News Briefs

With over 50 years of history, Golden Corral is executing an ambitious growth strategy that includes
expanding its buffet restaurants, increasing off-premise sales, and advancing digital ordering. The recent
national rollout of the Qu’s unified commerce platform / POS, Decision Logic suite of web and mobile
solutions back-office system standardization, which utilizes the AT&T retail network bundle, has
empowered its restaurants to reach the new heights.

More Than An Equipment Upgrade

This rollout marked a shift in how Golden Corral utilizes technology to support restaurant operations and
enhance the guest experience. The installation of new hardware at every location nationwide required a
precise overnight transition and seamless vendor collaboration to avoid possible business disruptions. As
one of Qu’s preferred implementation and staging partners, HonorBuilt played a key role, using a
dedicated team of full-time technicians and a proven process to ensure the project stayed on time, on
budget, and met specifications.

“We knew we needed a partner who could manage the complexity of this upgrade,” said Dawn Gillis,
Chief Information Office of Golden Corral. “HonorBuilt quickly proved its value by recommending that
we address issues related to back-office cable management and replace old network wiring with the POS
rollout to build a strong, reliable technology backbone. HonorBuilt was the right partner to make this
happen.”

Dubbed “Cloud Corral,” Golden Corral’s new technology platform integrates Qu’s point-of-sale, native
online ordering, drive-thru, and kitchen solutions, streamlining sales and many operations processes
across all locations. The brand now operates on a cloud-based platform with centralized menu
management while allowing franchisees to adjust daypart pricing by location. Since implementing Qu’s
technology, Golden Corral has reduced training time on their old system from several shifts to about 30
minutes, demonstrating the system’s ease of use and adaptability.

“Partnering with Qu meant more than just acquiring new hardware and software for our front-of-house
operation — it was about embracing a holistic transition strategy,” said Dawn Gillis. “Their solutions are
intuitive and tailored to support the unique aspects of our business.”

A Proven End-to-End Solution
In 2024, Golden Corral, Qu, and HonorBuilt successfully completed the full brand rollout to Qu’s unified
platform within just seven months. HonorBuilt managed every aspect of the deployment, from procuring
and staging to configuring equipment ahead of installation to drop shipping ready to install restaurant
specific bundles.

HonorBuilt provided end-to-end support throughout the nationwide rollout, ensuring all hardware was
fully prepared from day one. The system-wide effort established a strong foundation for future growth,
backed by HonorBuilt’s expertise and commitment to quality.

Pizza Hut India, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., has onboarded MoEngage to centralize its customer engagement initiatives. A global leader in the pizza category, the QSR giant will use the insights-led engagement platform to enhance customer experiences by exploring new communication channels.

The idea was to significantly modernize the Martech stack for seamless operation, prompt quality support and state-of-the-art features and functionalities. The evaluation phase led to MoEngage coming out on top and fitting the bill on all fronts.

“MoEngage stood out to us because of three primary things- capability, scale, and support. The platform’s advanced analytics suite, coupled with the AI-enabled offerings, will help Pizza Hut create relevant programs for its end consumers. Additionally, the support provided by the Customer Success team and the Implementation team proved to be unmatchable in the market. We are excited about this partnership and look forward to exploring new and intuitive ways to communicate with our customers and uplift satisfaction metrics significantly.”, said Manish Gupta, Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Pizza Hut India.

Actionable Customer Data

Automating customer data reports was another crucial objective for Pizza Hut. Using MoEngage’s reporting capabilities, the brand has been able to achieve this seamlessly, remarkably cutting down the manual efforts required to execute it.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Yash Reddy, Chief Revenue Officer, MoEngage, said, “We are thrilled to partner with a giant in the QSR industry like Pizza Hut and excited to help them level up their customer experiences even more. By leveraging our cutting-edge platform, we're poised to help Pizza Hut redefine the way it engages with its customers and set new benchmarks for satisfaction and loyalty. 

MoEngage is an insights-led customer engagement platform trusted by 1,350+ global consumer brands, including Unilever, Airtel, PNB, The Coca-Cola Company, IndusInd Bank, Titan, Samsung, McAfee, Flipkart, Domino’s, The Indian Express, Nestle, OYO, and more. 

DailyPay, a worktech company and leading provider of On-Demand Pay, has joined the Independent Hardee’s Franchisee Association (IHFA) as a Silver Level Associate Member to offer Hardee’s Franchisees access to DailyPay’s financial wellness platform. With DailyPay, Hardee’s Franchisees who are members of IHFA can gain a competitive advantage in recruiting, retaining, and increasing worker productivity.

Through this membership, information and access to DailyPay is offered through the INSIGHT Magazine, IHFA’s newsletter, the IHFA Vendor Directory, the IHFA Products & Services Directory, and more. Hardee’s Franchisees now have an opportunity to give their workers the ability to simplify and optimize their working lives and better manage the money they make.

”When employers empower their workers with tools to build financial resilience, businesses thrive,” said Phil Mark, Director of Business Development & Partnerships - Franchise, DailyPay. “Joining the IHFA is a testament to DailyPay’s mission to powering opportunities for workers everywhere, enabling them to achieve personal, work and financial goals.”

On-Demand Pay can significantly reduce financial stress by providing employees with visibility and immediate access to their earned pay, addressing two critical aspects of financial management: liquidity and financial planning. According to a YouGov study commissioned by DailyPay, 49% of restaurant employees said early access to earned wages would enhance their view of their employer and 53% said it would improve overall job satisfaction.

DailyPay is a worktech company and a leading on-demand pay solution, DailyPay uses an award-winning technology platform to help America’s top employers build stronger relationships with their employees. This voluntary employee benefit enables workers everywhere to feel more motivated to work harder and stay longer on the job while supporting their financial well-being outside of the workplace. DailyPay is headquartered in New York City. For more information, visit www.dailypay.com/press.
 

SONIFI, a leading provider of hospitality technology and an Oracle partner, today announced SORA is now available on Oracle Cloud Marketplace and can be deployed on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), and integrates with OPERA Cloud via the Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform (OHIP). Oracle Cloud Marketplace is a centralized repository of enterprise applications offered by Oracle and Oracle partners. 

OCI’s modern cloud architecture enables leading hotels to provide the best Wi-Fi and interactive TV experiences from SONIFI without needing an onsite interface, changing networks, or purchasing licenses and adapters for each product. With OHIP, SONIFI can integrate its offerings with a hotel property’s Oracle Cloud Property Management System (PMS) to enhance in-room guest experiences and offer revenue opportunities for hotels. Customers get access to leading compute, storage, data management, security, integration, HPC, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain services to augment and help modernize their critical workloads. 

Oracle Cloud Marketplace is a one-stop shop for Oracle customers seeking trusted business applications offering unique business solutions. OCI is a cloud designed to run any application faster, and more securely, for less. OCI can help address a variety of data privacy, sovereign AI, and low latency requirements as it is the only hyperscaler capable of delivering 150+ AI and cloud services at the edge, in a customer’s datacenter, across clouds, or in the public cloud. Oracle’s distributed cloud delivers the benefits of the cloud with greater control and flexibility while also providing the consistent performance, SLAs, and global pricing for which OCI has become known. 

“We’re committed to giving our customers industry-leading technology that helps them drive guest satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue. Being available to them on Oracle Cloud Marketplace is key to achieving those goals,” said Kara Heermans, Senior Vice President of Product Management and User Experience, SONIFI. “SONIFI’s participation in Oracle Cloud Marketplace further extends our commitment to the Oracle community and enables customers to reap the benefits of SORA. We look forward to leveraging the power of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to help us achieve our business goals.” 

Hawaiian Bros Island Grill has selected Lunchbox as its national technology partner for direct digital catering. 

This partnership reflects Hawaiian Bros' investment in growing its catering business with a platform purpose-built to support scale, brand consistency, and profitability.

The company has launched Lunchbox Catering, Order Aggregation, and Delivery Dispatch across all of its corporate-owned locations, with plans to expand the platform to franchise locations over time.

"Lunchbox lives and breathes the catering business," said Chris Habiger, Senior Vice President of Operations at Hawaiian Bros. "We needed a partner that could help us grow catering revenue and support a consistent brand experience at scale. That's exactly what this partnership delivers."

Hawaiian Bros is a fast casual restaurant serving island-inspired flavors through the Hawaiian plate lunch. Inspired every day to show kindness and spread the Aloha Spirit, the brand has grown rapidly since its founding in 2018. Hawaiian Bros owns and operates over 60 restaurants across nine states and began expanding its franchising opportunities in 2023. The company has earned numerous accolades, including the #1 spot on Ingram's Top 100 fastest growing companies and the #7 spot on QSR Magazine's 40/40 List of America's Hottest Startup Fast Casuals.

In addition to the catering rollout, Hawaiian Bros has adopted Lunchbox's Marketing CRM suite, aiming to deepen guest engagement and drive repeat business through personalized campaigns. This investment underscores the brand's focus on encouraging more direct catering orders, allowing for brand-controlled experiences, deepened guest loyalty, and valuable first-party insights.

Key Features:

• Robust reporting tools to track catering sales by location, monitor unpaid invoices, and measure performance.
  Seamless integration with POS systems, ensuring real-time order synchronization
   
• Advanced CRM tools for targeted marketing and customer retention.
   
• Flexible ordering controls, including holiday hours, delivery zones, order throttling, and dynamic lead times.
   
• Order management features like automated prep sheets, house accounts, save-as-quote, repeat ordering, editable orders, and order notes for full customization.
   
• Lunchbox Catering now includes Order Aggregation at no additional cost, streamlining third-party orders into the POS system for simplified operations and better data ownership.

Cendyn, a global integrated hotel technology and services company, announced today it has promoted Yakesh Arora from senior vice president of global engineering to chief technology officer (CTO). Arora is an entrepreneurial CTO with a track record in developing cutting-edge, scalable products for clients, resulting in significant increases in revenues and margins. He successfully built, managed, and trained multiple teams to deliver industry-first projects, increasing both market share and revenues. 

Arora has spent nearly 25 years in technology, 15 of which have been in the hospitality industry. He joined Cendyn in 2022 as part of an acquisition, and before joining the company, he was the co-founder and CTO of a disruptive tech startup in the hospitality sector. In that role, he built an industry-first guest management and marketing platform, migrated products to the AWS cloud, designed and built a SaaS hotel booking engine, and more. 

Upon joining Cendyn as SVP of software engineering and later SVP of global engineering, he continued to lead research and development teams as they transitioned from stand-alone product development teams into one common engineering workforce, increasing agility and quality. He has been responsible for re-architecting a key CMS product, driving down cloud costs by 70 percent, and laying the foundation for a true SaaS product.

“I am thrilled to begin this exciting new chapter as chief technology officer at Cendyn,” said Yakesh Arora, CTO, Cendyn. “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity and the trust placed in me to help drive continued stability, innovation, and growth for the company.”

“We are extremely fortunate to have Yakesh. He has been instrumental in helping Cendyn move towards consolidating our product portfolio, and his extensive experience in developing disruptive technology for the hospitality sector has enhanced our efforts. Yakesh’s expertise in R&D is unparalleled, and combined with his proven leadership track record, he is already playing a vital role in propelling our company forward,” said Jack Blaha, CEO.