Having dinner at a restaurant with our family and friends is one of the most blissful memories for many of us. But did you notice how restaurants have changed over time?
For example, physical menus were available at every table, which is now replaced by QR codes.
With a major AI war, we can see what technology has done to the world. In short, each business needs the technology either to promote or to streamline its business. So do the restaurants.
Restaurants are also adapting to the change. By incorporating restaurant technology and automation, they are trying to be more productive and deliver a better customer experience.
Restaurants are investing in restaurant mobile app development services to provide better services.
Here we have described some of the restaurant technologies that have drastically changed the food industry.
- Reservation Tech
This restaurant technology has been there for a while now. One can book a table at the listed restaurants within a few steps.
It becomes convenient for customers to book a table from their phone by logging in to online restaurant reservation websites.
This website shows available restaurants, and some even show the best dishes of that place.
Fill in all the required information, like when you want to table, no. of guests, and other necessities, and voila, you are done!
So, this restaurant technology can save your day, whether you want a relaxing dinner with the family or throw a birthday bash.
Reservation restaurant technology helps a lot to restaurant owners too.
By leveraging reservation technology, restaurants can manage reservations, waiting lists, and floor plans and collect client insights.
- Automated Inventory Management
While running a restaurant business, one must ensure that all the safety guidelines are met. For instance, stocked food and beverages in the kitchen.
The restaurant business deals majorly with perishables, and sometimes the raw materials perish for various reasons, resulting in food wastage.
By implementing automated inventory management in restaurants, food wastage can be managed.
An automated inventory management system is integrated into POS (point-of-sale) software.
The inventory management system is vital in managing all the raw materials and keeping the kitchen stocked with the essentials.
It also gives a brief idea about how long will the current stock will last and sends an alert when it reaches the bar of reorder level.
Moreover, it also generates detailed reports to keep an eye on the inventory so you remain ahead.
Inventory management is one of the best innovative technology in restaurants. By leveraging this technology, the restaurant can keep running around the clock.
- Point-Of-Sale (POS) Software
The point-of-sale name is self-explanatory. It refers to
“The time and place or point when the sales transaction took place”
POS software is entirely dedicated to the restaurant business, which helps to run the business more efficiently and productively.
Initially, POS software was only used for billing systems, but thanks to cloud technology, it has advanced and offers more features, such as,
- Inventory management
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Smart Reporting And Analytics
It also offers some third-party applications such as,
- E-wallets
- Online Ordering
- Online Table Reservations
- Loyalty Programmes
POS software helps streamline various restaurant operations. It is an open-source system that can work on any operating system. Moreover, it can work online and offline, so next time your wi-fi stops working. You don’t have to worry; POS will handle it efficiently.
- Quality Control
Quality is the main concern of the restaurant business. For instance, the food they serve you has a weird smell or something like that.
Think of it as a customer, do you like to visit a place where the quality of food could be better?
It can be one time experience for the customer, but the restaurant can be closed because of this mistake. Therefore, restaurants must keep a keen eye on the quality of their products.
To tackle this problem, restaurants are incorporating IoT sensors majorly in their food warehouses.
This technology in restaurants helps to detect and solve food-related problems in the warehouse.
As a result, the owner has full insights into temperature fluctuations in the warehouse and keeps the food safe.
And it also helps the restaurant to be under the strict guidelines of HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) to run its business smoothly.
- Customer Data
For any business, losing one of your loyal customers isn’t very good. And it is the worst thing in the restaurant industry.
Moreover, increasing competition makes it trickier for restaurant owners to keep their customers engaged.
Thanks to technology, now restaurant owners can handle this situation smartly. POS software, as mentioned above, is the trending technology in restaurants.
POS software comes with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools, which allows for taking insights from the customers.
CRM tools help track the customer’s ordering behavior and offer them various customized offers and discounts.
CRM tools also help send personalized emails and newsletters containing offers, special menu additions, events, and more.
It helps to keep the customers engaged with the restaurant.
- Supplier And Employee Onboarding
It takes months for a newbie to adapt to a new working environment. They make mistakes and learn from them.
In the restaurant industry, where training is one of the important parts of the job, as they represent your brand, your employees need to be quick and provide exceptional services.
So for the training programs, HR has now adapted the modern technology. They use VR to train the interns and make their restaurant ready.
With VR technology, rookies can take the lessons at their homes. They don’t need a visit the restaurants. They need a VR headset and customized software to have a real-life experience.
VR technology helps them to
- Take a tour around the restaurant (360° view)
- Observe how the job is being done, i.e., the food being served, how to take orders, and more.
- Trainees can also test their skills via simulation games.
By leveraging the VR technology in the restaurant, the owners can
- Increase productivity
- Cut down on training costs.
Moreover, VR technology can also be used by customers to give them a ride to the restaurant.
- Scheduling Technology
Restaurants keep working for long hours. Some of them even work at night and are super busy in restaurants during weekends or public holidays.
Employees regularly change their shifts during such long hours or weeks to keep the restaurant running.
But it becomes hectic to arrange it manually. So, an optimized schedule maker does it for you. This software is
- Easy to handle
- Allows you to share the schedules with other employees
- Easily editable
It helps to keep restaurant operations seamless.
- QR Code
COVID has taught us a great lesson on social distancing or contactless payments. And we all got so accustomed that we still follow some of these rules.
For instance, QR codes are slowly replacing the menus in restaurants.
It is more convenient for us to see the menu on our phones rather than a physical copy that has traveled many tables before reaching you.
QR codes are available on the table tops, walls of restaurants, or sometimes even on the staff’s uniforms.
Just scan it, and you have the menu on your phone, plus it also allows payment options.
And it is more convenient for the restaurant owner to change the digital menus compared to the physical ones.
- Contactless Payments
Well, after the contactless pandemic, payment has become a trend. You can pay via phone, card, app, or smartwatch.
Contactless payments have been in the market for some time, but the pandemic has boosted their popularity. And according to a report by Juniper, it has reached a market size of $4.7 trillion.
One of the best advantages of this technology is that if you do not have cash readily available, you can still pay, and it is a more hygienic option.
Restaurant Technologies – Final Words
The restaurant industry is moving fast toward digitization. It won’t be long before the restaurant will start using robots as servers (it exists in some of Japan’s restaurants).
Moreover, these trends in restaurant technology help the restaurant to
- To provide a quality experience to their customers
- Manage the workload of the employees efficiently
- Quicken the various restaurant operations
So, to be in the race, restaurants are investing in technology.
