News Briefs

IRIS, a global market leader in digital F&B, guest directory and concierge solutions for hotels and restaurants, has partnered with Hotel Kimpton De Witt (part of the Lore Group and IHG) to bring a new era of digital guest experiences to life with the launch of IRIS's mobile F&B ordering platform in their co-working space, Café Celia.

Nestled in the heart of Amsterdam’s bustling city centre, the luxury boutique hotel offers 274 guest rooms, a fitness suite and a restaurant, and is renowned for its modern approach, unique personality, and five-star service. 

With IRIS’ integrated mobile ordering solution available in Café Celia (the hotel’s Californian-inspired co-working café), Kimpton De Witt is setting new standards of operational excellence and guest satisfaction. 

Accessible via QR codes, guests can now place orders through their mobile device, providing a modern, user-friendly experience that aligns with the hotel’s unique personality and contemporary approach. The app’s multi-lingual capabilities enable international visitors to view the digital menu in their own language. Furthermore, the direct POS integration (to Simphony Cloud) sends orders direct to the kitchen and allows the hotel to manage orders more efficiently, reducing wait times, minimising mistakes and enabling a more streamlined and integrated approach to fulfilling guest needs.

Dominic de Boer, Director of IT at Lore Group, commented “With IRIS mobile ordering in Café Celia in Kimpton De Witt, the ordering process has been streamlined. Guests no longer need to wait for a server to take orders or process payment. 

This service integration with advanced technology enhances the overall dining experience and reflects our commitment to innovation. "

Graham Rushin, VP Sales and Marketing at IRIS, added, “The introduction of IRIS mobile ordering ensures hotel guests receive a first-class service while enjoying the convenience of digital technology, reflecting the hotel’s commitment to innovation and delivering exceptional dining experiences.

As digital ordering gathers pace and becomes commonplace in our everyday lives, Kimpton De Witt Hotel embraces this trend, meeting and exceeding guests' expectations that ultimately will lead to higher order volumes and improved guest loyalty."

The overall ordering experience enriches the guest stay, improves service times, and supports the hotel's growing number of visitors and order volumes.

Mark Shambura has joined Panera Bread as Chief Marketing Officer. Shambura will lead all aspects of marketing at Panera, including Brand Building, Digital & Loyalty, Product Strategy & Consumer Insights. An accomplished marketing leader with broad expertise in the restaurant industry, Mr. Shambura has previously held marketing leadership roles during pivotal growth periods for top brands including Chipotle, MOD Pizza, and most recently Papa Johns.

"Mark brings an impressive background building brands and leading marketing teams for fast-casual restaurants, and we’re thrilled to welcome him to Panera Bread,” said José Alberto Dueñas, Chief Executive Officer. “As Panera continues to evolve our brand, guided by listening to our guests, Mark’s depth of experience and ability will help drive our growth as a brand that serves great food you feel good about eating.”

Shambura previously served as CMO at Papa Johns, where he led a revitalization of the brand by enhancing its iconic “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza” platform, and developing a more modern, innovative omnichannel approach to transform how Papa Johns appealed to both new and loyal consumers. As Executive Director at Chipotle, Mr. Shambura guided the marketing function through periods of both sustained growth and transition, providing leadership over brand strategy, advertising, digital, social, events/sponsorships, promotions, and field marketing, including playing a key role in spearheading its “Real Ingredients” brand strategy.

“I’m proud to join the Panera Bread team and excited to build on the momentum of the brand's transformation as it continues to evolve in service of our guests,” Mr. Shambura said. “Panera propelled and cemented its position at the top of the fast casual restaurant segment through its promise of high-quality ingredients and freshly prepared food, and I’m thrilled to join a highly talented team to help shape its next chapter.”

Prior to his tenure in the restaurant industry, Mr. Shambura gained extensive marketing agency experience, working with a broad array of top global consumer brands for over a decade. Shambura will report directly to José Alberto Dueñas, Chief Executive Officer, and officially assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer on July 29, 2024.

Fourth announces the release of Fourth iQ, the Artificial Intelligence for Restaurants. Fourth iQ is used by restaurant chains to optimize their entire workforce and inventory operations to maximize profitability, increase productivity and enhance the experience of employees and customers.

Many of Fourth's customers are already benefiting from Fourth iQ, including Pizza Hut, Noodles & Company, and Chili’s. As part of the expanded capabilities offered by Fourth iQ, customers can utilize AI forecasting for scheduling and inventory, plus a Real-Time KPI dashboard to track their key metrics across all locations. A further range of advanced Fourth iQ features will deliver new ways to increase profitability centrally across all locations and boost the productivity of general managers at each location.

"With 25 years in the restaurant game, we are acutely aware of the challenges our customers face—profit margins are tight, as labor and food costs continue to rise; and the responsibility for driving efficiency is dependent on the decisions made by overburdened general managers who are often reliant on incomplete information and legacy technologies. Fourth iQ can overcome these challenges by using AI to generate ‘the next best actions’ informed by multiple data sources and defined goals; providing managers with real-time recommendations of how best to efficiently deploy labor, grow sales, and reduce waste,” said Fourth CEO Clinton Anderson.

Tangible Benefits

In essence, Fourth iQ is a multi-faceted AI and Analytics capability that works across the entirety of restaurant chains’ operations, including recruitment, HR, scheduling, payroll and inventory management. Fourth iQ is embedded into Fourth’s established suite of solutions, including HotSchedules, PeopleMatter, and MacromatiX.

"By creating a layer of intelligence across all locations in a restaurant chain, Fourth iQ produces what we call ‘above store insights that drive in-store action’, to ensure every opportunity to drive profitability and efficiency is identified and actioned, whether by managers or entirely automated,” said CTO Christian Berthelsen.

The tangible benefits of Fourth iQ are already being realized by Fourth’s customers; AI-driven forecasting has enabled Noodles & Company to increase their sales forecasting accuracy by 20%, leading to a $4 million reduction in labor costs. The same increase in forecast accuracy resulted in Chili’s saving 600 labor hours per week nationally.

Bar Louie, a 63 location Gastrobar concept, is another Fourth customer embarking on their AI journey with Fourth iQ. Roberta Frierson, Senior Vice President of Technology, shared their ambition to become AI-driven. “At Bar Louie, we see the promise of AI. Not just for front of house, but for our back of house processes like recruiting, hiring, scheduling, and paying team members. As we incorporate AI into our tech stack, we believe it will make managers more effective and streamline our operations.”

Enabling customers to easily bring AI into their tech stack is core to Fourth’s vision for the industry. “In creating Fourth iQ, we are providing every restaurant chain the simplest and most effective way to get started on their AI journey,” says Christian Berthelsen. He continues, “Our underlying AI platform provides the infrastructure to securely integrate data sources and train AI, then put it to work via our solutions and apps. Our experienced implementation teams do all the heavy lifting, including configuring the AI within Fourth iQ to what makes your business unique. There really is no barrier to getting started today.”

To learn more about Fourth iQ, visit the Fourth website.

BurgerFi International, Inc., owner of the casual dining chain Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza & Wings and BurgerFi, has filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.. 

All 144 locations of the company's two brands throughout the United States, including in Puerto Rico, and in Saudi Arabia, will continue normal, uninterrupted operations. The Chapter 11 filing by the Company includes only the 67 corporate-owned locations of both brands. Franchisee-owned locations of BurgerFi and Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza & Wings are excluded from the bankruptcy proceedings.

"...In the face of a drastic decline in post-pandemic consumer spending amidst sustained inflation and increasing food and labor costs, we need to stabilize the business in a structured process," said Jeremy Rosenthal, Chief Restructuring Officer of BurgerFi International, Inc. "We are confident that this process will allow us to protect and grow our brands and to continue the operational turnaround started less than 12 months ago and secure additional capital."

The board brought in Carl Bachmann as chief executive officer and Christopher E. Jones, chief financial officer in July 2023 to turnaround and strengthen the brands and operations. Faced with legacy operational challenges, they quickly developed and implemented a strategic plan to address foundational issues including declining same store sales, high employee turnover and a stale menu. As part of the turnaround efforts, the company initiated a top-to-bottom evaluation of its operations, which is continuing.

As a result, the company has aligned its footprint with current business standards through the closure of 19 underperforming corporate-owned stores and reduced related operating costs.  
 

Red Lobster Chapter 11 Update

In related news, Red Lobster Management LLC,  announced Sept. 5 that the company has received court approval of its Chapter 11 plan. RL Investor Holdings LLC will acquire the Red Lobster restaurant chain. As HT previously reported, the former CEO of P.F. Changs is poised to lead Red Lobster. The acquisition is anticipated to close before the end of September.  

TouchBistro has launched its Inventory Management and Labor Management solutions for restaurant operators, following its acquisition of restaurant management software, Peachworks. 

The new offerings bolster TouchBistro’s comprehensive suite of back-of-house (BOH) solutions and help restaurateurs improve profitability, streamline operations and deliver a great guest experience.

“TouchBistro’s acquisition of Peachworks allows us to better serve operators through one comprehensive tech stack,” said Samir Zabaneh, Chairman and CEO of TouchBistro. “We deeply understand the pain points of operators in today’s restaurant industry, and our new Labor Management and Inventory Management products are a major step forward in making data-backed decisions that help them keep costs down and run a sustainable business.”

Both products include a seamless TouchBistro POS integration that allows the latest data to flow into one centralized system in near real time so operators can make data-backed decisions faster. With the continuous input of data, this also ensures operators have the insights needed to forecast accurately to save on both labor costs and food waste.

Inventory Management
TouchBistro Inventory Management is a powerful inventory and recipe management platform that integrates seamlessly with the TouchBistro POS to help operators save time, reduce food costs and manage their inventory with ease.

From TouchBistro’s 2024 State of Restaurants report, over half (58%) of operators noted that inventory costs were their biggest source of financial strain. Moreover, 60% of operators reported that all or most of their suppliers have raised prices in the past year, with the average expenditure on food increasing by a whopping 41% in the past year alone.

Many operators are operating on razor thin margins. With TouchBistro’s new inventory management software, operators can gain better insight into their costs and more easily find areas to optimize. The solution arms operators with the ability to:

• Automate the inventory process and say goodbye to time-consuming spreadsheets with a digital database of all their items and up-to-date counts of their consumables.
• Put profitability first with recipe costing tools that allow operators to optimize new and existing recipes for maximum profitability and ingredient usage.
• Ensure there’s always sufficient inventory on hand and prepped for service with data-driven food prep forecasting that takes actual and ideal usage into account.

Labor Management
TouchBistro Labor Management is a robust restaurant staff management and scheduling software that integrates directly with the TouchBistro POS to help operators simplify scheduling, streamline team communications and keep labor costs under control.

Through TouchBistro’s new, fully integrated labor management solution, operators can:

• Manage availability, schedule changes, time off requests and blocked dates from one centralized system, even across multiple locations.
• Eliminate confusion, miscommunication and missed shifts by sending important updates in real time via in-app messages, emails and SMS notifications.
• Reduce costs by more accurately predicting and forecasting labor needs based on labor percentage, hours, costs or number of employees, using net sales or guest count as the driver.

Papa John’s International Inc. announced the appointment of Kevin Vasconi to Chief Digital and Technology Officer. Vasconi brings proven enterprise technology leadership to the company. He most recently served as Chief Information Officer for The Wendy’s Company, where he led their transformation and tripled its ecommerce business in three years through a consumer-centric approach, leveraging technology to build loyalty with Wendy’s customers.

In this role, Vasconi will be responsible for guiding the development and execution of Papa Johns long-term strategy across the entire digital and technology ecosystem, including customer-facing, restaurant and corporate technology. This includes enterprise architecture, engineering, data analytics, enterprise technology, information security, as well as advancing scalable, cost-effective technology capabilities for the franchise system globally. Working closely with the marketing organization and restaurant operations, he will develop innovative solutions for customers and team members that enable the delivery of superior quality pizza to Papa Johns customers around the world.

Executives on the Move

Vasconi is the latest restaurant executive on the move.  Whataburger, Checkers, Red Lobster, Chick-fil-A, Bloomin' Brands, Panera Bread, Papa Johns,  Starbucks and Chipotle Mexican Grill are a few of the brands with executive changes in the past few weeks.  Read more.

“Kevin and I worked together at The Wendy’s Company, where I experienced first-hand his ability to lead technology innovation that delivered significant impact for our customers, team members and franchisees,” said Todd Penegor, President and Chief Executive Officer. “His experience spans a number of industries, though his leadership in QSR, in particular, has been recognized in the industry and has served as an inspiration for other peers in our category. I look forward to Kevin’s partnership across our leadership team to build on the success Papa Johns has had in the digital space, while also leveraging technology to develop even better platforms, partnerships and systems to enable us to build for the future.”

Prior to The Wendy’s Company, he spent eight years at Domino’s as EVP and Chief Information Officer, where he was responsible for developing and growing its domestic and international ecommerce businesses. He has a 35+ year career in technology, including 12 years at Ford Motor Company, and CIO and CTO roles at Covisint LLC, Polk North America, Polk Global Automotive, and Stanley Black & Decker.

“I am excited to join the talented team at Papa Johns and lead our technology strategy as we look to create great experiences for our customers and team members around the globe,” said Vasconi. “I have a passion for the restaurant industry, where I’ve spent the past 12 years of my career, because of our ability to impact so many consumers through technology every day. Papa Johns is a brand I’ve admired given its continued innovation in the technology space. With the digital space in QSR becoming more competitive than ever, there’s both great challenge and opportunity ahead. I’m looking forward to working with the executive team and our technology team to unlocking growth for Papa Johns.”

Vasconi will report to Penegor and serve on the Papa Johns Executive Leadership Team. Additionally, current Executive Leadership team members, Ravi Thanawala and Joe Sieve, will assume expanded roles, effective immediately.

Thanawala, Chief Financial Officer, has been appointed Chief Financial Officer and EVP, International. In this new position, he will now manage the Company’s international business, which includes markets outside of the United States and Canada, along with his CFO responsibilities.

Sieve has been appointed Chief Restaurant and Global Development Officer. In this new position, he will now oversee all global development, as well as corporate and franchise restaurant operations.