Technology has always been the driving force of improvement in the service industry, including the restaurant industry. Technology has single-handedly guided how restaurants interact and provide their customers' ultimate dining experience in the last two decades.
Restaurants that don't embrace new technology fall behind their competition; it's as simple as that. As a restaurant owner, you can implement tech updates around your restaurant to improve your operation’s efficiency.
1. Bluetooth Temperature Sensors
Bluetooth temperature sensors are currently one of the top trending pieces of restaurant hardware. These temperature sensors solve the age-old problem of food getting spoiled due to time-temperature abuse. Bluetooth temperature sensors track temperatures in sensitive areas and give data remotely.
Continuous temperature monitoring of your kitchen and dining space with Bluetooth temperature sensors can help prevent the spread of food-borne illnesses by preventing dangerous bacteria from spoiling your food ingredients. Bluetooth temperature sensors are HACCP certified, which solidifies it as a tool to keep your kitchen hygiene standards in check.
2. Digital Inventory Tracking
Digital inventory tracking is another top trend. This is the latest and most efficient method for food inventory management to date. This technique utilizes specialized software to ensure critical functions such as data theft prevention, tracking staff meals, keeping your kitchen stocked up, etc. The automation of all this data will help streamline your kitchen.
Digital inventory tracking helps you keep track of incoming supplies, kitchen inventory, and leftover stocks. These records are maintained and updated regularly, ensuring that you can keep track of things quickly and accurately. This software also allows you to create variance reports and cross-reference them to get the actual picture.
The only downside of digital inventory management is that it's not compatible with all types of POS hardware.
3. Self-Order Kiosks
With the sudden surge of popularity in drive-thrus, the popularity and demand of self-order kiosks have sky-rocketed as well. These kiosks are oversized machines that allow customers to order their meals. While they come with a hefty price tag, they also provide a plethora of benefits for your business, including a quicker and safer experience for guests, lower labor costs, higher meal revenue, and more.
Using self-order kiosks in your business also helps you gather customer data quickly and efficiently. With a machine doing the tasks, the chances of errors occurring are very minimal. By analyzing this data, you can lower purchase and labor costs while increasing each customer's average ticket value.
4. Kitchen Display Screens
Kitchen display screens are currently prevalent for a large number of reasons. They're digital order viewers that allow you to bypass kitchen tickets and printers. Since the orders are passed down to the kitchen staff in real-time, it increases efficiency and reduces order time. The chances of swapping orders by mistake are also minimized extensively using kitchen display screens.
Some of the significant advantages of installing a kitchen display system for restaurants are as follows:
- Kitchen display systems increase order accuracy,
- Ability to customize complicated menus easily,
- Reduces cooking time,
- Helps your kitchen staff to prioritize orders sequentially with ease,
- Assists in creating a balance of workload in large kitchens, and
- Reduces food waste.
At the very least, installing a kitchen display system will help you avoid tedious paperwork from piling up and creating confusion when your operations are running in full swing.
5. Online Reservation Manager
Another excellent restaurant tech that has been making the rounds are online reservation managers. These are software specializing in taking customer queries and making online reservations based on available schedule and space. This tool is not suited for low and medium-end restaurants since most of them don't follow the reservation model for carrying out their operations.
Utilizing an online reservation manager to take in your customer reservations reduces the chances of error in the process. Every detail is recorded correctly by the software, eliminating the need for any human touch to carry out the task.
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome
The COVID-19 global pandemic has hit the restaurant industry very hard across the globe. If you're one of the lucky restaurant owners who haven't folded yet, utilizing the latest technology to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency is a must. Even if it puts a dent in your wallet now, you'll enjoy the benefits of utilizing the latest technology in the long run.
