The Restaurant Report

Supreet Raju and her husband & co-founder, Gaurav Gupta are huge food and travel enthusiasts, exploring the blockchain industry together since 2017. While working and researching projects in the market, they noticed a consistent failure in making blockchain products truly accessible to general audiences. Even simple products were made to sound complex, which attracted no one except developers and...

Mobile payment app Strike has partnered with Shopify, alternative payment provider Blackhawk Network, and point-of-sale supplier NCR to create a new US payment system that allows merchants to quickly receive payments in dollars after people pay with crypto. My Latest Video on this announcement. The Lightning Network-based system will work with online purchases from merchants using Shopify, as well...

Foodservice added 250K jobs in the first 3 months of 2022 Employment in the sector still lags behind February 2020 levels by about 820,000 jobs, but this is the smallest gap to date between pre-pandemic and current job levels. Restaurants and foodservice businesses added 61,000 jobs in March 2022, marking the 15th consecutive month of job growth in the sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Stat...

After more than a year of a bear market in innovation stocks that are not part of broad-based public equity benchmarks, we believe Instacart’s move marks the first major publicly announced valuation cut by a private startup. One of its public competitors, DoorDash, DASH on the NYSE, also has dropped roughly 40% since March 2021. Instacart still could be overvalued relative to DASH, however, as its...

Crypto Impact on Restaurants Restaurant Revitalization Fund is dropped from omnibus spending bill as hope for relief dwindles. The second round of restaurant relief will not be included in the omnibus spending bill expected to be voted on by Friday. The rallying cry for a last-ditch effort to include another round of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund in President Biden’s spending package was led...

Starship Tech a sidewalk robotic company is raising 100 Million in a flash Starship robots are revolutionizing food and package deliveries, offering people convenient new services that improve everyday life. Their ability to harness technology combined with experience providing services to millions of people makes this a reality today. Google accused of 'deceptive' online ordering practices by a r...

Foodservice Tech Sell-Off - Affect on your restaurant? Lots of technology news this week and also a seismic shift in what we could be dealing with very soon if we see a potential recession and seven dollar a gallon gas. The landscape has erie similarities to an era when old school POS was displaced in early 2000. DoorDash buys Bbot to beef up in-store digital ordering capabilities DoorDash is acqu...

Could third party be seeing the end of the party as more and more consumers are stressed with financial considerations and economic impact from inflation, interest rates, and global conflict? Operators are slowing down as well in terms of new restaurant openings. The slow return to normal and in-restaurant dining will have a slowing effect on the growth of third-party delivery. All that said, Door...

In today’s episode of The Restaurant Report, host Paul Barron chats with Rajat Suri, chief executive officer of Presto about the future of where technology is going in foodservice. Suri, an engineer by training, confounded Lyft and developed Presto while at M.I.T. in 2008. Presto over the years started building out a suite of products in three major areas, touch, vision, and voice which are all di...

Leading off with the Cooper’s Hawk announcement of their IPO in 2022 will set the stage for a few restaurant operations to take a lead in bringing themselves to the public stage. According to Ernst & Young, 2021 featured the highest annual deal volume on the markets ever, with 2,388 companies going public. The big questions for Coopers will be the connection to the Millenial and GenZ as a real mar...

As we dive into this week's podcast we begin to tread in areas not often mentioned by the restaurant industry with Drone delivery leading the way and how Flytrex may be the next Uber for restaurant delivery. The real question will be the adoption curve of the digital consumer and if they have the uptake acceleration we have seen with online the third party. The likelihood that we see widespread dr...

Food safety is a huge aspect of how Ghost Kitchen will control most of the digital landscape for the future and understanding the demand on a restaurant brand will be huge for both consumer awareness and brand impact. Maybe this is why we are seeing David Change make a quick exit from Reef Kitchens with reported food safety concerns. The issue stems from reports from Business Insider and Restauran...

DoorDash on Monday began offering 10- to-15-minute deliveries in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea and if this works out they plan to put the hammer down to compete with some of the services like GoPuff and other younger upstarts that are starting to put some pressure on the top dog in delivery. Jack in the Box has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Del Taco for $575 million,...

Mod Pizza is set to go IPO soon and is one of the darlings of the Fast Casual Segment, founded in 2008. They have been on a tremendous growth plan. They have raised $160 million and set a goal to increase its store count to 1,000 locations by 2024. Check out our Brand Analysis on Mod Pizza on a recent podcast to talk about their unique culture, which sets them apart from any brand I know. Will the...

As we continue to see a shift in technology to take on the rising issues with Labor C3 and Sam Nazarian is leading a seed capital round of $ 20 million for Nomi, a startup that uses automation to create bowl-based meals. The investment is part of a 50/50 deal with a partnership with C3, which will test the robotic kitchens through "Iron Chef" Masaharu Morimoto's Sa'Moto restaurant concept. The spa...

Today's weekly wrap dives into the trends and stats for the current labor situation brewing in foodservice with a dramatic impact on restaurants based on new consumer data analysis from Foodable Labs. Tweetable Data Points Foodable Labs Data: -229K restaurants permanently closed during COVID19 -Over 1.3MM jobs lost -62% of millennials that were in the industry have gone outside the foodservice sec...

In today’s weekly wrap episode of The Restaurant Report, host Paul Barron looks at fast food embracing technology, explores the future of automation to address labor shortages and dives into Shake Shack’s growth plans as well as Fat Brands newest acquisition. Three Key Points: Shake Shake’s Q3 earnings call was released and chief executive officer Randy Garutti shared details on the expansion for...

In this episode of The Barron Report, host Paul Barron speaks with Ken Chong, co-founder and chief executive officer at All Day Kitchens to explore how restaurants can grow their business through digital, delivery, and takeout.  Three Key Points: Chong led several Marketplace product teams at Uber before co-founding All Day Kitchens, a San Francisco-based restaurant platform that offers support by...

Guest: Haitham Al-Beik, CEO and Founder of Wings

In this episode of The Barron Report, host Paul Barron talks with Scott Lawton, the chief executive officer and co-founder of bartaco, to explore technology, ordering systems, and labor shortages. Three Key Points: Lawton talks about bartaco’s business growth as well as taking on the pandemic. He shares bartaco’s roll out of an entirely touchless dine-in operation and the creation of a more effici...

In this episode of The Barron Report, host Paul Barron meets with Nabeel Alamgir, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Lunchbox, to explore the future of eating and online ordering in the hospitality industry. Three Key Points: Lunchbox Technologies was launched in 2019. The company supplies multi-unit restaurants with an online ordering system and marketing engine. Before founding Lunchb...

In this episode of The Barron Report, host Paul Barron meets with Steve Simoni, the chief executive officer of Bbot, to explore how technology is transforming the restaurant guest experience. Three Key Points: Bbot allows restaurant customers—both in-store and at home—to order food and drinks from their phone. Guests do not have to wait for a menu, download an app, swipe their card, or even sign a...

In this episode of The Barron Report, host Paul Barron chats with Ido Levanon, the chief executive officer and director of Dragontail Systems, to explore how artificial intelligence and autonomous delivery systems are transforming the foodservice industry. Three Key Points: The Algo Platform and QT system use a patented algorithm and artificial intelligence to revolutionize the way restaurants ope...

In this episode of The Barron Report, host Paul Barron sits down with James O'Reilly, the chief executive officer of Smokey Bones, to explore the popular barbecue chain’s latest ventures into the ghost kitchen and virtual brand space. Three Key Points: Smokey Bones launched its first two virtual brands in 2019. The chain has been recognized as one of the top twenty fast casual brands to watch by F...

The fast-casual chain announced that it would increase menu prices across the board by around 4% with another price increase scheduled for the summer. Chipotle customers are also complaining about receiving 'tiny' burritos and smaller portions even as the chain says it's raising prices. Meanwhile these decisions are coupled with rising bonus pay for CEO Brian Niccol and stock buybacks. Is Chipotle...