Correct.
The math is not pencil out quiteas well as if I'm putting in,
essentially we have is like neston steroids for multi-site
operators and fully automated.
The energy savings just happen.
That's easy, right?
That payback is really simple.
Jeremy Julian (24:47):
so I'd love to dig a little bit more into that.
That's where my next line ofquestioning what is the impact,
Jay, you talked about yourselfbeing an energy nerd earlier on,
and I, and I'm super fascinatedabout the different things.
'cause selfishly I love to, myhouse is all completely
automated.
I walk in, the lights, turn on,
Jay Fiske (25:00):
Right on.
Jeremy Julian (25:01):
lights turn off and my wife's every time it's,
I'm out of town and it doesn'twork.
She's like, why is this stuffnot working?
I'm like, always happens.
But, I'd love for you to talk.
What is the impact?
What is the financial impact?
What is the operational impact?
What is the business impact?
And really, let's get, a littlebit, I don't know, tree hugger.
what is the environmental impactif you can do it properly across
the board, because they are suchlarge consumers of energy in the
(25:21):
world.
Jay Fiske (25:21):
sure.
Yeah.
and, it's prettystraightforward.
we, when we go in, if someone isapproaching our internet of
things.
With a focus on energymanagement, we'll typically go
in and deploy HVAC automationand diagnostics.
It is the simplest, easiest wayto automate and deliver savings
to the bottom line withoutcustomers really having to lift
a finger.
And so typically, and this is a,it's a very good strategy for
(25:44):
the multi-site operators, andwe've got others who've been
more public about their strategyhere is to say, I'm gonna start
my IO OT journey focused onenergy management because it's
very, it's essentially justmath.
So I'm gonna go on, I'm gonnadeploy this asset and I'm going
to measure the before energyconsumption.
I'm gonna measure the energyconsumption after, and the
difference is the savings.
You can do the payback, or insome cases we can just do a pure
(26:05):
subscription and the savings aregreater than the subscription
cost your cashflow positive onday one.
So that's, again, typical is 10to 20% reduction in energy
consumption on average across,an enterprise.
And so that's just, again, theelimination of wasteful
consumption of energy throughautomation, straight drop
through to the bottom line.
It makes a meaningful impact onprofitability.
Jeremy Julian (26:27):
And when you look at those operators, they're
like, don't tell me how to runmy store.
I know how to do it better.
I'd love, the scientific answerto that says consistency and all
of that.
again, I realize what our stanceis.
Your stance and my stance and,but I'm sure you guys run into
that where operators are like,no.
You don't know my store.
I need it this way.
Jay Fiske (26:45):
I would say actually we say you're right.
You know how to run your storesbest.
We just help you enforce that.
I can guarantee you, you don'thave a procedure that says blast
the air conditioning at 3:00 AM.
Could almost guarantee that'snot in your SOP, it's not in
your employee manual, right?
So let's use software andconnectivity, internet of things
to help you enforce the way youknow how to run your operations
(27:06):
best.
That's really it, right?
And so there's a very simpleeconomic, value case to that.
It's helping to reinforcebecause every operator behaves a
little bit differently.
They have different rules.
And so you want software to beable to accommodate that.
And some folks, so for, here's asmall example.
some organizations will say, youknow what?
If it's uncomfortable, I want mystore manager to have to call
(27:27):
someone at a central office tomake a change.
more.
That's pretty uncommon, right?
More often than that.
It's like I want to give mystore staff agency to, someone
says it's cold in here, to goover the thermostat and, make a
tweak, address a comfortcomplaint, and then get on with
their day, But not, change it by10 degrees.
Jeremy Julian (27:44):
And leave it there and on hold for the next
nine months.
Jay Fiske (27:46):
Because there's this sort of belief that, if I, the
more I change the temperature,the harder that system's gonna
work.
And this time I really mean it.
So it darn well better get morecomfortable.
Now it doesn't work that way.
Once it's on Blas, it's on vBlas and it's just gonna you, so
yeah.
so there's ways to use thesoftware to enforce, the ways
the operators know.
to best operate their business.
And that's really all that we'redoing.
(28:07):
And there's that's very simsimple to measure, simple to see
benefit of utility bill beforeutility bill after direct bottom
line savings, payback, etcetera.
And then there's the stuffabout, for your facilities team.
And oftentimes, our main usersare on the facilities, right?
That, and it is a really hardjob.
Commonly it's, one facilitiesmanager for a hundred, 150
(28:27):
locations.
They're literally spending allday, every day fighting fires.
We can use data, to help directthem to say, here's your
prioritized list of rooftopunits that need some TLC
Jeremy Julian (28:36):
Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna go down that,
that PM side to, to extend thelife of that HVAC unit to extend
the life of that refrigerationunit, right?
Because proper cleaning, propermaintenance ends up keeping it
that much longer.
And you guys can tell from thedata
Jay Fiske (28:50):
Absolutely we can absolutely, you can tell from
the data of that.
And by the way, how about we fixsomething before you have to pay
time and a half to a technician?
'cause they have to show up at9:00 PM on a Friday when you're
super busy, right?
So there's the savings that canwe reduce the amount you're
spending on reactive maintenanceand get stuff more into the
planned, preventativemaintenance, get out ahead of
these expensive, reactive calls.
there's def it's the easiestthing to measure is the impact
(29:11):
in utility bills.
But when you, once thefacilities folks start seeing.
What they can accomplish and thevisibility that this remote
access gets them.
They want it, right?
it's just we're trying to take alittle bit of pain off of their
shoulders and make their lives alittle bit easier with a little
bit more visibility, a littlebit more, predictability and
frankly, more data to make smartdecisions and not just reacting
(29:34):
to the store manager who'syelling the loudest at you.
Jeremy Julian (29:37):
No, and I love that.
and again, I think that,everything is gonna be connected
at some point.
And I think even 10 years ago Iwas like, people are like, ah,
these things are gonna, they,why would I need a, why would I
need these things connected tothe internet that are my
refrigeration and therefrigerators work forever?
And it's like the, all of theseuse cases that you've talked
about truly change the game.
And, I'm excited to, to seewhere that goes.
(29:57):
Jay, you had asked me before we,we hit record, just this plea
that says if they're not gonnause powerhouse like dynamics,
like there are a lot of otherpeople out there.
Or is there just a couple ofpeople like, it sounds like this
is something that is here today.
It's not this futuristic thing,at a minimum HVAC and
Refrigeration.
Are we at a place where, ahundred percent of restaurants
by the year 2026 should havesomething helping?
(30:19):
I, help me paint a picture.
'cause I'm just not in this.
I'm certain we're gonna get,there's gonna be 20, 30, 40%,
maybe more of our listeners.
You can be like, dude, you'reright.
I need to make that phone call.
But I'd love for your, for youto share a little state of the
industry and then where wouldyou like to see it go.
Jay Fiske (30:34):
yeah, you used the word should.
Of course they should,
Jeremy Julian (30:36):
huh.
but it makes financial sense.
It makes environmental sense.
It makes operational sense.
there's almost no reason why youshouldn't, other than you've got
27 other things to do and youthink it's gonna be too hard to
manage.
Jay Fiske (30:47):
Yeah.
if it, so for us, when we thinkabout when we're engaged with an
enterprise, more often than not,it's just, we're competing for
capital.
and where does the enterpriseprioritize this?
This is, I hate to be sofatalistic about it, but it is,
it's inevitable, right?
This is because it just,because, the longer we do this,
the simpler it becomes for theoperators, the more efficient
everything becomes.
It's just easy.
(31:07):
it, so it's already happening.
I think, it's no longer.
A small number of earlyadopters, right?
This is becoming standardpractice.
It is the larger multi-sideenterprises that are driving
connectivity and internet ofthings, whether it's on the
energy side, whether it's on,fryers, refrigeration, coffee
machines.
That's where you'll, that'swhere it is being driven today.
we're in several, thousand pluslocation deployments now, for
(31:30):
various change.
And again, those are the oneswho, because of the size and
magnitude, you know, all thesecritical.
Assets distributed all over thecountry.
they want that visibility, butit'll, there's a long tail of
the mid-size and then mom popswill eventually, have a lot of
this capability.
it's happening.
It's happening now.
it certainly won't be industrywide by the end of 2026.
That would be pretty exciting.
(31:51):
but yeah, in 10 years, I thinkso, it just.
and look, we're not the onlyones out there making an energy
management solution.
There's certainly other playersout there.
We've decided, however, to do apretty, deep focus on the food
service space.
And so it's not just about thethermostats and lighting
automation, it's also about therefrigeration and the fryers and
(32:13):
the coffee machines and theshake machines and hot to lead
cabinet, rabbit, cook ovens, allthat stuff.
So we've taken a slightlydifferent angle than some other
folks in the space have taken.
there's other wifi thermostatsout there, right?
excuse me.
But that's, a bit, we, we.
Our, as I mentioned earlier,math led us to food service very
pretty early on in our journeyand we've learned a lot about
(32:34):
the industry, what theoperators, value their pain
points, and so I think we've gota bit more of a tuned solution
for this particular space.
I'm quite excited about that.
Jeremy Julian (32:43):
I love that.
I'm gonna ask one last quickquestion, just'cause this is
something anecdotal, but I'dlove your opinion on it.
I had heard, when you walk intocertain convenience stores or
certain restaurants, they've gotan open cooler versus a closed
cooler versus having the.
having just the plexi, plasticacross, I'd love your opinion.
There's an aesthetic aspect ofit, and then there's a true
energy management aspect of it.
(33:03):
But I'd heard somewhere thatthose things consume two or
three x more than what astandard refrigerator might with
a door on it.
And I'd love, I guess just helpeducate our listeners because
you might aesthetically likethat, but it might be costing
you an extra 20 bucks a month torun this open refrigeration unit
to be able to allow them to get.
again, I walk into my localbagel place and they used to
(33:24):
have it open and now they've gotit behind a closed door.
Clearly they changed for somereason to do that.
I don't know, I dunno if the oldone broke or what happened
there, but I'd love just kindayour opinion on some of these
things.
'cause I think sometimes theydesign these in without this,
in, in impact in mind and Ijust, I don't know, I guess
educate our listeners,
Jay Fiske (33:41):
Yeah, look, it's a great point.
as an energy nerd, I see theopen cases.
I'm like, oh gosh, but look,let's give credit where credit
is due.
These operators are not dumb.
They're very smart, very savvypeople.
and there I am sure someone hasdone multiple, people have
probably done the studiesbetween how much friction there
is in opening the door to getyour selection versus just
(34:01):
reaching it.
So probably, I would imaginesomeone has done that trade up.
I don't know the differencebetween how much revenue you can
drive from an open display caseversus one behind doors versus
the extra cost on energy youspend to keep it open.
So perhaps that calculus ischanging.
Perhaps, many years ago whenthese became popular, energy
(34:22):
wasn't as expensive as it istoday.
I know that's the case, right?
It's certainly not, it iscertainly much more expensive
today than it was, 20, 30 yearsago, and that's continuing to go
up and up.
So at some point that math maychange where it makes more sense
to, put the door there andreduce energy consumption
because you're now got thatenclosed space.
Jeremy Julian (34:40):
Got you.
Jay Fiske (34:41):
I tend to, I want to work with the, the challenges as
they are in front of me and justdeal with reality and try and
put, sensible solutions in, Iwanna meet my customers where
they are
Jeremy Julian (34:51):
Yeah.
sorry for the curve ball.
It was just
Jay Fiske (34:53):
yeah.
no, it's all good.
I, they do, yeah.
and there's, there's cleverthings, like there's air
curtains and I was a mechanicalengineer by training, so there's
things you can do to Minimizethe impact so it's not just
freely blowing out into theenvironment.
But yeah, of course it's not aphysically constrained space,
and so your energy consumptionto keep that product cool is
gonna be a little higher.
Jeremy Julian (35:12):
I love it.
Jay, what did we miss, ifanything, on, on today's show,
other than how do people get intouch with you and your team to
learn more?
Jay Fiske (35:18):
Yeah, I would just say, when operators are
considering, hey, I've heard alot about internet things.
I think that there's a lot ofopportunity there to weather.
It's reducing cost, protectingfood, reducing administrative
labor in my facilities.
It may f feel a littleoverwhelming and I would say, I
reach out, I'll be happy to do adiscovery call.
Most of our customers startpretty laser focused on one
(35:39):
area, right?
And say, let's just tackleenergy first, or let's in hvac,
or let's just tacklerefrigeration.
Or let's just, heck, let's justtackle your rapid cook ovens and
get'em rid of thumb drives.
We can do menu updates over theair.
'cause you do'em, many times ayear it costs you money.
Let's start laser focused andthen solve that problem.
But work, we like to workcollaboratively to say there's a
roadmap to digitizing youroperations to drive more
(36:01):
efficiency and eliminate morewaste, and have ultimately a
more successful business.
But start focused, right?
It doesn't have to, you don'thave to boil the ocean all at
once.
We can solve some very simple,very specific problems and then
go from there.
Jeremy Julian (36:12):
Awesome.
and again, I think for thosemulti-site operators, especially
facilities teams that are justconstantly gonna be what,
playing Whack-a-mole, trying tofigure this stuff out after it's
broken, not preventatively.
And so how do people get intouch?
How do people learn more?
How do people stay on the, onthat train to be able to learn
how can they, they solve theseenergy management challenges?
Jay Fiske (36:28):
Sure.
You can, website openkitchen.com or you can email me
directly, JAy@powerhousedynamics.com.
Happy to, to chat with anyonewho's curious to learn more.
Jeremy Julian (36:39):
Awesome.
Jay, thank you for educating me,quite frankly, and our
listeners.
I, while I'm not an energy nerdas you self proclaim, but I'm
like super excited about thisstuff'cause I really think
technology, and I say this oftenon the show, technology for
technology's sake is worthless.
But technology that truly solvesbusiness challenges and makes
our lives better is a huge pieceof where things are going.
(37:00):
I did forget, and we got through39 minutes without talking about
ai.
Where is AI coming
Jay Fiske (37:05):
Yeah, no, what not coming in.
It's here,
Jeremy Julian (37:07):
it's here and that's I'd love for you to share
a little bit about where thatfuture of AI is already here and
how it's truly automating someof the things that you guys are
doing.
Jay Fiske (37:14):
yeah.
so one example is we've layeredon some AI technology on the
energy side.
So if you think about a facilitythat say like a quick serve
restaurant may have threerooftop units conditioning the
space, normally they justoperate independently.
Whenever this one sees it, it'shot, it's gonna turn on, it may
turn on simultaneously with theone right next to it.
What that does is it driveswhat's called the peak demand,
(37:36):
right?
The peak power consumption atthe restaurant.
It drives it way higher.
And so the utilities actuallycharge you both for your total
energy consumption, but theyalso charge restaurants for peak
power consumption.
So we can
Jeremy Julian (37:48):
pricing like Uber when you're going to a concert.
Jay Fiske (37:50):
Great.
Great analogy.
so Metallica's in town andyou're gonna spend a lot for,
your Uber ride.
So yeah, when all three rooftopsreins are running
simultaneously, right?
So we can apply, we have appliedAI to that, to coordinate, say,
this one runs okay now this oneruns now.
So to try and prevent them fromrunning simultaneously to reduce
that, that demand charge.
And so there's one just veryspecific example of ai.
(38:13):
we've got some other ai, comingthat will enhance some of the,
the diagnostics.
believe it or not, may.
most multi-site operatorsactually don't have a
comprehensive and up-to-datelist of make model and specs for
things like HVAC equipment.
So we don't always know howthey're supposed to behave'cause
we don't have the specs, butwe're applying AI to say, oh,
(38:34):
here's how it behaves here.
We can deduce what using ai.
what this system is supposed tobe doing, and they get a little
bit more precise about when it'sexperiencing trouble.
So yeah, there's, and that'sjust, we're just scratching the
surface.
But yeah, there's, AI is alreadyhere on our platform and we're
adding more and more every day.
Jeremy Julian (38:50):
I love it.
Jay, thank you for educating me.
Thank you for educating ourlisteners.
as I said on the onset, guys, Iknow that you guys got lots of
choices, so thanks for hangingout.
If you haven't alreadysubscribed, please do so on your
favorite player.
Check out Jay's organization,powerhouse Dynamics, open
Kitchen, and, give him a call.
Honestly, there's not, doesn'tcost you anything other than
maybe an hour of your time tokinda share what your problems
are and let them, let them seeif they can solve your problem.
(39:10):
to our listeners, make it agreat day.
Jay Fiske (39:13):
Thank you so much, Jeremy.
Speaker (39:16):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology Guys
podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
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