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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