Category: Podcast

In this pre-recorded summer special, Kristen and Brandon ask Fred to predict the future. Lucky for us, he’s good at it. In this episode, we talk about the current state of casual dining (tl;dr: Chili’s is killing it), all those restaurant bankruptcies, and the importance of making an emotional connection with diners. 

We’re deep in an (unintentional) point of sale system theme at The Simmer. This week, Toast’s chief marketer Kelly Esten joins us to talk enterprise restaurants, artificial intelligence, and maybe accidentally perpetuate a rumor that Brandon really wants to be true.

Brandon got stuck on a plane, so Kristen flies solo in this interview with Square’s top marketer, Lindsey Irivine. In this episode, we talk about big marketing initiatives and activations, and how Square sees itself as both a restaurant and consumer brand. Plus, Lindsey shares details of Square’s new San Francisco corner store, a consumer and small business play all in one. 

Fiserv recently unveiled a new point of sale system designed to serve “upper market restaurants,” or restaurants that do more than $1 million in processing volume annually, according to Fiserv head of restaurants, Krystle Mobayeni. Krystle, also the co-founder and CEO of BentoBox, a restaurant technology company acquired by Fiserv in 2021, joins The Simmer to talk reservations, point of sale systems, and what Fiserv’s brand-new POS, dubbed Clover Hospitality, offers restaurants. 

It’s our first emergency podcast! On Tuesday, the biggest day for the restaurant technology business in years, a string of major announcements had our heads spinning. But one piece of news stands out: DoorDash plans to acquire reservations and customer relationship management service SevenRooms for $1.2 billion. What does it mean? Listen as Brandon and Kristen work it out in real time.

Is the POS dying? What even is a modern point of sale? Can it shed its old image and become what it always wanted to be: the true hub of modern restaurant operations? Niko Papademetriou runs sales and business development at Qu, a point of sale system that’s thinking through what the true future for restaurants looks like. In this episode, we talk POS (a lot); restaurant work, and the tools operators can access now that were just a dream a decade ago.

Tammy Billings has worked in marketing and biz dev for decades and has plenty of experience with restaurant technology. In this far-ranging conversation, we talk about the past, present, and future of the industry. Plus: Want to get Kristen fired up? Talk about ethics in podcasting.

Topic Time Stamps:

1:20: Grubhub brings back Seamless in New York City

7:50: A little podcast housekeeping: we do not pay guests! Guests do not pay us!

9:30: Welcome, Tammy (and even more pay-for-play commentary)

16:26: We’re back on track! More on Tammy’s background, how she found her way to the hospitality business, and how she’s helped multiple companies get acquired.

28:48: Where are we now in the restaurant business? Is this time evocative of any other?

33:57: Who will keep winning? And will the big players start swallowing each other?

37:51: Why people who worked in restaurants make the best restaurant tech founders and employees

44:49: How (and why) private equity ownership makes for challenging restaurant dynamics

Suzie Tsai spent over a decade at restaurant powerhouse Brinker International, leading programs that included Chili’s white-hot beverage business, before landing the top role at Bonchon. In this episode, Suzie explains how a concept that launched (and then failed) in South Korea has found its footing in the US, growing over two decades. But this growth isn’t without challenges; Bonchon’s restaurants range from seated full service to kiosk-friendly fast casual, leading to tough choices about how to implement new technology.

Topic Time Stamps:

1:26: News: Wonder acquires media company Tastemade for a reported $90 million. Why?

3:00: Congrats to Brandon and Bite for landing on this year’s Fast Company Most Innovative Companies list!

5:45: Welcome Suzie Tsai, CEO of Bonchon

6:35: Suzie goes (very) deep on her background, explaining how the child of immigrants from South Korea ended up running a Korean fried chicken concept — and why that representation matters to the company’s franchisees.

23:08: The growing influence of Korean food in America’s restaurants

25:00: From full service to fast casual and everything in-between; how is Bonchon thinking about tech in its restaurants?

33:46: How digital ordering helps Bonchon introduce unfamiliar menu items to a growing audience

35:31: How Suzie thinks about the relationship with third-party delivery partners, which she says are actually media partners

Kernel made a splash when it opened its first New York City restaurant in early 2024. The then-vegan restaurant’s star employee was a robotic arm tasked with moving food in and out of the oven, assisting human workers by handling much of the heavy lifting. But the robot, along with Kernel’s name and one-time signature green paint in stores, have been retired. Instead, Kernel Foods is working on a new sandwich concept: Counter Service. Chief operating officer Tom Cortese, also a co-founder of hit fitness platform Peloton, still has an eye on how tech will take this burgeoning restaurant brand to new heights. 

Topic Time Stamps:

1:17: News: Kristen talks about covering the launch of Sweetgreen’s ripple fries and her visit to the chain’s test kitchen. 

6:13: More news: Brandon on fast food’s AI investments

8:30: Welcome Tom Cortese, chief operating officer at Kernel Foods. 

11:18: Tom’s early observations about how Kernel operates and will evolve

14:50: More on the challenges of adding a multi-access robot to foodservice in historic New York City buildings. (A particularly unique challenge.) 

18:37: To be clear: There are no robots in Kernel 2.0. (Yet.) But Counter Service does have a modern model.

23:36: Kristen loves Peloton. But how does the experience running a fitness company translate to running a restaurant?

31:05: Tom talks working with — and being inspired by — Steve Ells, Chipotle’s founder, who is also Kernel’s founder. In one memorable trip, they drove to a chicken farm to meet the meat the chain would use. 

35:53: To Tom, there are three buckets of innovation at Kernel: supply chain, the restaurant make line, and quality control, a.k.a., customer happiness. 

45:00: What’s next for Kernel’s robots? Are they permanently retired?

This episode starts with a lawsuit and an upset: Uber sues DoorDash in San Francisco, and New York Magazine declares all the cool restaurants are on OpenTable now. The drama! (Kind of.) Then, Michael Osanloo, president and CEO of Portillo’s — now a fast-growing, publicly traded restaurant company — joins the Simmer to talk marketing, loyalty, third-party delivery, and Chicago street food.

Topic Time Stamps:

1:12: Big news: Uber sued DoorDash over direct delivery practices in California court. 

6:01: Are all the cool restaurants (in New York) moving to OpenTable? 

10:40: Welcome, Michael Osanloo! What does the revenue of two McDonald’s drive-thrus, one Chipotle, and a Domino’s have to do with Chicago-based Portillo’s?

17:57: How does a Chicago brand expand in places like Dallas? Is it still a Chicago brand?

21:03: Marketing efforts through partnerships, collaborations, and more

22:23: Per Michael, “Third-party delivery… would love to disintermediate every restaurant company from its guests.”

26:26: What about loyalty? 

36:33: Facial recognition: cool? Creepy? Too much? How to get it right?