Ep 47: Jonathan Maze is the Editor in Chief of Restaurant Business Online
Labor shortage, supply chain issues, the challenges of third-party delivery.... these are all hot topics on everyone's lips in the last couple of years. Today our guest is Jonathan Maze, Editor-in-Chief of Restaurant Business Online, who's here to give us the run-down on all these issues, and more. We discuss everything from the accuracy of AI and voice-activated ordering, to keeping pace with the swiftly changing face of technology that serves restaurants – and the boom in investment in that area. Jonathon delves into the extensive list of pros and cons for third-party delivery services, and how they've changed the way restaurants do business, collect data, and facilitate (or hinder) the push for customer loyalty. Finally, he runs us through the incredible offerings of the upcoming FSTEC conference, and what we know will be prevalent themes there for the top executives. This conversation is truly fascinating and insightful, and listeners will find this too – press play now and join us!
Key Points From This Episode:
Some background on Jonathon Maze and Restaurant Business.
Sharing our mutual experiences starting out at restaurants.
What Jonathon does, and his life-long love of writing and journalism
Outlining the long list of restaurants that he covers.
Describing the palpable energy of FSTEC after COVID lockdown.
Discussing performance gaps, and subsequent rush of investments into restaurant technology.
The offerings of FSTEC, including technology aimed at ease of ordering, as well as easing the labor problem.
The perception of labor shortage, and an increasing use of robots.
AI accuracy issues and voice-activated ordering: is it ready for prime-time?
Getting to know your customers, and the 3 different pathways we have for that now.
Talking about the huge push for customer loyalty, and making decisions based on this data.
Keeping pace with changes in the industry, and the evolution of third-party delivery.
The phases of third-party delivery, and using Domino's as a measuring stick.
Jonathon asserts a controversial take: we don't actually need third-party delivery right now.
Discussing the current phase of charging the customer for everything.
Talking about the divided camps on delivery companies – unnecessary expense or marketing tool?
How third-party is influencing the types of restaurants that get opened.
The clockwork skyrocketing of chicken wings prices, and what happened in the pandemic.
We hear all about the exciting upcoming Restaurant Leadership Conference!
Tweetables:
“One of the decisions that they're making, based on particular data, is they're trying to get closer to people like me that don't like to have their pizzas delivered. They're building more stores to encourage more people to go into its restaurants. It's fascinating.” — @jonathonmaze [0:19:48]
“A lot of this online ordering is aimed at collecting that data from customers.” — @jonathonmaze [0:20:21]
“The amount of change in the industry right now is incredible. I think, keeping up with that is a challenge.” — @jonathonmaze [0:23:24]