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Carl returns from a July break with Bernadette Heier of Food on Demand to unpack five stories that signal where restaurant tech is heading next.

01:00 – Olo acquired by Thoma Bravo
• $2B all-cash deal
• A chance to reset outside the public markets
• Could this unlock faster innovation?

04:30 – OpenTable’s AI Concierge
• Built with OpenAI and Perplexity
• Answers 80% of diner questions
• Visibility now depends on how up-to-date your listing is

09:00 – Golden Corral’s Flybuy-powered pickup
• Off-premises rebrand: Golden Corral Favorites
• Flybuy tracks customer approach to time food perfectly
• Reflects the rise of drive-thru-style formats from legacy brands

12:05 – AEO: Answer Engine Optimization
• 70% of Google searches now end with no click
• Video builds audience—but not search visibility
• Q&A-style web content is the key to getting found by AI

18:20 – VenHub at LAX
• Automated grab-and-go using robotic arms
• $250K startup cost, $300M in preorders
• A new frontier in frictionless convenience

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🔔 Subscribe to The Digital Restaurant Podcast and follow us on YouTube for more episodes that combine the love of food with the latest in technology. Your next restaurant tech adventure starts here!

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This week on The Digital Restaurant, I’m joined by a new co-host — Alex, an AI avatar — as we break down five headlines showing how delivery, automation, and AI are shaping the next wave of restaurant operations:

01:10 – Olive Garden’s off-premise engine is humming
Uber Direct integration, buy-one-take-one offers, and nearly 7% same-store sales growth from delivery alone

05:25 – Yum China rolls out Q Smartt
A voice-activated wearable assistant for managers, designed to surface operational insights in real time

11:05 – GPT failed at report building
QSR’s Mary Pillow Thompson spent a weekend trying to automate daily ops. The issue wasn’t the model—it was the lack of orchestration

13:30 – DoorDash acquires Symbiosis for $175M
A strategic bet on local commerce advertising, with closed-loop attribution from ad to order

17:45 – Coco raises $80M to scale delivery bots
Semi-autonomous, human-guided, and aiming for 10,000 units deployed by 2026

Quote of the week:
“Coco isn’t replacing humans — they’re redeploying them smarter.”

Full episode: https://thedigitalrestaurant.buzzsprout.com

#restauranttech #AI #offpremise #DoorDash #OliveGarden #CocoRobotics #YumChina #InvisibleTechnologies

Shoutouts:
Zach Rash, Joey Simons, Sam Altman, Ryan Graves, Mary Pillow Thompson, Alex (AI co-host)

Support the show

🔔 Subscribe to The Digital Restaurant Podcast and follow us on YouTube for more episodes that combine the love of food with the latest in technology. Your next restaurant tech adventure starts here!

📖 Get your copy of the Delivering the Digital Restaurant books at www.theDigital.Restaurant

🎤 Have Carl come and speak at your company conference! Learn more at www.theDigital.Restaurant

🎙️📰Please subscribe to our newsletter and connect with Carl's Delivering the Digital Restaurant page on LinkedIn for their twice-a-month newsletter.

Send us a text

What’s Inside This Episode?

00:00 – Live from the National Restaurant Show
Carl visits Chicago and joins Rich Faltot at Point B’s new Restaurant Technology Innovation Center.

01:00 – Why restaurant tech stacks are broken
Legacy systems, data silos, fragmented integrations, and the cost of doing nothing.

• POS replacements are “open heart surgery” for restaurants
• Transformation takes 18–36 months on average
• Success requires aligned leadership and future-facing thinking

06:00 – Customer obsession: the north star for tech decisions
Rich outlines how leading brands maintain focus—on the guest experience, not shiny tools.

• The best operators spend time in-store, watching, listening, learning
• Every tool must make things easier for the team and better for the customer

13:00 – Point B’s ‘Digital Safari’ and art-of-the-possible workshops

• Real-world immersion through drive-thru, kiosk, and delivery UX testing
• Cross-industry inspiration (NASCAR, Disney) drives better solutions

20:00 – Inside the tech center
Carl takes a walking tour of the new Tech Center, featuring:

• Multiple full-stack POS environments: Toast, PAR, Qu, Aloha and more
• Integrated back-of-house systems: Restaurant365, SynergySuite, Decision Logic
• Training and deployment environments built for test, learn, and change management

Support the show

🔔 Subscribe to The Digital Restaurant Podcast and follow us on YouTube for more episodes that combine the love of food with the latest in technology. Your next restaurant tech adventure starts here!

📖 Get your copy of the Delivering the Digital Restaurant books at www.theDigital.Restaurant

🎤 Have Carl come and speak at your company conference! Learn more at www.theDigital.Restaurant

🎙️📰Please subscribe to our newsletter and connect with Carl's Delivering the Digital Restaurant page on LinkedIn for their twice-a-month newsletter.