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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?

We’re back on the restaurant loyalty beat this week with Abhinav Kapur, who’s led Bikky for nearly a decade. In this episode, we talk about developing loyal diners, email (and text!) marketing, and “tendies” from a new KFC spinoff, whatever those are. 

Topic Time Stamps:

1:36: More generative AI chat (and some shade)

4:26: Brandon plugs his appearance on a different podcast. (What’s a tendie?!)

6:34: Welcome, Abhinav! What’s Bikky? And how has it evolved over the last decade?

12:51: What makes a loyal guest? Who comes back? Why?

19:30: Email marketing, email open rates, email conversion rates

20:45: Back to “tendies” at Saucy, a tech-infused KFC spin-off in Orlando

25:30: A detour to talking about facial recognition in kiosks and biometrics

28:00: What do the next 12-24 months in restaurant loyalty look like? 

31:57: Which is more valuable to a restaurant: a phone number or an email address?

Finally, Resy CEO Pablo Rivero joins The Simmer, completing our trifecta of interviews with leaders of the country’s largest reservations providers. In his role as SVP of global dining, he also oversees Tock, the reservations and ticketing platform Amex acquired last year for $400 million. It was a smart acquisition: American Express cardholders spent a staggering $100 billion (!!!) on dining in 2023. In this episode, we discuss artificial intelligence, bots, exclusivity, and the future of the reservations business.

Zach Goldstein is optimistic about the year ahead for restaurants. As founder and CEO of Thanx, a leading guest engagement platform for restaurants, Zach is known for his honest and sometimes provocative takes on the future of the industry. In this episode, we tackle hot topics in restaurant loyalty, including personalization, advertising, guest retention, and AI.