Restaurant And Hospitality IT News For VARs — July 9, 2014

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

This week, millennials have raised the bar in terms of their expectations from digital menu boards, pressing operators to meet their needs, but it can have positive consequences for owners as well. A recent hackathon also sought to find new solutions to some pressing operator challenges, and restaurant owners now can leverage all of that in-restaurant experience data to help steer business decisions and improve revenue flow.

Millennials Expect Digital Menu Board Interaction

This article from QSR examines the changing landscape of digital menu boards, especially in the wake of the new guidelines for posting nutritional information. Most millennials, it seems, now have high expectations of interaction with menu boards as they make their dining choices. For operators, digital menu boards not only will make Obamacare compliance easier, but also give operators absolute control of their menu and marketing.

Industry Hackathon Presents Answers To Operator Challenges

Hack//Dining NYC, a weekend-long hackathon saw almost two hundred participants respond to four challenges in the food industry. Pitches included  an online interface for university students to provide feedback on their dining hall offerings; an interactive form localized at the county or city regulatory level that generates a list of requirements for restaurants, food trucks, and other dining facilities to be in compliance with local, state, and federal laws; an app and rewards program that empowers the consumer to “right size” their order; and an all-encompassing online personal trainer and nutritionist with a nutritional dashboard, digital weigh-ins, before and after selfies, and the option for employer reward systems to incentivize success.

Platform Leverages In-Restaurant Experience Data To Steer Business Decisions

This article from FSR looks at how a new company centralizes experience data, regardless of source or format, connecting it with technology to surface critical customer stories, and then channeling timely, actionable insights to managers to drive targeted decisions across the entire enterprise. Leveraging these online customer reviews with their unprecedented immediacy presents brands with tremendous challenges in gathering feedback across multiple channels in the moment, and respond quickly and intelligently.

Restaurant And Hospitality IT Talking Points:

Restaurants continued to be among the leaders in job growth in June, and job growth is expected to remain solid during the second half of the year, as restaurants continue to benefit from an improving economy and stronger consumer sentiment, according to NRA’s Chief Economist Bruce Grindy. Preliminary figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the national economy added a net 288,000 jobs in June on a seasonally-adjusted basis, the fifth consecutive month with gains of at least 200,000 jobs. 

CIBC and Tim Horton’s today announced the launch of their CIBC Tim Horton’s Double Double Visa Card, leveraging a two-button technology that combines a CIBC Visa credit card with a Tim Card. According to a news release, cardholders who press the CIBC Visa button on the front of the Double Double card to pay for any purchase will have 1 percent of each dollar spent converted into Tim Cash rewards. Then, with the touch of the Tim Horton’s Tim Card button, cardholders can redeem their Tim Cash for their orders.

For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Hospitality Tech Center.