Given the unprecedented challenges currently facing the foodservice industry, many restaurants are scaling up their delivery and takeout service in order to survive. Some are even launching services they have never used before, such as opening up their pantry for sale to the general public. Many brands are torn between balancing their work priorities, serving customers, and protecting their employees as well as the bottom line.
Faced with growing numbers of off-premises orders, many restaurants entering into this market for the first time are finding they don’t have the infrastructure in place to handle the orders. At the same time, restaurants that have been players in the delivery space for a while are learning that managing the long list of delivery services, from store-owned to aggregators, is cumbersome.
Take Curry Up Now for example. The San Francisco-based Indian quick-service restaurant started as a food truck concept that operated with little technology. But as the brand grew to include more brick-and-mortar stores, CEO Akash Kapoor knew his chain needed more technology to help manage its growth across the Bay Area and the nation. Yet as Curry Up Now added more technology, from POS and reporting software to loyalty and delivery programs, Kapoor quickly realized how challenging it was to run the business with many different systems that didn’t communicate with one another. Now with 11 stores, Kapoor says managing the business without connected software would be close to impossible.
“Unfortunately, restaurants as a whole have been behind other industries in terms of investments in technology and infrastructure,” he says. “Some days we get 100 delivery orders in one restaurant, and you can’t take calls and put them all in your POS manually. It’s almost equally as painful when your POS and website don’t talk to DoorDash, Uber Eats, Caviar, or GrubHub. We need everything to live in the same atmosphere and be synced to our POS and accounting.”
To simplify his business and save valuable time for him and his staff, Kapoor turned to Revel Systems, a provider of cloud-based POS solutions that scale with restaurants as they grow, while also syncing with systems from a wide array of partner companies. This connectivity means Kapoor and his team don’t have to waste time reporting POS data to the accounting team. It also helps his team manage delivery orders coming in from a variety of sources without adding the need for investments in dedicated personnel to manage the glut of digital platforms.
“Between their own systems and aggregators, they’re getting inundated with options. Small and medium-sized businesses probably don’t have a person dedicated to managing the restaurant’s digital presence both online and in the store,” says Jay Gillespie, principle product owner at Revel Systems. “At Revel Systems we can help restaurants get started as they move into these digital spaces for the first time or help them scale up and incorporate all the new technologies they need.”
Additionally, Revel ties into loyalty programs, too, so marketing staff can easily monitor promotions and help drive delivery traffic, Kapoor says. “The way Revel works is so beautiful. Now every piece of technology I use talks to my POS, and I can see everything in one place.”
As restaurants continue shifting their operations to meet demand while facing the enormous industry challenges, it’s more important than ever to truly streamline in a quickly shifting landscape.
“Having a solution that allows you to incorporate all those streams of revenue in one spot is so important,” Gillespie says. “Even if you don’t have a dedicated IT team or you haven’t adopted these technologies before, we’re here to help leaders simplify their operations so they can stop focusing on technology and start concentrating on what matters most to them right now—their teams and guests.”
To learn more about how you can simplify your restaurant operations, visit the Revel Systems website.
By Peggy Carouthers
