Restaurant Tech Trends

Justin Foster
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Technology
  • Updated Weekly

On Restaurant Tech Trends, we interview movers and shakers in the restaurant industry to identify how technology is changing the way multi-unit restaurants work.

  1. 6d ago

    Ken Knapton, CIO @ WIN Brands (Costa Vida & FatCats Entertainment)

    Tech debt isn't a liability to wipe out. It's leverage to manage - like debt on a balance sheet. Too much and you're bankrupt; too little and you can't move. That's the idea Dr. Ken Knapton literally wrote the book on. Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends I sit down with Ken, Chief Information Officer at WIN Brands, the parent company of Costa Vida, Fresh Mexican Grill and FatCats Entertainment. Ken took the scenic route into restaurants - two decades in the CIO seat across enterprise software, banking, and security - and it shows in how clearly he thinks about the why before anyone writes a line of code. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 How he runs IT for two brands that could not look more different - a made-to-order burrito line and a 70,000-square-foot cinema-bowling-arcade - and where he found economies of scale everyone told him weren't there 👉 Tech debt as LEVERAGE, not liability - the ~20% "sweet spot," and why your org will never (and shouldn't) hit zero 👉 The "have the WHY conversation first" rule - and how a simple Fat Cats CRM request turned into a single customer-data foundation across both brands 👉 Why he's NOT chasing all-in-one nirvana - his four-vendor, best-of-breed, plug-and-play philosophy 👉 Where customer-facing AI is genuinely READY vs. still on the cusp - and why "watching your burrito be born" down the line is a brand promise he won't automate away Shout outs to Toast, Olo, Snowflake, Tableau, and Sparkfly for the tech-stack love along the way. ➕ PLUS the rapid fire round, where Ken breaks the one-word rule twice, names the most OVERRATED tech in restaurants and reveals the best money he spent on tech this year. Give it a watch and let me know what you think. Full episode linked in comments 👇

  2. Jul 28

    Marita Swift, VP Growth @ The Big Biscuit

    What kind of restaurant brand closes every location at 2:30 on purpose? The kind that wants its people home for dinner. Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends I sit down with Marita Swift CFE, VP of Strategic Growth at The Big Biscuit, the nostalgic, all-American breakfast and lunch concept out of Kansas City that Franchise Times named a top breakout brand in 2024. Marita's path is unlike almost any growth exec I've had on: she spent 10+ years as a working executive chef in high-end scratch kitchens before pivoting into brand strategy, so she sees this business from the line cook station all the way to the franchise development deck. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 The chef-to-C-suite pivot: how a decade on the line (plus a psychology degree and a love of data) became a career building brands - and why she built an in-house agency instead of hiring one 👉 What "sustainable growth" really means when you're scaling a corporate footprint and a franchise base side by side and why she cares more about WHO she franchises with than WHERE 👉 Why the highest-quality franchise lead she gets is simply a guest who walks in already loving the product 👉 How Placer.ai became her company-wide superpower for site selection -plus the Momos guest-sentiment bet they sat on for three years before it finally clicked 👉 Her AI vision, fresh off the QSR Summit stage: closing the gap between the question and the decision, so teams spend more time building culture and less time guessing which way to go Shout outs to Momos, Placer.ai, Restaurant365, DoorDash, and Tiphouse for the tech-stack love along the way. ➕ PLUS the rapid fire round, where Marita settles knife skills vs. spreadsheet skills, names the one food trend she'd happily retire, and tells us in a single word what a great breakfast is really about.

  3. Jul 22

    Andrew Kirkwood, VP Technology @ Shelby's Legendary Shawarma

    "You can't put ketchup on shawarma" became a global rallying cry, and the brand behind it is now blitzing past 50 locations. Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends I sit down with Andrew Kirkwood, VP of Technology at Shelby's Legendary Shawarma, the Canadian brand turning authentic Middle Eastern flavors into North America's next big fast casual category. Andrew came up on ops, ran business development, and now owns the tech stack he is rebuilding for scale. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 How a viral social media character (and a very illegal bottle of ketchup) built a global fanbase before the brand had 5 stores figured out 👉 What it really takes to standardize a menu that never stops changing when your CEO loves to experiment 👉 The shift from best-in-breed vs all-in-one, and why AI is finally tipping that debate 👉 Why he wants POS to stop being the foundation and start being the data hub 👉 The AI vision that turns demand forecasting into real-time, dollars-and-cents actions a franchisee can actually see Shout outs to Bikky, Gravy, Toast, and MYR for the vendor love along the way. ➕ PLUS the rapid fire round, where Andrew names the most overrated tech trend in restaurants This one is packed with the real, in-the-weeds truth about scaling a brand people fall in love with online before they ever walk through the door. Give it a watch and let me know what you think 👇

  4. Jul 16

    Erin Levzow, Consulting CMO @ CapitalSpring & Co-Host, Bite-Sized & Bossy

    She showed up in Vegas with $800, slept on a mattress off the back of a truck, and turned a theater degree into one of the sharpest marketing tech voices in restaurants. Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends I sit down with Erin Levzow, consulting CMO across the CapitalSpring portfolio, co-host of the Bite-Sized and Bossy podcast, and the rare leader who can make the marketing side and the IT side actually speak the same language. Named CMO of the Year and a global MarTech Leader of the Year, she has built stacks and loyalty programs for Wingstop, Del Taco, Freebirds, and more. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 What restaurants can steal from gaming and hospitality, industries that were doing real personalization years before we were 👉 How she re-platformed an entire MarTech stack and launched Del Taco's first loyalty program in nine months 👉 Why most loyalty programs fail the moment the conversation shifts from the customer to the cost 👉 Where AI creates the most value today, and where the "creepy" line really sits on personalization 👉 Best of breed vs all in one, and why one platform to do everything means you're building it yourself Shout outs to Chowly, Hang, and Bikky for the analytics and reporting love along the way. ➕ PLUS the rapid fire round, where Erin names the single MarTech tool she cannot live without (it is not the one you would guess). Erin and I have been trying to make this one happen since RFDC last November, and it was worth the wait. Give it a watch and let me know what you think 👇

  5. Jul 9

    Kimmie Dunlay, Sr Director Foodservice @ Kept Companies

    The dirtiest corner of any restaurant tells you everything about how it's run, and Kimmie Dunlay has built a career on the infrastructure nobody sees to keep 'em clean. Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends I sit down with the Senior Director of Food Service Strategy and Growth at Kept Companies, the nationwide self-performing facility partner keeping restaurant and grocery brands clean, safe, and open. Kimmie came up through restaurant ops and never lost the belief that what happens behind the line matters as much as what happens on it. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 Why "self-performing" service is the whole ballgame for national consistency 👉 How AutoMist brings real technology to the very antiquated world of hood cleaning, and actually lowers insurance premiums 👉 The shift from reactive to preventative, and why the facilities function has to stop being seen as a cost center 👉 What "facilities intelligence" really means + data on your operation you probably don't have access to today 👉 The AI vision for turning 800 before-and-after job photos into instant answers on whether the work got done Shout outs to CarePro Painting, Restaurant Technologies, and Ecolab for the help along the way. ➕ PLUS the rapid fire round, where Kimmie reveals the hidden talent nobody on her team knows about This one opened my eyes to a corner of the industry I knew close to zero about, and Kimmie made it fascinating. Give it a watch and let me know what you think

  6. Jul 6

    Eric Knott, CEO @ Tiki Taco

    Eric Knott spent a decade as COO of PDQ scaling 40+ stores from Tampa to New York, and he'll be the first to tell you he learned as much from what went wrong as what went right. Now CEO of Kansas City's Tiki Taco, he joined me on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends to talk about the growth discipline he earned the hard way, the founder partnership that keeps him honest, and where AI actually pays off. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 Why Tiki opens every restaurant 5-6 days BEFORE the grand opening 👉 How catering went from zero to ~12% of sales in under a year 👉 The "brand protector" model: how Eric actually partners with 3 founders without ego wars 👉 The Tiki Bucks playbook that turns local fundraisers into hundreds of first-time guests 👉 Where Eric lands on all-in-one vs best-of-breed across his 20-piece tech stack (shout outs to Toast, Restaurant365, Incentivo, Bikky, Byte and more) ➕ PLUS Eric and I get into a great back-and-forth on voice + kiosks, whether the "ordering guilt" factor goes away when you have to say your order out loud, and why he runs AI at 80/20 on scheduling. We also riff on how he uses Claude to turn ~100 restaurant publications a week into one Monday-morning brief. Eric is one of the sharpest, most genuine operators I have had on the show, and you can tell community is in his DNA. Give this one a watch and let us know what you think.

  7. Jul 2

    Adam Robin, Chief Operating Officer @ Virtual Dining Concepts

    On today's 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we go inside the wild world of virtual brands with Adam Robin, Chief Operating Officer at Virtual Dining Concepts: the company behind some of the most talked-about names out there, from MrBeast Burger to Man vs. Fries. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 What it actually takes to build a virtual brand that breaks through the noise, and why so many of them flame out fast 👉 The hard lessons Adam carried over from his Reef Technology days about ghost kitchens, delivery economics, and what really moves the needle for operators 👉 How VDC thinks about pairing the right celebrity or creator with the right concept, and why star power alone is never enough 👉 Where Adam sees the next wave of virtual brand growth heading, and which pieces of the model are finally maturing after the early hype 👉 What separates a flash-in-the-pan concept from one with real staying power, drawn from Adam's 20+ years in food and beverage ➕ PLUS: Adam's take on where tech fits into the future of virtual dining, and the one thing he wishes more operators understood before jumping in. 🍟 Thank you Adam for the behind-the-curtain look at how VDC is reinventing what a virtual brand can be. 🚀

  8. Jun 25

    Zach Goldstein, Founder/CEO @ Thanx

    Own the guest relationship or get rented out to the highest bidder. That's part of what we dive into on today's 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends. On this episode I sit down with Zach Goldstein, Founder & CEO of Thanx. Zach has helped restaurants turn first party data into lifetime value since 2011. Watch for a masterclass in loyalty, data, and how AI agents are transforming the guest retention game. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 Zach's take on the SaaSpocalypse and what actually makes software defensible 👉 Where AI is REALLY changing loyalty plus the three bets Thanx is all-in on. HINT: big news this summer... 👉 The digital ratio every operator should track and why letting third-party marketplaces outgrow your first-party channels means losing your guests AND your data 📉 ➕ PLUS: the "warm hug vs. $7 discount" psychology of changing guest behavior, and why loyalty may be a restaurant's best weapon to steer the coming wave of AI ordering agents back to first-party ➕➕ PLUS PLUS: Rapid fire 🔥 - the most OVERRATED restaurant tech (you'll never guess this one), the most underrated, his one-word advice to 2011 Zach, and whether the Sacramento Kings are making the playoffs next season 🏀😂 Thank you Zach for the clinic on loyalty and LTV!

See All (71)

Ratings & Reviews

About

On Restaurant Tech Trends, we interview movers and shakers in the restaurant industry to identify how technology is changing the way multi-unit restaurants work.

Information

  • Creator
    Justin Foster
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    71
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Justin Foster
  • Show Website
    Restaurant Tech Trends

You Might Also Like