Democratizing Dining: How the Changing Restaurant Landscape Opens Doors and Cuts Costs

Industry veterans and food entrepreneurs alike continue to navigate a costly restaurant landscape, often significantly investing in real estate, equipment, delivery operations and more. With a little creative planning, however, many innovative brands are cutting costs and streamlining operations in unexpected ways.

This panel will explore those strategies, which often include shared kitchen space, pop-up locations and centralized delivery hubs.

PANELISTS:
• Alex Canter | Owner | Canter’s Deli
• Kyle Gordon | Owner | Dillas Quesadillas
• Kyle Noonan | Owner & Founder | Mutts Canine Cantina

MODERATOR:
• Mike Mirkil | VP of Consumer Marketing | Kitchen United

From AI to VR: When are Tech Upgrades Worth the Upfront Cost?

It’s an exciting time to be in the restaurant business. From back-of-house robots to customer-facing apps that enable virtual experiences, restaurateurs seem to have endless options when it comes to upgrading their technological offerings. But when is it worth the cost?

Our panelists will discuss the pros and cons of their own deployments and talk about emerging technologies that they expect to see in both the near and distant future.

PANELISTS:
• Jacob Brewer | Sr. Director, Restaurant Excellence | CKE Restaurants Holdings
• Cesar Elizondo | Controller | StarCorp, owns over 140 Carl Jr’s & Hardee’s locations
• Dan Simpson | CEO | Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe

MODERATOR:
• Don Hawkins, Jr. | Executive Vice President – Middleby Combi | Middleby Corp.

11:00 am | Breakout Session

The Restaurant of the Future: How Next-Gen Technologies Enrich the Guest Experience and Lower the Cost of Innovation

It’s no secret that the most successful restaurants deliver compelling and consistent customer experiences at every possible interaction and at each location. But the cost and effort of extending these experiences across channels and multiple locations can be both costly and overwhelming – especially while ensuring the latest requirements in security and compliance and turning up new locations. Can your current restaurant infrastructure and technology deliver on tomorrow’s customer and organizational needs?

Experts on this session will provide a high-level overview of the benefits of the latest technologies, including delivering robust guest experiences, enhancing security compliance, enriching loyalty programs and simplifying rollouts. They’ll also discuss how to implement them as fully managed solutions to free up CapEx budgets and allow your teams to focus on proactive strategic initiatives.

PANELISTS:
• Scott Davis | President & CCO | CoreLife Eatery
• Phil Friedman | CEO | Salsarita’s
• Michael Johnson | Sr. Director of Technical, Voice & Data Services | Papa John’s Pizza
• Scott Stalnaker | Director of IS Operations & Projects | Donatos

MODERATOR:
• Matthew Douglass | Senior Director of Solutions Engineering | CBTS, a Cincinnati Bell company

11:00 am | Breakout Session

Remodeling Done Right: Create a Stellar New Look with Staying Power

Renovation and renewal are part of the natural evolution for any brand, but rushing to remodel only to change course again a short time later can be detrimental to a franchise’s growth.

Designers and restaurant operators will discuss lessons learned from their own remodeling efforts and offer some do’s, don’ts and best practices that can make your restaurant remodeling a resounding success.

PANELISTS:
• Bob Bafundo | President | RAVE Restaurant Group
• Larry Jones | VP of Construction | Captain D’s
• Jason Valentine | President & COO | Zoup! Eatery
• Doug Willmarth | CMO | Mongolian Concepts

MODERATOR:
• Sam Brewer | Project Lead, Restaurant Design | Chick-fil-A

12:45 pm | Breakout Session

How to Please the ‘We Want It Now’ Crowd

Whether picking up an order at a QSR or grabbing a late lunch at a fast casual hot spot, customers demand immediacy when it comes to speed of service. This requires multiple ways for customers to order, pickup, or take delivery of their food. While daunting for operators to tackle this on their own, this is well within reach with the right partners.

This session will show attendees how to service today’s clientele by leveraging the latest technology to enable best-in-class management and operational techniques.

PANELISTS:
• Sean Brennan | Founder | The Pie Hole
• Jena Henderson | VP of Growth | Saladworks
• Steve Rothenstein | Senior Director of Franchising | Dippin’ Dots and Doc Popcorn

MODERATOR:
• Marc DeVinney | VP of Product | Long Range Systems

12:45 pm | Breakout Session

Making Marketing Magic: Using Social Media to Grow Your Catering Sales

Offering a solid catering service used to be one way for a restaurant brand to stand out from its competitors. Not anymore. It’s now just another “must-have” on the journey to profitability as more restaurants use it as a vehicle to increase sales. With all the new players emerging, everyone is desperate to find new ways to increase brand awareness and customer engagement. And when it comes to catering, there is no better way to reach customers than through the platforms that they already use – Twiiter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.

But how do you know when and what platforms to post your messages? Do you have the correct tools to scalably manage those social media accounts? Should you boost posts; what does “boosting a post” even mean?

Those are just a few questions that this session will answer. Experts will also explore multi-location reporting, group posting of content, peak traffic scheduling and reputation management.

PANELISTS:
• Zaid Ayoub | Founder & CEO | SAJJ Mediterranean
• Stacey Kane | CMO | Mahana Poke & Firenza Pizza
• Sebastiaan Van De Rijt | Owner | Bamboo Asia
• Brittany Warren | Director of Content Marketing | Networld Media Group

MODERATOR:
• Chris Grundell | VP of Sales | SOCi