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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?

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?