The drive to provide convenient off-premise dining options to a wider audience of customers in recent years has driven a proliferation of third-party delivery providers — and along with it, a loss of guest data on the part of restaurants. This data is becoming more important all the time to a restaurant’s ability to compete. If your data management has become too scattered over the years (whether to outside providers or across too many platforms internally), bringing it in-house and managing it from a central source can help you derive a far greater understanding of your guests. From there, you’re in a stronger position to create the kinds of segmented, targeted offers that help you build and retain their loyalty. Bringing your delivery in-house is especially helpful here, but even if that isn’t an option, there are alternate approaches to building upon your store of guest data. Entice walk-in business by offering deals or other perks to those who order and collect from you. When you can get people through your doors, you can use your reservation system, QR codes, loyalty program and guest feedback mechanisms to enhance your insights about the people who enjoy your food. From there, being able to combine and analyze those threads of information from a single dashboard helps you create promotions that feel personal and worthwhile to your guests — enough so that they might think twice about ordering from you via a third-party provider and come to you directly instead.

California’s new $20-an-hour wage threshold generated a lot of talk at the recent National Restaurant Association Show – largely because it is expected to become an expense that restaurants in many other states will have to manage before too long. This change brings new urgency to labor management, along with the need for restaurants to determine what tools, culture changes or other approaches can ensure they are using staff as efficiently as possible. Operators are asking more from their technology as a result, like how it can help save on labor costs in addition to raising check totals. But there are significant cultural benefits too: Technology can (and should) offer simplicity. That is something more Gen Z employees demand from their employers, along with workplaces that offer employees a sense of purpose and a healthy culture. Using technology to minimize the most repetitive, tedious tasks frees up time for operators to develop workplaces that can invest some additional hours in staff, provide roles with greater purpose, and ideally, retain the right employees for longer stretches. Looking at your tech stack – or at the potential tools you’re considering – how can you ensure you’re taking full advantage of all of the benefits they offer when it comes to retaining staff and enhancing your culture?