Lunchbox Acquires Novadine

Online ordering system Lunchbox has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire NovaDine, an enterprise digital ordering provider for multi-unit restaurant chains. 

Together, Lunchbox and NovaDine will plan to offer an alternative to the currently available enterprise solutions and enable restaurant operators to manage all digital guest experiences from a single operating system across the entire customer lifecycle. NovaDine currently works with multiple prominent restaurant chains including Firehouse Subs, Torchy's Tacos, Taco Bueno, and Steak & Shake, to help power their online and mobile ordering, catering, and delivery and apps.

75% of consumers prefer to order delivery direct from the restaurant, according to HT's 2021 Customer Engagement Technology Study.

Operators that opt into NovaDine will have access to the following features:

• Lunchbox Order Aggregation: Allows operators to consolidate all third-party marketplace orders with Doordash, Grubhub, EZcater, UberEats, Postmates, and Skip the Dishes and pulls all order information into a restaurant's point of sale (POS) system. Menus are automatically kept up to date, including 86'd items and business hours.
• Group Ordering: Allows multiple people to easily order food together under the umbrella of a single order.
• POS Integration: Ties your POS, Online Ordering, and Mobile presence together into a single solution. Full POS Integration Hands-off menu export.
• Cross-Channel Order Throttling: Allows restaurant chains to limit the amount of orders it will be able to accept in a specified amount of time. This feature allows restaurant chains to set a limit (rule) on the maximum dollar-amount of orders they can effectively fulfill within an allotted time frame.
• Customer Engagement: Ability to integrate with any loyalty provider, currently integrated with Punchh and Paytronix.
• Comprehensive Delivery Support: Delivery as a Service integration with DoorDash and Uber Eats. In-house delivery support with delivery driver management. Define delivery map polygons or radius rules with adaptable order minimums and delivery fees.
• Catering Management: With call center capabilities and integration with NovaDine's House Accounts module.

This is Lunchbox's second acquisition; in August Lunchbox acquired Spread to create a no-commission delivery platform.