15 New Restaurant Technology Trends to Have on Your Radar
The restaurant industry continues to evolve to better meet the needs of its consumers and operators. Over the last few years, the restaurant technology industry has exploded with growth and innovation, and restaurants have begun to reap the benefits. Read on to learn more about the latest restaurant technology trends!
1. Online Ordering Systems
Online ordering systems are the latest restaurant industry technology trend. In recent years, a huge percentage of restaurants, cafés, and other food retailers have taken the plunge to create their own online menus.
An online restaurant self ordering system is one of the easiest, most convenient ways to order food, whether you’re sitting at a table inside a diner or waiting in your car.
2. Delivery Apps
Delivery apps maintain a similar concept to online ordering systems, with the main difference being that your food will get delivered straight to your door. Delivery apps offer further convenience, as it’s so easy to tap a few buttons and get a fresh, tasty delivery in a matter of minutes.
Restaurants can either choose to join a pre-established restaurant delivery marketplace online, or choose to build their own branded app to offer deliveries instead.
3. Self-Serve Kiosks
Samsung kiosks remove the need for a member of serving staff, as a customer can walk up to the screen and tap in their own order by themselves. Many customers prefer this option, whether this is due to the simplicity, the ability to save time during busy hours, or even due to simple social awkwardness.
You’re most likely to find self/service kiosks in places such as fast food restaurants, as they help to keep costs down while helping to maintain the speed of the whole operation.
4. Handheld POS Systems
Handheld POS systems have been one of the best blessings for waiters and waitresses everywhere. Handheld POS systems are essentially a portable till that can be taken anywhere it’s needed, which makes mistakes and forgotten orders a thing of the past.
Your waiters or waitresses can utilize a handheld POS system to take orders or create receipts right at the side of the table, meaning they won’t have to walk back across your restaurant to find your till while hoping they don’t forget what has just been said to them. Handheld POS systems can save time and reduce the chances of mistakes – what’s not to love?!
5. Mobile Payments
Using your mobile phone to pay for goods and services is a fairly new invention, and it’s slowly making its way into the hospitality sector. Mobile payments are often seen as easier and more convenient, especially in today’s modern world where the average individual is never going to leave the door without their smartphone in their pocket.
You can utilize mobile payments when you don’t have cash or card, which means you’ll be able to appeal to every kind of diner no matter how they want to pay.
6. Inventory Management Software
Inventory management software is an aspect of any thriving business, but it’s certainly more important in the restaurant industry. Manual inventory management can leave you open to all kinds of errors and issues that could have easily been avoided.
You’ll be able to see when stock is running low, if you have a surplus of any ingredients, when a new order needs to be placed, and so much more.
7. Reservation Software
Reservation software makes the task of planning a dinner service as simple as can be. Your customers can either log their own booking on the web, or contact your staff by phone to do it for them.
Reservation software is easily programmable with your unique seating layout and total cover number, and it will help to make sure that you never book the same table twice.
8. Drone Food Delivery
A fairly new invention that’s not quite made its way into the mainstream restaurant industry is drone food delivery. Currently in testing and development, drone food delivery replaces a conventional human delivery driver, bringing your food direct to your location using a drone instead.
Drones are much faster than humans, especially when you consider the fact that they don’t need to stick to given roads and subsequently get stuck in traffic. There are a few kinks in the process that still need to be ironed out, such as the ease of accessing suitable landing ports, but drone food delivery is sure to ‘take off’ in the coming years!
9. Digital Menu Boards
The days of having to squint and stare are gone, as in today’s modern world you can replace this with some digital menu boards that will explain your cuisine while expressing your brand’s unique style and flair.
Using digital menu boards will allow you to play around with a little more creativity, as you can add some text art, photos, and so much more to bring the page to life and help to grab people’s attention. You can also benefit from a digital menu if you have lots of dishes to sell, as you set a timer to flip from one screen to another detaining all of your food with ease.
10. QR Codes
Restaurant QR codes offer more than just digital menus, though a digital menus does mean a reduction in the need for paper menus and therefore a boost in your eco-friendly efforts.
You can use QR codes for all kinds of things in your restaurant, from offering scannable discounts or voucher QR codes to adding an ‘explainer’ to the bottom of your menu that details more about your company for your customers to read while dining in.
11. Restaurant Chatbots
Chatbots can be found on lots of different websites, but it’s only recently that they have found their way onto restaurant platforms to help hungry diners access the food they need. Restaurant chatbots can be a brilliant replacement for face-to-face customer service, so they’re extremely handy whenever a diner is buying from your restaurant through the web.
Chatbots can answer all kinds of questions and requests, whether it’s assisting with an order or even providing the social side of things inside your ghost kitchen software style restaurant.
12. AR Menus
The food industry has been moving towards greater visualization of menu options each day, as plain text evolved into beautiful food photography and video boards, so it only makes sense that the next phase of advancement in the food imagery sector will be in the application of Augmented Reality (AR) menus.
AR technology lets your customers use their own smartphone to display immersive 3D models onto a surface in front of them – their phone will scan the surface and place the menu item on it, as if it’s really “there”. How cool is that?
13. Scheduling Software
Restaurant scheduling software allows you to create and manage work schedules for waiters and waitresses, chefs, kitchen porters, and all other restaurant employees. The software also helps track employee availability and requests for time off.
It reduces the errors that can be apparent in manually creating schedules for all the employees in your restaurant, while helping to boost staff satisfaction and therefore increase productivity as a result. Scheduling software is much easier to use than you might initially expect, too.
14. Air Purification
When you take the time to improve your air, you’ll be able to improve the quality of life of the diners who visit your restaurant. The indoor air quality in your eating space can have more than 5 times the pollution than outdoor air, mainly due to the fact that indoor air is not properly sanitized.
There are added contaminants that are simply not filtered out of the air, but instead accumulate over time in our modern, tightly sealed properties.
15. VR Onboarding
The numerous processes involved in getting a new employee onboard at your restaurant. This usually includes employee onboarding – hiring, orientation, and VR-capable employee training are usually the different steps involved in the employee onboarding process, but it’s up to your unique business what features you choose to utilize.
Why Staying on Top of Restaurant Tech Trends Is Important
Staying on top of new restaurant technology trends is so important if you want to stand any chance of keeping up with your competition. Customer expectations will change with the times, and if you’re not able to keep up with their demands, you may lose business.
Staying Ahead of the Curve With GRUBBRR
GRUBBRR is the premier online ordering solution for your business. Customers are happier, operating costs are lower, and revenue is up. Welcome to the future of business. Contact us today to find out more by calling visiting grubbrr.com or emailing our expert team at sales@grubbrr.com.
FAQ
What are the new technological advancements in the restaurant industry?
There are several new technological advancements in the restaurant industry including AI and machine learning systems and robots.
What technologies are used in restaurants?
Restaurants use several different types of technologies, both hardware and software. This includes POS systems, kiosks, tablets, digital menu boards, kitchen display systems, order progress boards, food lockers, reservation platforms, online ordering and more. Thankfully, GRUBBRR offers all these services.
What are the latest trends in the food service industry?
The latest trend is automating the front-of-house and designing restaurant prototypes to incorporate technology.
