Podcast appearances and mentions of carl orsbourn

Send us a textThis week on The Digital Restaurant, Carl and guest co-host Jason Berkowitz dive into:Qu's move toward smart kitchens with integrated IoT systems (0m 50s)A sharp reflection on the restaurant "disruptors" that weren't — from Zume Pizza to Ghost Kitchens (4m 35)Why Chipotle's negative sales aren't just about the economy — and how training and tech are key to recovery (11m 05)A fascinating new look at menu personalization trends with EveryBite data (17m10)How technology can — and should — help restaurants become more sustainable (23m 20)Support the show

Send us a textThis week, Carl is joined by Deborah Matteliano, the Global Head of Restaurants at AWS, for a wide-ranging conversation that covers everything from tariffs and avocados to AI strategy, Seamless's surprising comeback, and the limits of restaurant robotics. Drawing from her experience at Uber Eats and now at Amazon, Deborah offers sharp insights on how data, delivery, and design are reshaping the restaurant landscape.Topics include:1m 15: How Chipotle's avocado strategy is shielding it from tariff turbulence9m: Why Grubhub's Revival of Seamless Could Be Wonder's Secret Weapon16m 55: The real reason Kernel scrapped its robots22m 20: The DoorDash + Domino's partnership.30m: Boston's permit requirements on the delivery companies.If you're serious about restaurant tech and the off-premise channel, this one's a must-listen.Support the show

Send us a textCarl welcomes guest host Cijoy Olickal, a restaurant tech expert, to break down key industry trends.

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In a recent captivating episode, industry visionaries Carl Orsbourn, Meredith Sandland, Dan Londono, and moderator Kristen Hawley dove deep into the transformative wave sweeping across the restaurant and hospitality sector. Amidst a backdrop of relentless change propelled by digital innovation, consumer preferences, and the global pandemic, the panel explored how the landscape of dining and food delivery is evolving.The episode, rich in insights, began with an emphasis on the pressing need for adaptation within the restaurant industry. Facing new cost pressures, shifting business models, and an ever-growing demand for technological integration, the discussion underscored the importance of resilience and creativity among restaurant operators. The panelists, representing a spectrum of expertise from startup ventures like Alfalfa to seasoned authors and analysts, shared their perspectives on navigating these changes.Central to the conversation was the concept of delivering the digital restaurant experience. Carl and Meredith, co-authors of "Delivering the Digital Restaurant," shared their journey into writing the book and the necessity for restaurant owners to seriously consider digital adoption. Dan Londono shared Alfalfa's story, illustrating how a tech-enabled approach from the ground up can redefine the fast-casual dining experience, focusing on a balance between healthy eating and indulgent treats like salads and donuts.A significant part of the discussion revolved around the challenges and opportunities presented by off-premise dining options such as delivery and takeout. With consumer behavior tilting increasingly towards convenience, the panelists delved into how restaurants could optimize their operations and customer experience through technology, without sacrificing the essence of hospitality that defines the industry.Dynamic pricing emerged as a pivotal theme, with Carl introducing the audience to the concept of using data-driven strategies to adjust pricing in real time, mirroring practices from the airline and hotel industries. This approach, he argued, could lead to more efficient pricing strategies that align more closely with customer demand and willingness to pay.The human element of the restaurant business, particularly labor issues and the changing workforce dynamics, was also addressed. The panelists shared innovative solutions to staffing challenges, including leveraging technology for training and operations, and fostering a culture that values and motivates employees.As the conversation unfolded, the future of restaurants was painted as one of immense potential, driven by personalization, efficiency, and sustainability. The panelists envisioned a world where technology not only streamlines operations but enhances the dining experience, making it more tailored and enjoyable for consumers.In conclusion, the podSupport the show

In this episode of the Local Marketing Lab, we go behind the scenes with Ashwin Kamlani, the revolutionary co-founder of JUICER, to uncover game-changing insights around the art and science of restaurant pricing. Learn how adopting a data-driven pricing strategy powered by location-based competitive intelligence enables restaurants to make smarter decisions that drive higher revenue. We dive into how JUICER leverages advanced technology to provide customized analysis and pricing recommendations tailored to each restaurant's local market trends and individual menu dynamics.Here are some topics discussed in the episode around the science of restaurant pricing:Discover effective data-driven pricing strategies tailored for restaurants.Gain insights into competitive intelligence for analyzing restaurant pricing.Embrace the importance of a customer-centric mindset in business for lasting success.Uncover the art of leveraging transparency to engage your audience authentically.ResourcesConnect with Ashwin Kamlani on LinkedIn.Learn more about JUICER.Listen to our other episode with Carl Orsbourn, COO at JUICER around data-driven decisions for boosting your local marketing.Other shout-outsDrew Patterson — Co-Founder of JUICERDan Shapero — COO of LinkedIn for inspiring Ashwin to share his own stories on social media.Bartaco — A JUICER customer who is seeing massive incremental revenue with dynamic pricing on third-party channels.

In this episode of The Local Marketing Lab, we have an illuminating discussion with Carl Orsbourn, co-founder and COO of Juicer and author of the “Delivering the Digital Restaurant” book series. With over 25 years of experience crunching data and driving optimizations for restaurants, Carl provides invaluable insights on data-driven decisions for boosting your local marketing, fostering digital hospitality, and developing thoughtful digital strategies.Here are some topics discussed in the episode related to data-driven decisions:Analyze transaction data patterns at each location to uncover opportunitiesOptimize your Google presence for local SEO through contentRespond quickly and authentically to online reviews and messagesDevelop social content that highlights your teams and processesTake an incremental approach to major digital initiativesResourcesConnect with Carl Orsbourn on LinkedIn.Learn more about Juicer and how they help with dynamic pricing.Check out Carl's Digital Restaurant book series.Subscribe to Carl's newsletter on LinkedIn — The Digital Restaurant.Listen to an episode of The Digital Restaurant podcast.Other shout-outsFind a Rock and Brews burger location near you.Meredith Sandland — Co-author of the Digital Restaurant series.Connect with Troy Hooper on LinkedIn.Follow Shawn Walchef on LinkedIn.Learn more about the hype of Slutty Vegan.

JUICER is bringing dynamic pricing to the restaurant industry. Together with their customers who operate more than 4,000 restaurants across the globe, JUICER is applying machine learning algorithms to help restaurants optimize their digital menu pricing. Carl is also the co-author of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant,” a book that explores the world of off premise food and the massive disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry veterans, and start up entrepreneurs. Dynamic pricing in the restaurant industry can mean lowering prices to increase traffic during slow hours, increasing prices for specific menu items to reflect changes in ingredient costs, or increasing prices for all menu items during peak hours, peak days or peak seasons. The result is a pricing model that ensures the right time for each sales channel to optimize a restaurant's profitability and the guest experience. JUICER's focus – for now – is on off-premise dynamic pricing, where the adjustment of prices is easler. On-premise dynamic pricing is more difficult (because of menus with fixed, printed prices) but will be more likely in the future. QUOTES “What JUICER is trying to do is become a full-service solution. We take 12 months of transactional data, put that through our algorithm, come up with recommended prices based on different times of day, and then our team will implement those price changes.” (Carl) “Consumers today are already experiencing dynamic pricing on DoorDash and Uber Eats. The delivery prices will change. The challenge is, restaurants aren't getting any of the upside of that dynamism.” (Carl) “The challenge of dynamic pricing as a term can be somewhat divisive. What we're doing at JUICER is completely avoiding anything related to surge pricing. We're talking about relatively small changes in prices that don't cause a negative reaction. In many ways, the customer doesn't even notice many of the price changes.” (Carl) “There's only one Taylor Swift. In a marketplace, there are hundreds of other pizza places that you can go to.” (Carl) “The whole idea of delivering the digital restaurant is to help restaurants understand that they have to optimize their off-premise channel. It's far more than just turning yourself on DoorDash or Uber Eats and letting those channels run themselves.” (Carl) TRANSCRIPT 00:00.41 vigorbranding Everyone today I am joined by my new friend Carl Orsburn it's oars burn or born say with me everyone um, all joking aside Carl. Thanks for taking time out of your day and your week hang out with me while you say hello and for those that don't know you give a little bit of backstory. 00:17.53 Carl Orsbourn Thanks! Thanks! Jo really good to be here and glad we get to spend a few few minutes together today. Um yes, I'm Carl Osborne I'm the co co-founder at juicer a dynamic pricing company for restaurants. But so. A lot of people know me from my first book that I wrote with Meredith Sandland delivering the digital restaurant that book became a bit of a bests selller and really um, cemented I think my kind of presence in the industry and been out to talk about restaurant digitization before that I was over at kitchen united helping. Ghost kitchen world gets settled helped build out their operating model and before even that I was in the seas storell world I used to run ah a thousand unit um franchise business by the name of ampm a billion dollars worth of revenue about 400000000 of it was food but in a very different and somewhat more stagnated industry and so. But I moved over to the startup space I was really excited into talking about more innovative type themes and everything that we're probably going to get into today. 01:19.20 vigorbranding That's brilliant. So ah, admittedly I didn't know about your C-s store stint ah probably more than a stint but I will wax about that for a second I grew up with ampms and ah I thought. 01:29.58 Carl Orsbourn How well. 01:35.68 vigorbranding That apm was what you called convenience source like because I grew up with it so growing up it was go to the apm because where we just said ap like dropped off the m too much too many letters. Um, and so I think I was maybe like 18 or 19 before I realized that. 01:42.12 Carl Orsbourn Yep yep. 01:52.62 vigorbranding Oh no, that's actually a brand name. That's not what you call C stores that's or like convenience stores. So for me, it was synonymous like band-aid instead of ahesive strip. It was the same thing. Um, so that's kind of wonderful and I think there's a whole world that we could talk about with C stores. Maybe not. We'll see if we get to it. But. 01:55.66 Carl Orsbourn Wow, That's interesting. 02:10.81 vigorbranding You know there is a discussion to be had around sea store's encroachment into the ah fast food and in quick service space and some of them are are doing a fantastic job of it. But what I really want to dig into first and foremost is dynamic ricing because you of course are a proselytizer you you have an entire company talking about it. 02:18.87 Carl Orsbourn Dot com. 02:30.13 vigorbranding And I I Want to say I'm a naysayer I'm just highly skeptical and I think I really want to dig into. Let's talk about the good side of it. Um, so before we you know butt heads against why don't you for the listeners try to clearly define What is dynamic pricing in the restaurant industry. Clear up the misconceptions. 02:51.27 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, look. It's it's a really interesting subject and I think you're right? It is quite divisive. Um, it's quite divisive just as ah as a theme and so before I give you my version of a definition. Let me tell you what I think our vision is surprising because we we see enormous opportunity to. To bring pricing science to restaurants and that's that's way before anything we get into around price dynamism right? So pricing. Let we know is tremendously complex. It's ah, a discipline it requires expertise in data science. It requires access to lots of market data the ability to quantify how changes in price affect demand. And these are not disciplines I think it's fair to say that have historically been part of the restaurant industry I think it's fair to say that most restaurants price using a blunt instrument and if you on where they want to be perhaps positioned against relative to the competition and a desired you know gp so you know with with due to what we're excited to bring. Our experience on working on these problems and my co-founders are these clairvoyance Joseph because they herald from the travel and hotel industry where they've seen all this stuff play out and not a week goes by without them saying yes but we've seen this happen before let me tell you how this is going to play out and it's always funks. We we riff on it a bit so so restaurants now have this kind of opportunity to use these tools. Um because the industry is undergoing to see a change. You know how it interacts with diners or everything I've talked about in my books um and and restaurants are for intents and purposes now an e-commerce category. Um. 04:22.20 Carl Orsbourn Fact that menus are presented as pixels on a screen not printed pages gives us far more flexibility than in the past and so I think that insight that restaurants can capitalize on this change in consumer interaction is giving us a more sophisticated idea about how they can price and that's very much at the heart of our vision Producer. So. How does dynamic pricing fit into this framework. Well for me, it's It's just a fancy way to say we measure Consumer demand and use algorithms to match prices to demand at that point in time. 04:54.92 vigorbranding So I think so that makes sense so there's a prerequisite though right? like you said you're going to have to know what those outside influences are so you can affect the pricing in real-time and of course you need. Digital menu boards that are more than just a I'm going to make a joke but a fire stickk stuck in the back of a Tv screen. Um, which you know for the the do it yourself as I've seen that happen many times but essentially what ends up manifesting though is pricing that changes. 05:13.51 Carl Orsbourn A. 05:28.14 vigorbranding I wouldn't say in real time right? I mean it happens in real time, but it's not like it's not like a stock ticker like as I'm in line I'm watching the price fluctuate from $2 for a cheap hamburger to $25 because of the outside influences. Um what what rate? or um. 05:33.87 Carl Orsbourn All right. 05:45.23 vigorbranding But kind of fluctuation have you seen or do you anticipate with it like what are the updates. What are the refreshes is it daily is it hourly when we're talking about the fluctuations and in dynamic rising. 05:55.27 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, couple couple of things in answer to that because the first thing I'd say is we are focused on off-premise transactions first so you talk about this idea of standard in line and digital menu boards I think that is to come. But I think the industry has to move a little further down the line before we start to see that becoming a major area of focus when it comes to dynamic pricing probably for all the reasons as to why you you might be a bit of a skeptic on the subject right? because for me the opportunity exists today and off-premise because consumers today are already experiencing dynamic pricing. On da dash and uber breeds right? The delivery fees will change. You. You are empowering the customer to say if you want to pay an extra $3 I can get it to you within 20 minutes as opposed to the advertise 40 minutes the challenge is restaurants aren't getting any of the upside of that dynamism today. That's all going into the marketplaces and so. Something here about really just trying to recognize that. How do you actually find the best way to introduce something like this into a part of the industry that is already experiencing it. But you know for me consumers are ah more sophisticated than they often get credit for you know dynamic or demand-based pricing is. Built on the the well-understood intuition that products are more expensive when there's a high demand for a product right? Um, restaurants have been doing this for ages Joseph. You know if we at happy hour em menus right? There's any diner need clarification when a drink or appetizer is less expensive before six zero Pm of course not 07:13.10 vigorbranding Um, sure. 07:21.19 vigorbranding Ah, right. 07:23.19 Carl Orsbourn Know that the restaurant's less busy and they're going to try and drum up more demand for it. So I think it's trying to work alongside those forces and try to help restaurants actually support. What is their lowest Margin channel. 07:35.84 vigorbranding Yeah I mean so that's a great analogy or or a great example I should say um and you're right? The prices do fluctuate then I think the most restaurants are banking on can I keep them here past the happy Hour Marker. So I can start to realize my margin. And and I Also agree I think Dynamic dynamic pricing um could be really fantastic from the monetary spreadsheet level of restaurant brands I think where I start where my yellow flags I Only call them red flags because I'm super interested or else I would have I don't want to talk about it right? like I'm like I'm already set I'm ah pretty malleable on it. 08:06.70 Carl Orsbourn 7 08:11.29 vigorbranding But I think the challenges that we have to overcome is um, the the brand experience that's not me being a carpenter and only seeing nails. Um, and what I'm getting at is if we take other industries that have adopted dynamic pricing that everyone's familiar with like otas. Ah. You know, um in in the travel industry so online travel agents I think is what that stands for which is kind of silly. But um, you know so like Expedia and the aggregators and things like that and anyone that has tried to book a flight and is trying to look for different options and you realize oh my original flight just went up in price. 08:34.34 Carl Orsbourn Yeah. 08:50.16 Carl Orsbourn And. 08:50.66 vigorbranding Which is really funny and not cool at all. Um, that becomes a frustration point for me as a consumer the other layer not to pile it on but I'm going to is if if we use hotels. Let's say as the model. 09:08.32 vigorbranding The hotel still gets the benefit of managing the brand experience when the person walks through the door. We don't have that with delivery as restaurants. So yes, we do want to realize more money but I think one of the issues outside of the the fees and all the other gripes that we hear. 09:12.64 Carl Orsbourn And. 09:26.57 vigorbranding 1 of the issues with that third -party delivery mechanism is we have no control over how good or bad. The service is We're just a machine you gave us money I made your burger. That's all I can do. So we're actually losing the things that add value incrementally. To pricing. So for instance, mcdonald's hamburger versus ah shakeshack versus choose your gourmet burger brand whatever you know? Um, yeah, there's quality ingredients and things like that. But part of it is the touch right? It's the the way it's presented the way it's delivered. The. 09:53.16 Carl Orsbourn It. 10:04.86 vigorbranding The the smile or lack thereof hotels get that opportunity. You know. So if you decide that you're going to spend a little bit more money for a hotel and you walk in you get the greeting. You get the high. You know the white glove even though they're physically not there anymore but like the white Glove Bell hoppy experience for more money. But if you took all of that away. It really does become a commodity I Think that's my worry is commoditization of restaurant brands meaning brands don't really matter any longer. It's just quality of products and that's it I was a lot sorry. 10:33.72 Carl Orsbourn Ah, really one ah lot a lot in that a couple of things. Um, first of all, you mentioned like airlines and the number of price changes what we're finding right now is is at most 2 or 3 changes a day so just to give you an idea that we're not talking about. And I don't think it will ever get there quite honestly where you see that mid-transaction and that change of price because. 10:56.38 vigorbranding So so so hold on hold on and I'm sorry what I'm getting I just so we're clear like literally if I'm on delta.com sorry Delta I love you. But I hate you too. Um I search for flight from Atlanta to to Phoenix because we're talking about our rlc right now. Um. Boom. Okay, hey it's ah, $1200 a first class because you know how I roll um, but then I well maybe maybe I want to go at 11 a m instead of 8 am m okay I look at the price. No not so much I come back to my 8 a m boom. It's gone up. 11:29.29 Carl Orsbourn He's gone. Yeah yeah, and look I'll give you one even worse right? Um, what about when Katrina happened right? and everyone didn't have a home and they had to go into these hotels and the hotels at 40500% price increases right. 11:31.13 vigorbranding That's what I'm like yeah that's the the reference. 11:44.31 vigorbranding Oh yep, Yeah yeah, yep. 11:46.87 Carl Orsbourn That's where I mean Taylor Swift ticket master right? right? if we want to go to an even more recent example that that's where the challenge of dynamic pricing as a term becomes somewhat you know, divisive and and I think it's an understandably so there's another term that. Someone closer to our industry started to create and that's uber and they came up with the term search pricing right? which is kind of in in this whole space it what we're doing at juicer is completely avoiding anything to do with search pricing. The pizza will never be 400 % and what we do with our approach is that we. We asked the restaurant. What is the range that you would like to operate within and it might be minus ten to plus 15 but that means the price only ever moves in between those zones. So what we're talking about here are relatively small movements in price. Don't create that level of negative reaction and as I say in terms of the amount of price changes. Not not a huge plentiful amount so you don't get to that delta example that you're mentioning before so in many ways the customer doesn't really even notice a lot of these changes. In fact, when we start putting our pricing in place. We do a few things. 12:44.54 vigorbranding Um, is. 12:59.86 Carl Orsbourn Because guest sentiment is absolutely central to the way in which we approach this and so before we do any pricing. We do a scan of every single reference to the customer voice in that particular restaurant unit looking for words like expensive or too pricey and anything affiliated to value. And then we look at ratings and then we monitor that all the way through any pricing activity so that we can see if there has been a reaction in terms of the customer voice now you could say well that's fine for those that leave a review but many will just vote with their feet so we also of course monitor volumes and we do diff on diff analysis. And we have test locations and control locations to accommodate any macro changes in the environment to really try and give a clear identification of the uplift we're able to demonstrate and what we've been had to do so far. Joseph is. We've been out to see a lift of somewhere between five and seven percent of off-premise margins without any detrimental effect on traffic and without any detrimental effect on gas sentiment and I think the reason for that is twofold 1 is because of the micro changes. We discussed. You know it's not huge levels of changes. It's just trying to optimize in a certain small area at different times of day and then secondly. I think a lot of this is actually to do with what I mentioned at the start and that is just getting the base price in right helping restaurants really understand what is the willingness to pay for a certain item for a customer and the last thing I'll mention on this is I write for for nations restaurant news with Meredith um every month or two and. 14:22.30 vigorbranding Here here. 14:31.69 Carl Orsbourn We had an article last summer that came out around throttling and I think this is one of the the hidden diseases in off-premise right now because throttling is something where you're you know, closing your virtual doors to your customers because your kitchen can't cope with the amount of demand that they're facing. It's almost like. 14:44.57 vigorbranding Um, right? um. 14:48.27 Carl Orsbourn Ah, good problem to have right? and you've got so many orders coming in but you can't cope with them so you're going to focus on your higher margin channels and that's the logic of why a lot of technology companies have built throttle it but that is perhaps the first time a new guest is discovering your restaurant same as like having ah an abusive price by the way you know if they see a bad price on a menu. 15:01.70 vigorbranding Right. 15:07.91 Carl Orsbourn Like you go wow that place is expensive I'm not going to go there for date night on Saturday even if they're just thinking about a launch third -party experience on this particular occasion. So so for me here. The the point is is how do you create a situation where everyone is free. Having a benefit of dynamic pricing. How do you actually empower the guest so they feel that they have a choice you know if they really want to eat from your restaurant on a friday night at seven p m when your restaurant is at its busiest and they have to pay an extra fifty sixty cents for that item. As opposed to it being completely shut down and not available at all. What would you rather do and similarly if we can get to a world and I think we will get to this type of world where you then can incentivize and almost train the guest to be able to say well if you order a head or if you order up six zero p m on that friday night you can actually get it for a slightly cheaper price. 15:44.27 vigorbranding A. 16:01.14 Carl Orsbourn Isn't that actually empowering the guest isn't actually empowering the restaurant to keep their guest happier by letting them have their control. That's where I think we're going to have a better experience. Overall. 16:12.44 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah I don't I don't fully disagree at all like I again I think there's there's still impediments. Obviously we're not in a perfect world and and idealism is rarely ah realized um but you actually just did spark something in my head with with the ah the throttling and all that. 16:30.50 vigorbranding While we're thinking embarking on this dynamic pricing opportunity. We've already experienced dynamic timing as a good and bad thing. Ah by by the very nature of time and how busy a kitchen gets right? so. Um, what I mean by that is you use Friday night at seven P M bro try to get a pizza delivered. You know I mean like it's going to take you anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes sometimes depending on where you are and what city you're in and that's just happening by the very nature of traffic. So it's it's it's dynamic timing right? So I know if I want to get a good pizza for Friday night I probably should get that order in at five P M so that actually tracks and makes a lot of sense now I'll maybe contradict myself here because um, I'll contradict myself but I do see it from the restaurant's perspective fully. And I've seen it because you know being being ah on the marketing side I've always tried to include operations as a part of the conversation and have a voice at the table. It's important. Um, what I think people consumers I hate that word but I'll use it. Consumers don't realize is how much. 17:30.33 Carl Orsbourn And. 17:41.31 vigorbranding Money has been taken on the chin by restaurant brands like it takes a lot for them to decide to move their price. You know so they'll they'll absorb a lot of costs. They'll eat into their own profit margins to prevent even a fifteen cent increment so when you start talking about the percentages of like the 10 to 15% plus minus that makes a lot more sense than maybe ah, a pure dynamic pricing in real-time jump allah miss swift. 18:07.74 Carl Orsbourn So yeah, yeah, absolutely and look. There's there's only a certain amount of seats on a plane or in a a theater right? or in ah, an arena so it becomes um, a little bit of an easier science I suggest in that regard if that's something that you want to do but also. There's only one Taylor Swift on a marketplace. There are hundreds of other pizza placess that you can go to and so that's the challenge today and look you you mentioned something earlier on I'll put my author hat back on for a second if I may and and that is. 18:41.20 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 18:43.72 Carl Orsbourn You know the whole idea of delivering the digital restaurant and at some point I'll tell you about the new book. But the the whole idea of it is to help restaurants understand that they have to optimize their Off-premise Channel It's It's far more than just turning yourself on on door dash or uber eats and just let them let that kind of channel run itself and off you go. 19:00.32 vigorbranding Right. 19:03.85 Carl Orsbourn Don't think guests have said anything particularly good about the off-premise experience in recent times. In fact, I'd go as fast to say that the guest experience for off-premise today has never been worse because guests aren't getting their food in the time that it was promised the quality of the food isn't. 19:14.13 vigorbranding Right. 19:22.88 Carl Orsbourn As good as they perhaps would expect in an on-premise occasion and ultimately the biggest issue that's happening with off-premise today is the accuracy of whether the order was indeed fulfilled correctly is it the right items is it. You know as per the spec that they request it. So. 19:36.68 vigorbranding Um, right. 19:39.93 Carl Orsbourn You know there's this thing here to be able to say well most restaurants today are putting on a threshold increase onto their third -party prices and even the door dashes of this world are sending notes out to restaurants that are going beyond a certain threshold to say look if you keep doing this. We're going to reduce your presence on the platforms and reduce your appearance if you will. Which is ah another entire subject. We should. We can talk about but the point is is if that's happening then the guest is saying well I'm paying this much more and I'm given an inferior product as a result and I think all that's going to lead to is customers. They've become even more switched on. 20:11.63 vigorbranding Um. 20:17.92 Carl Orsbourn To be allowed to know which restaurants can they rely upon which ones are able to do this consistently which ones are actually changing their operating system to be able to make sure they do get a better experience and so price is a function of value but the experience all those table touches and things you were mentioned in your earlier question. Are very much still central to it and you know in in delivering the digital restaurant. We talked about how gig workers are for intents and purposes your new server. Do you remember that chap sir Joseph you know that that that one was all about when I was going out as a door dash driver myself and feeling terribly treated by the restaurants that I went into. 20:46.79 vigorbranding Um, yep, yep. 20:56.18 Carl Orsbourn You know? and maybe so maybe understandably so because I was taking tips away from their staff and things like that. But but but um, the point is is that if you embrace those drivers if you give them samples of your new items on the menu if you give them a free cup of coffee or allow them to use your restrooms. They are going to to more likely more likely. Not definitely but more likely. 20:58.22 vigorbranding Sure yeah. 21:16.13 Carl Orsbourn Be, a better proponent of your brand and give the guests that they're servicing on on your behalf a better experience and so there are little bits and pieces that need to happen in that regard to try and bring more elements of digital hospitality into off-premise. But ultimately. It's the operation. The operation needs to get Better. We been now to do things to a better quality on time and more accurately and all of that's going to play into whether customers see they get value from this or not. 21:43.82 vigorbranding Yeah, what? what was the brand I want to say it was chipotle but I don't want to ah missattribute this where they they created a whole delivery driver experience for them to wait and hang out. It's kind of was kind of a lounge I think it was in New York um 21:55.95 Carl Orsbourn Ah, Buka Depeo Buca Depeo had a bit of reference to this in in the news a few months ago. But I think there were a few that are starting to do it so it wouldn't surprise me that partly I doing it as well. 22:05.80 vigorbranding Yeah, yeah, it makes sense I'm surprised inspire brands hasn't done it either I mean they've invested so much in this innovation center here in Atlanta on the west side. Um there's definitely the space for it. Um I think that's something it makes a lot of sense. You have to start treating them as such but then I think that starts to. Makes some folks in the c-suite a little cringy considering the back and forth pendulum swing that we see with labor ownership and things like that like you you treat them too. Nice are you starting to blur the lines right? and you know we know how that goes. Um. 22:31.92 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, well But then you've got these first party logistics software platforms. You know like cartwheel that are out there that are allowing you now to try and figure out how you wish to service different diners. You know, perhaps your most loyal diners with your better drivers from your own fleet. So there are. There are ways and means by which you know technology is enabling you to give the best service to your most valuable customers. 22:51.10 vigorbranding Um. 22:56.96 vigorbranding Yeah I believe ah Romo is on the forefront of that as well. We had Alan Hickey on the show a little while ago. Um, proud Scotsman he's gonna hate me for that. No, he's he's definitely proud. He's the proudest scotsman there ever was. 23:02.68 Carl Orsbourn Um, yeah Irish my Irishman ah he'll hate that you. 23:11.23 vigorbranding I do this every every so often. Some of the episodes just see if Allen's listening um and you know when I'm when I'm in person and I do run into him I'll say it again. It's it's an ongoing joke. But yes, he is an irishman and he is wonderful. Gracious guest but they're doing great things. So um. 23:23.55 Carl Orsbourn So. 23:28.36 vigorbranding Thanks for digging in so much into this I feel like there's so much to still unpack and and I am really excited about where you're going with Juicer which is the company that you founded to essentially tackle this thing head on. Can you tell me a little bit about juicer before we shift gears and talk about the the new book and even the original book. 23:45.60 Carl Orsbourn So yeah, so so Juicer has been around for a year and a half my my co-founders as I mentioned earlier have come from the travel hospitality space. In fact, our technical co-founder Marco he he builds a company called Duetto which is one of the 2 remaining platforms that help hotels dynamically price. But the difference the difference I think between hotels and restaurants beyond what we've already discussed is that hotels have revenue managers as part of the team as part of the property team restaurants don't so what juice is trying to do is become a full service solution and so we take twelve months worth of data transactional data. Put that through our algorithm come up with recommended prices based on the different times of day as we've discussed and then our team will implement those price changes so we we get given that range we talked about maybe the minus ten to the plus 15% and that's it the restaurant hands us the keys and then we report back to them the revenue up if we've been out to generate. Yeah, sentiment analysis. The volume analysis and a way we go from there. It's as simple as that now it sounds simple but there's a lot of complexity behind the actual algorithm as you can imagine. But also there's this piece that um is a complexity that affects many restaurant technology companies and that is integrations. Very early on into my tenure I said to the team look if we have to wait to build integrations with every pos out there. This is going to be a very difficult thing to be able to implement and what we're trying to do is to try and help brashchnault see the upside of our approach so that their voice can go to their technology partners to help. 25:19.37 Carl Orsbourn Build the necessary integrations because we have teams in India in Mexico and in Brazil that are actually making these price changes manually today and that's that's like wow what what does that? you sure that's the right way of doing it. Well it is because that way we've got more assuredness that it's going to happen and b it demonstrates the uplift. And then also the restaurants are going to have the louder voice in helping the tech companies see why they need this as part of their technology platforms. It's also adopting I don't know whether you've heard this term before but headless commerce um salesforce I think introduced it. But for those of you are your listeners that haven't heard of that. It's it's all for instance, all intents and purposes. It's a bit like ah a Chrome plugin right? as opposed to being Chrome or another piece of technology to add into the tech stack. Um, it's actually said no we want to be almost like a white label solution that sits on top of your current technology providers that supports you when you are ready for dynamic pricing. 25:58.80 vigorbranding Um. 26:12.10 Carl Orsbourn And I think that's really really important for many technology leaders out there to consider because the problem today is that restaurants have got so many technology solutions to choose from. They've got some folks that are out there saying oh we do it all. We do all, we're an all in one solution which isn't true and the other are those that are very specialist in other regards and so it's very difficult for The average restaurant owner-erator who let's face it remember that they didn't get into this industry because they love technology. They love food. They love hospital hospitality. They love seeing the smiles in their guest faces. Those are the reasons they got into it and so technology is a necessary efor if you will to to support the the business and where it is today. And so therefore we're trying to make things easier I think by building the company in this regard it it also then means the procurement practice is also a little easier as well and been able to find the necessary clients. So we we we certainly go direct out to restaurants. But also we're building partnerships with the lights of oracle with it a checkmate and others. To try and have that automated nature so we don't actually have to have manual teams implemented it but the best thing about it. Is it just it helps restaurants have this pricing capability without affecting anyone on the ground and because it's just off-premise focus. It doesn't really create any distraction for them. 27:25.63 vigorbranding That's great. Yeah I mean I think the the future obviously would be um, some sort of on-prem Maybe maybe with less real-time you know, maybe it happens on the weekly or things like that. But it needs it needs to happen for the restaurants in order for restaurants to thrive. Um. 27:35.48 Carl Orsbourn Yeah. 27:42.54 vigorbranding I'm always going to be the ultimate defender of the people or at least the brand experience. You know So How do you make sure that it's delivered in a way that isn't going to negatively affect the Brand's experience but like like you have said and I've even attitudes like the brand experience is already under threat and there are a lot of negative experiences happening. Um. This probably isn't going to.. It's it's pales in comparison like if everything was perfect and you're dropping a dynamic pricing model. Um outside of the even the 15 or 10 then maybe there's a conversation but I'm actually more more interested on the technology side like what's going to be done with packaging and how how can. Our delivery vehicles be ah, fitted with cold and hot areas to to keep food as good as possible. Um packaging that holds in the heat without sweat things like that like it makes French fries Such a bummer man. 28:29.70 Carl Orsbourn Um. 28:36.27 Carl Orsbourn Um, well look in our first book. Um, one of the chaps is was called why pizza works and it was when there was a bunch of references in to think about the amount of science and innovation that's happened to the pizza box right? So from the 4 little vents around the edge. 28:41.67 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 28:48.55 vigorbranding Absolutely. 28:52.48 Carl Orsbourn That little thing you'll probably tell me Joseph if whatever the little thing is in the middle and then the little trade that it sits on you know all of those little components are to ensure that when a pizza arrives at your front door. It's in the best condition possible and so you're absolutely right. Packaging is very much. It's vital with your marketing hat on. 29:03.79 vigorbranding Um, that's right. 29:09.15 Carl Orsbourn There's a great third party. The first party conversion angle on the packaging but there's also a quality angle to it as well. 29:14.88 vigorbranding yeah yeah I think there's there's so much room for growth and this is one of those permanent pivots. So one of the other things that happened. Um so I've mentioned this so many times on the show and I apologize to listeners. But. Back in 2019 I had the opportunity to speak at the fed summit ah held by restaurant design development design magazine great group of people over there at Zumba group. Um, and I predicted a lot of things that are happening now not because I'm a genius but because I know how to read and what I didn't predict was the acceleration that would be brought on by. Pandemic. Um, what's great is a lot of the things that we're talking about now and a lot of things that you covered in the first book that you and Meredith Pennd haven't had a chance to read the second one? sorry um, have come to fruition and and we are. It's no longer this sluggish. Dip the toe. Maybe the second toe into the water we are full plunge into digital transformation and that is essentially the topic of your you and Meredith's work in general from all your thought leadership. So can you give maybe like a quick hit on the first book. 30:09.13 Carl Orsbourn And. 30:20.40 Carl Orsbourn Yep. 30:24.20 vigorbranding Why why? it's interesting. Why people should grab it and then I want to make sure you have enough time to talk about this second book because I didn't give meritdiff any time to talk about it and I still feel bad about it. 30:29.28 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, and absolutely well it is a sequel to delivering the digital restaurant your roadmap to the future of food that was the name of the first book and and that was written in the early days of the pandemic. You know we were into the outline. Think we spoke to a big publisher and they said yeah, we'll get this out but it'll be 2022 and we went ah this this is happening right now restaurants need this so we had to go through our hybrid publishing path. Um and we wrote it to help restaurants see the why behind digitization but being you know off-premise and. 30:53.21 vigorbranding Are. 31:03.45 Carl Orsbourn But consumers are hungry for better ways to engage with restaurants and then it wasn't the evil tech companies or vcs forcing the change to happen but it was the consumer that was driving this to happen and of course timing couldn't have been better for us in in writing and given that book out of that time. The book came ah international bestseller. It's. Just got the romanian restaurant association would you believe agreed to translate it into romanian so I wasn't thinking the first foreign language translation would be romanian. But thank you Romania but you know the the fact that at this time in 21 every restaurant became a ghost kitchen overnight. They were forced to embrace digitization to survive and. 31:25.43 vigorbranding Um, that's amazing. Yeah. 31:38.94 Carl Orsbourn It really was a spray and prayy type approach just to keep in business but the second book you know now we're in a different phase restaurants are spending somewhere between two and four percent of revenue on technology I'd hasten to guess that they're spend in about across 15 to 20 different pieces of technology. And those different pieces of technology are probably just not being used to their optimal capability and they're certainly not talking to each other these different technologies in a way that restaurants really want them to so so our new book is called delivering the digital restaurant the path to digital maturity. 32:03.20 vigorbranding Right. 32:13.64 Carl Orsbourn And it's with the pandemic in the rearview mirror. We we believe that restaurants are now in a place where they're trying to consolidate their focus. You know where they want to deploy their resources where they want to deploy concentrated efforts to build the the right foundations that support a digital transformation because we're still in it right? We're still in the trenches on transforming this industry digitally. 32:22.51 vigorbranding Um. 32:33.59 Carl Orsbourn And restaurants are I think are are now largely moving on from begrudgingly accepting off-premise channels where they were did now see them as a vital part of the restaurant growth agenda. But many restaurants have that kind of scattergun focus as I mentioned and so I think many now have ah. Got solutions technology solutions because there are so many of them scattered across the entire restaurant ecosystem and they're not really using them to their best potential and so the new book helps restaurants see this path. It explains in a linear fashion where rest structure focus and when and I hope it's going to help them find their place on this path and. And from that give them more confidence on where to focus. You know it's it's a different type of book to the first you'll remember the first it was quite. You know one hundred or so interviews with executives that we spoke to it was ah a little academic if you will very businessy this one's more of a playbook. It's got tips. It's got worksheets at the back of each chapter. So. The the reader can self-ass assess reflect consider the lessons in the context of their own restaurant and through it. Hopefully they can chart their path towards you know, greater maturity and it asks them to consider some serious questions of themselves and you know it leads towards um, a new restaurant category that we believe is emerging. Um, a category that we think is going to represent some of the highest levels of growth available in the industry but the the title of that chapter when we discuss that is called disrupt yourself and it's saying consider how consider how you need to optimize if you had a blank sheet of paper if you were starting your business fresh right now. What would you do and we we introduce this term of the. 34:04.45 Carl Orsbourn Digital native restaurant and the digital native brands and how that is a channel that is going to move more of the costs into food out of labor out of ah out of rent and that everything will be focused on digital and fully focused and off-premise occasions and we think that category. Much like fast casual before it will actually be very very exciting and then we also talk to the technologists much like we've been touching on today. You know anyone in restaurant tech will want to to read the book because if we're really going to help restaurants for each digital maturity. We have to find faster better ways to enable tech tech solutions to talk to each other. In a symbiotic way and or just build our technology operating systems differently. You know a bit like the app store if you go for a restaurant. Could you imagine that? um you know I'd ah um, I'd love to see a world Joseph where where 1 input affects a restaurant. 34:51.40 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 34:58.16 Carl Orsbourn And a symbiotic fashion affecting other functions. You know an interdependability of functionality that that drives better decision-making and and a smoother implementation of change that that today the the average restaurant Gm has to navigate these factors. You know, can you imagine? For example, where if a supplier cost increase comes through there that 1 simple data input change can then have an autonomous effect on recipes inventory management menu build menu optimization pricing training documentation and on and on you know, the example I was using on a podcast. The other day was I imagine you're in a restaurant and two li cooks call out tonight. The Gm has to deal with that today. 35:24.58 vigorbranding Um. 35:35.45 vigorbranding Um, yep. 35:36.80 Carl Orsbourn Like there's no piece of technology that's saying how do I sold for that. So imagine if that technology could then talk to opentable to restrict the amount of table reservations or talk to juicer and increase the off-prem prices a little bit more as opposed to just talking to 7 shifts and payroll systems. You know that's the way in which technology needs to evolve. 35:49.38 vigorbranding Right. 35:55.15 Carl Orsbourn So that we can help restaurants really optimize the experience not just for off-premise but for on-premise as well, right? So the book is quite practical in that regard I think seventy to eighty percent of restaurants are probably in the first 2 chapters where we talk about third -party optimization and converting them to first. But. As I've touched on you know it goes into a bit more of the futurist stuff as we get towards the end. 36:15.90 vigorbranding Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Ah, the first book was great read. Ah it is I definitely turn the pages yellow with my highlighter. Um I'm one of those I still read the physical book and still highlight things. Um, so I can only imagine the second one is going to be even better I wrote an article about. 36:22.37 Carl Orsbourn So. 36:33.89 vigorbranding Removing the word pivot I'd like to commend you for not using that word. Um, mainly because pivoting keeps you anchored with one foot and I think that's what you're talking about with disrupting yourself I think ah what ends up happening especially the larger you get is making those cataclysmic um shifts. 36:38.85 Carl Orsbourn Move. 36:51.35 vigorbranding Requires you to lift the foot. It can't be a pivot. Um, it has to be movement forward. It has to be a change of direction or a narrowing of focus or or a mix of both and so many leaders are just crippled by the fear of what that means of unsementing one of your feet in order to go because if you keep your foot planted. You really can only go so far before you've stretched too too thin and then you have a young more agile company that will easily surpass you or or at least have ah have a competitive edge in their agility to do so um and so I think it's such a fantastic time to be a part of this industry with everything that's happening. Um I will say that. You have nudged me closer to an advocate of ah at least? Yeah yeah, it's a few steps closer I would say it's equivalent to the number of steps closer that Meredith got me on the topic of gas ranges versus ah induction heat. 37:31.60 Carl Orsbourn Yeah I'll take you I'll take that for today. Ah. 37:47.91 vigorbranding Ranges that are digital. Um I will still fight to to the death over my gas range at home. But I really appreciate the insights and I know there's so much more I mean man I had so many things that I wanted to ask you but I also like to keep these around the 30 minute Mark so 37:48.13 Carl Orsbourn Ah. 37:54.51 Carl Orsbourn Yeah, yeah. 38:04.92 vigorbranding Ah, like I said to meredith. Maybe maybe we should just do the first ever 3 person podcast we have you and her on it. We can just really start to dig into some of these topicics together because I don't think this conversation stops today. 38:12.67 Carl Orsbourn And I'd love that now. I'd love that I mean we we set out to do this to help the industry and so hopefully our our 2 books do that and I think podcasts like your angels are very much part of that journey as well. So we're all in it together and I think the more we. We talk about these things the more we're going to help the industry move forward to. 38:31.87 vigorbranding Absolutely so I have 1 final question. It's the hardest 1 ever and then I'll get you to drop some plugs on where to buy the book and and where to find juicer. So first the the most difficult question in the world if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat. 38:47.51 Carl Orsbourn Um. 38:48.69 vigorbranding Ah, where would you eat it and why. 38:50.48 Carl Orsbourn Well this one kind of comes back to one of my favorite dining experiences of my life so far and in many ways. It's not so much about the food. The food was freshly caught fish but this was about I'd say half a mile three quarters of a mile. By a dragon boat off the shores of pouquette Thailand and I went out in this dragon boat and there's this floating pontoon which they've built and there are some tables on top of this flob at this pontoon and in the middle. There's a a hole where they give you a net and they say choose your dinner and you you put the net in you choose the fish. 39:26.55 vigorbranding Um, oh well. 39:29.83 Carl Orsbourn And then they cooked the fish and I remember sitting there with my wife and overlooking the the kind of Hills of pouette. The sun was setting. It was beautiful and um I think that goes to show about just how occasions and moments like that are just as important as the quality of the food as well. So I'd probably go with something like that. 39:47.82 vigorbranding Yeah I would not blame you that it that sounds amazing. Um, great answer, great answer. Um, where is the preferred place to pick up the books. 39:56.77 Carl Orsbourn Well you see this comes back to third party first party if you like third parties and the and the flexibility that comes with them Amazon of course has a Kindle version a hardback a paperback the the audio book is read by me. It's going to be out a month or so from now. So Amazon of course is the place to go to for that. Ah, but if you want to support first party then you can head to ww.thetheboommis side again wwdot delivering the digitalrest dot com and there you'll be able to get a copy of a book or if you'd like to get a case of books for your team or for clients then that's the place to get discounted copies in bulk as well. So. Deliveringthe digitalrest.com for first party and we also have our own podcast there that we put out every couple of weeks called the digital restaurant where we we just have ten fifteen minutes between Meredith and myself talking about 5 of the top articles affecting off-premise technology and restaurants and so that's another place where. Your podcast listeners to heads if they're interested. Okay. 40:51.32 vigorbranding I that's great guys. Go first party I know Amazon's convenient it's awesome but look it puts more money in alls pocket pockets when you go first party I should know I prefer people to go to my website to get my book. But yeah I understand conveniences oftentimes the winner. Um, and then juicer how can we connect with juicer. 41:09.78 Carl Orsbourn So great. Well with juicy you can obviously reach out to me on Linkedin but our website isjuicerpriccing.com and there you'd be able to fill out an inquiry I would love to chat to you with particularly focus right now on restaurant groups of 20 units or more. Um, but if you've got an off-premise business that's sizable I think we can help you so I'd love to hear from you. 41:30.39 vigorbranding Brilliant. Thanks so much for your insights again. Ah thirty forty minutes is just not enough time and we'll have to do this again very soon. 41:36.51 Carl Orsbourn Looking forward to Joseph. Thank you so much.

Are you ready to embrace tech and AI? Want to take your customer's experience to the next level? Ken and Carl Orsbourn, author of Delivering The Digital Restaurant, reveal the recipe for exceptional CX: on-demand frictionless interactions. Though there's a lot of negativity surrounding AI, Carl will show you how to optimize it to benefit your business and preserve consumer loyalty while increasing profitability.  

The digitally native restaurant could overtake fast casual and become the fastest growing concept in the US, Carl Orsbourn, co-author of the Delivering the Digital Restaurant book series and chief operating officer at Juicer, tells Bloomberg Intelligence. In this episode of the Choppin' It Up podcast, Orsbourn sits down with BI's senior restaurant and foodservice analyst Michael Halen to discuss dynamic pricing as well as the importance of using data and converting customers to first-party from third. He also comments on the growing pains currently experienced by ghost kitchens and virtual brands.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's edition of Give An Ovation, Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland join us for another forward thinking and innovative episode. With the publication of their second book in the Delivering The Digital Restaurant series, The Path to Digital Maturity, Carl and Meredith impress the importance of taking your tech seriously. From interface to optimization, their expertise within the digital space is far reaching!On this episode, you'll learn from Carl and Meredith about:Is third party for you?Tech resolving off-prem issuesInternal processes that aid digital channelsMore!Thanks, Carl and Meredith!

Two-time authors, Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, join Restaurants Reinvented for the second time!Hear their predictions about the next big restaurant concept > the digitally native restaurant and key snips from their new book “The Path to Digital Maturity.” Moments to listen for:The key phases in the path to digital maturityHow to better drive first-party data ownershipThe next new concept category to hit restaurants SVB's influence on the startup tech sceneImproving efficiency through AIInnovative approaches to off-prem dining through ghost kitchensRelated Episodes:Delivering the Digital Restaurant – Meredith Sandland & Carl OrsbournMastering the Digital Dance – Michael Chachula, CIO, Fat BrandsAI Inside & Outside the Four Walls – Phil Crawford, CKERelated Assets:8 Digital Trends Shaping 2023The Path to Digital MaturityConnect with Meredith & Carl on LinkedIn

Welcome to The Restaurant Coach Podcast, it is the cure for the common restaurant. Change. Weather you like it or not it's happening. Most people don't like change and long for the good old days…but the good old days weren't always so good of your honest with yourself. Today I want to talk to you … Continue reading Episode 116 – Digital Maturity is the Way with Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn →

In this episode, we welcome back previous Corner Booth guest Meredith Sandland, along with her publishing partner Carl Orsbourn. Sandland, a former executive with Yum Brands/Taco Bell joined forces with United Kitchens executive Orsbourn to educate restaurant operators on how to succeed at digital marketing, operations, and customer service. As co-authors of the best-selling "Delivering the Digital Restaurant", they share best-practices advice from their second book "Path to Digital Maturity."   Says Orsbourn, "There are tips and tricks that set the foundation for building a mature guest digital experience," which, Sandland adds, can "increase guest satisfaction and loyalty." Orsbourn and Sandland explain how the path to digital maturity also includes gathering consumer data that can be compiled and analyzed to improve the menu, labor scheduling, and operational efficiency. Join us for an engaging conversation on how to place your concept on the cutting edge of the restaurant industry's digital transformation.

Joining the show today are two individuals who I am sure you have seen all over social media and at conferences if your business is restaurants and technology. Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland join the show to talk about their new book, “Delivering the Digital Restaurant; The Path to Digital Maturity.” This falls on the heels of the must have book from last year, “Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food.”Meredith Sandland is the CEO of Empower Delivery, a software company that enables restaurants to profitably and sustainably serve off-premise demand. Meredith met with every major restaurant company, food-tech company, real estate company, and VC investor who is exploring the online food revolution. In Empower Delivery, she found what she had been looking for: a restaurant tech company built from the ground up to service the on-demand consumer. Prior to Empower Delivery, Sandland created and drove disruptive growth as Chief Development Officer at Taco Bell, America's largest Mexican-inspired restaurant, and as COO at Kitchen United, a ghost-kitchen start-up that is rolling out nationally.Carl Orsbourn is a global retail executive and board member whose experience spans blue-chip companies, disruptive start-up ventures, and restaurants. As COO of Juicer, Carl leads business development, partnerships, and operations for this innovative start-up supporting the development of dynamic pricing capability for restaurants. At Kitchen United, Carl established the operating model and led operations & customer success for one of the country's foremost ghost kitchen providers.Carl and Meredith serve as advisors and board members at several food-service and tech start-ups. They have been recognized as Power Players by Nations Restaurant News and Business Insider for their thought leadership in supporting restaurants to adapt to the challenges and opportunities offered through digitization, technology, and automation.Don't worry, this episode is not just a sales pitch for the book. We dig much deeper in conversation about things like figuring out what “digital” means to the restaurant industry, order throttling, dynamic pricing, converting 3rd party to a 1st party customers, the gig workforce and even talk about the good and evil of AI.How To Contact MeWebsite: https://SkipKimpel.com (all archived shows and...

I coach my clients all the time to stop running a restaurant and start running a business. You can either have a restaurant strategy or keep putting out daily fires. Having a strategy is pro-active and moves your business forward. In this week's episode of the podcast, I am speaking with restaurant strategy experts Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland. Listen as Carl and Meredith coach us on: - What many operators are missing in their restaurant strategy - A new approach to your business post-pandemic - Building on pivots restaurants have had to execute. - Being a pro-active strategist not a firefighter - Necessary technology for your restaurant today - The ins and outs of third-party delivery - Is a ghost kitchen right for your operation? And of course, we speak about Carl and Meredith's second Book “Delivering the Digital Restaurant, The Path to Digital Maturity”. This book gives you the how-to roadmap to execute a digital restaurant strategy in your operation. Listen, get inspired and then go out and Rock YOUR Restaurant! Roger The Restaurant Academy - Tools to increase sales, maximize profits, rock your marketing, and build new & repeat business! https://restaurantrockstars.com/joinacademy/ Learn the Top 3 Restaurant Profit Killers and how to fix them - the answers might surprise you! (FREE) https://restaurantrockstars.com/profits/ Thank you to our sponsors: Smithfield Culinary – Inspiring head-turning menu creativity. Visit us for culinary trends and chef-created recipes: https://smithfieldculinary.com/smithfield Zinch - Listeners of the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast receive their loan application fees waived, a $250 value at financingthatworks.com Whirks: We will help you determine your eligibility for The Employee Retention Tax Credit for 2020 & 2021 https://page.whirks.com/employee-retention-credit

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” chat with the authors of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant: The Path to Digital Maturity,” Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn. Sandland, co-author of two books, “Delivering the Digital Restaurant, Your Roadmap to the Future of Food”, as well as the new one “Delivering the Digital Restaurant, The Path to Digital Maturity.” Sandland says, “My background, I was at Taco Bell for many years, leading development there and building lots and lots of Taco Bells and started to wonder, why are we building all these Taco Bells next to malls when no one goes to malls anymore? That seems kind of weird. And that planted a seed which only grew when we tried to enter Manhattan and I thought, why are we paying the world's most expensive real estate prices when 40% of our sales are going out-the-door delivery.”Orsbourn before meeting Sandland was working for a large oil and gas company but spent 15 years in the retail space. “I wanted to speak to folks that had made that transition from big company blue chip world into the startup environment and a mutual friend of Meredith and mine introduced us and it was through the conversation there that Meredith said I'm doing this thing in ghost kitchens now and at that time I thought well this is a doozy, isn't it,” Orsbourn said. Sandland who had joined Kitchen United explained the logic about why ghost kitchens made sense and Orsbourn was immediately drawn in. Orsbourn also joined the Kitchen United team and helped them build out the operational model. Orsbourn talks about every big restaurant chain in the U.S. that was looking to explore ghost kitchens and trying to understand the digital disruption that was happening, He says, “When you're doing something new, it's not easy to help people see that future, especially when there are hundreds of millions of dollars being plowed into this space and a lot of restaurants at that time were very begrudging towards the whole idea of this and that's where the genesis of the initial book came.”They talk about digital maturity and how an operator can recognize where they fall on the digital maturity scale. Orsbourn says, “A digitally mature restaurant is, and there's a story that is told in this, Jimmy, as you go through it because, in many ways, a fully digitally mature restaurant is one that in many ways needs to reorient its entire business model towards what it's gonna take to become digitally mature.” To hear about digitally native restaurants and holistic technology plus get the answers for Trivia Tuesday check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” chat with the authors of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant: The Path to Digital Maturity,” Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn. Sandland, co-author of two books, “Delivering the Digital Restaurant, Your Roadmap to the Future of Food”, as well as the new one “Delivering the Digital Restaurant, The Path to Digital Maturity.” Sandland says, “My background, I was at Taco Bell for many years, leading development there and building lots and lots of Taco Bells and started to wonder, why are we building all these Taco Bells next to malls when no one goes to malls anymore? That seems kind of weird. And that planted a seed which only grew when we tried to enter Manhattan and I thought, why are we paying the world's most expensive real estate prices when 40% of our sales are going out-the-door delivery.”Orsbourn before meeting Sandland was working for a large oil and gas company but spent 15 years in the retail space. “I wanted to speak to folks that had made that transition from big company blue chip world into the startup environment and a mutual friend of Meredith and mine introduced us and it was through the conversation there that Meredith said I'm doing this thing in ghost kitchens now and at that time I thought well this is a doozy, isn't it,” Orsbourn said. Sandland who had joined Kitchen United explained the logic about why ghost kitchens made sense and Orsbourn was immediately drawn in. Orsbourn also joined the Kitchen United team and helped them build out the operational model. Orsbourn talks about every big restaurant chain in the U.S. that was looking to explore ghost kitchens and trying to understand the digital disruption that was happening, He says, “When you're doing something new, it's not easy to help people see that future, especially when there are hundreds of millions of dollars being plowed into this space and a lot of restaurants at that time were very begrudging towards the whole idea of this and that's where the genesis of the initial book came.”They talk about digital maturity and how an operator can recognize where they fall on the digital maturity scale. Orsbourn says, “A digitally mature restaurant is, and there's a story that is told in this, Jimmy, as you go through it because, in many ways, a fully digitally mature restaurant is one that in many ways needs to reorient its entire business model towards what it's gonna take to become digitally mature.” To hear about digitally native restaurants and holistic technology plus get the answers for Trivia Tuesday check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout.

#223 - Digitizing Your Restaurant with Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland ***** This week's episode is brought to you by: KICKFIN Thousands of restaurants across the country use Kickfin to send instant, cashless tip payouts, directly to their employees’ bank accounts, the second their shift ends. Get in touch today for a personalized demo and see how restaurants and bars across the country are tipping out with Kickfin. VISIT: kickfin.com/demo. ***** This week's episode is brought to you by: POPMENU If you’re a restaurant owner you need a great website that not only looks beautiful, but helps drive more traffic and sales. Use POPMENU to take your business to the next level. Best of all, listeners of this show can lock in one, set monthly rate… and get $100 off their first month. VISIT: https://popmenu.com/restaurantstrategy ***** Carl Orsbourn & Meredith Sandland are two of the smartest people in the industry, especially when it comes to the topic of digitizing your restaurant. Just last month they released their 2nd book, a follow-up to their wildly popular Delivering the Digital Restaurant. This new one is something of a "how-to" guide for restaurant operators trying to navigate this bold, new landscape. We dig into a bunch of different areas on Episode 222 of the Restaurant Strategy Podcast. IMPORTANT LINKS: Buy Both Books: https://www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com/order Original Book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/40qhHvk New Book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3K5RfSd ***** Same results, with a new name: The P3 Mastermind ProgramThe 3 Ps stand for PROFIT, PROCESS, and PROGRESS -- our 3 pillars! Learn more by setting up a FREE 30-minute Strategy Session: https://www.restaurantstrategypodcast.com/schedule

Join second time guests Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn where we talk about the practical application of delivery, digital ordering, and the tools all restaurants need to be thinking about when going to a digital channel. Delivering - The Digital Restaurant explores the world of off-premise food and the massive disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry veterans, and start-up entrepreneurs. Restaurateurs are experiencing a similar level of disruption to what retailers faced 20 years ago with the birth of mainstream e-commerce. Changing demographics, social interactions, new digital capabilities & expectations, omnichannel fulfillment networks, and a thirst for convenience & variety have shifted how, what and where people are eating their food.

In this special episode of Take-Away with Sam Oches, Sam talks with Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, co-authors of the new book “Delivering the Digital Restaurant: The Path to Digital Maturity.” This conversation was hosted via LinkedIn Live and covered digital evolution in the restaurant industry, how this evolution is creating opportunities for brands to better access and understand customers and their behaviors, and what has changed since Meredith and Carl wrote their first “Delivering the Digital Restaurant” book in 2021. Have feedback or ideas for Take-Away? Email Sam at sam.oches@informa.com.

In this episode of the Food Service Growth Show, Carl Jacobs, CEO of Apicbase and Carl Orsbourn, COO at Juicer and co-author of the bestselling book 'Delivering The Digital Restaurant' dive deep into the world of digital restaurants and share their expert insights on how to succeed in the age of technology.The episode kicks off with a discussion of what it truly means to be a digital restaurant. From having a website to being present on social media and third-party delivery platforms, Carl explains how embracing technology can revolutionize your business.But with the benefits of digitalization come some unique challenges, such as getting noticed in a crowded online marketplace. Luckily, Carl has got you covered with some top-notch marketing strategies. Whether it's using social media or digital marketing, he shares actionable tips to help you stand out from the competition.As the conversation flows, they delve into operational challenges, such as managing orders and deliveries. They share best practices for streamlining your virtual operation, from managing inventory and staffing to partnering with delivery platforms.One of the most crucial aspects of digital success is achieving digital maturity. But what does this mean? Simply put, it's the point at which your restaurant has fully embraced the digital revolution and is utilizing technology to its fullest potential. To help you reach this milestone, Carl highlights key signs to look out for, such as a well-designed website, a strong social media presence, and streamlined operations.Throughout the episode, they provide expert insights and actionable advice, as well as emphasize the importance of adaptability in the ever-changing landscape of the restaurant industry.So, whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out in the restaurant world, this episode "From Surviving to Thriving: Discover the Key to Succeeding in the Age of Digital Restaurants" is a must-listen for anyone looking to thrive in the digital age. Listen to it now to discover the key to succeeding in the world of digital restaurants and revolutionizing your business today!Learn how our restaurant management solutions help your restaurant business keep costs under control. ✅ Subscribe and stay updated with new episodes:

Carl Orsbourn is a global retail executive and board member whose experience spans blue-chip companies, disruptive start-up ventures (Juicer Pricing & Kitchen United), and restaurants (Alfa Co).  Carl has been recognized as a power player by Nations Restaurant News and Business Insider for his thought leadership in supporting restaurants to adapt to the challenges and opportunities offered through digitization, technology, and automation.   Meredith Sandland has created and driven disruptive growth at both Fortune 100 and start-up companies.  She has spent a decade navigating changing consumer demands and restaurant real estate environments. Meridith is the CEO of Empower Delivery, a SaaS company that enables delivery-centric restaurants to manage end-to-end deliver transactions from brand development to logistics through one platform.   We discuss the recent launch of their book Delivering the Digital Restaurant and explore the world of off-premise food and the massive disruption facing restaurants.  They are savvy food industry veterans and their insight on the future of restaurants is eye-opening.  

In this episode, I'm joined by Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, authors of Delivering The Digital Restaurant, and we uncover the importance of digitizing your restaurant in 2023 for increased efficiency, enhanced customer experience, and access to valuable data. We delve into the latest technologies available for the food industry, including online ordering systems, digital menus, and online reservation platforms. This video serves as a comprehensive guide for restaurant owners and managers looking to optimize their businesses. Click here to buy your copy of Delivering The Digital Restaurant

The rate of restaurant tech evolution seems to get faster and faster, with consumers adopting new behaviors and desires with every new app they download. How can restaurants keep up with market demands and use tech to make their business more efficient and profitable? On this episode of Tech Bites, host Jennifer Leuzzi talks to Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, the authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant. Using first- hand accounts of food industry veterans and start-up entrepreneurs innovating the future of food, the book explores the massive disruption facing American restaurants today and a roadmap to successfully navigate today's digital environment.Photo Courtesy of Delivering the Digital Restaurant.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Tech Bites by becoming a member!Tech Bites is Powered by Simplecast.

In the 29th episode of the Food On Demand Podcast, hosts Tom and Jared interview Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant, about their next book coming soon. They also cover the Kroger-Albertsons mega merger and Reef hitting a municipal snag in Texas and Pennsylvania.

Carl Orsbourn is a global retail executive and board member whose experience spans across blue-chip companies (BP-owned ampm), disruptive start-up ventures (Kitchen United & Juicer Pricing), and restaurants (Alfa Co). His knowledge of operational excellence, business development, and change management together with his ability to traverse industries and disciplines is admired by his diverse extensive network. Carl has been recognized as a Power Player by Nations Restaurant News and Business Insider for his thought leadership in supporting restaurants to adapt to the challenges and opportunities offered through digitization, technology, and automation. As Head of Retail at ampm, Carl was responsible for repositioning the branded food & beverage offering while achieving record growth through $1.3 billion in retail sales and growing the network to over 1000+ franchise locations. At Kitchen United, Carl established the operating model and led operations & customer success by working closely with restaurant partners, such as ChickFil'A and SweetGreen. As COO and co-founder for Juicer Pricing, Carl is building the operating model for dynamic pricing solutions for restaurants, shaping the path for improved profitability through automated intelligence. As a non-executive board member for Alfa Co., Carl advises this leading restaurant group in Saudi Arabia towards a greater digital footprint and further off-premise success. Carl is a sought-after speaker at events across the world. He hosts 'The Monday Minute' podcast and appears as a guest at many others. He is a frequent contributor to Forbes, Nations Restaurant News, and RestaurantOwner.com. -- Critical Mass Business Talk Show is Orange County, CA's longest-running business talk show, focused on offering value and insight to middle-market business leaders in the OC and beyond. Hosted by Ric Franzi, business partner at Renaissance Executive Forums Orange County. Learn more about Ric at www.ricfranzi.com. Catch up on past Critical Mass Business Talk Show interviews... YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gHKT2gmF LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/g2PzRhjQ Podbean: https://lnkd.in/eWpNVRi Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gRd_863w Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gruexU6m #orangecountyca #mastermind #ceopeergroups #peergroups #peerlearning

Welcome to The Restaurant Coach Podcast. It is the cure for the common restaurant. If you are serious about growing your brand you first have to get serious about growing yourself. I believe that restaurants become better when the people in them become better people. That starts when the leader invests in themselves to learn, … Continue reading Episode 101 – Digital Strategy That Can Make Restaurants More Money with Carl Orsbourn →

It's Episode 122 of the Restaurant Expert Round-up. In this episode we're chatting with Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, the authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant. We're going to DIG DEEP into TWO TOPICS today: 1st - How the future will make delivery work better for everyone 2nd - The changing consumer – why delivery is here to stay Meredith's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-sandland Carl's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carlorsbourn Website: www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com  

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy'' and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy'' chat with Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, Authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food, to discuss their new book, ghost kitchens and how to win at off-premise.Sandland talks about her background in the industry. She shares that she has spent over 10 years in the space, initially at Taco Bell, where she worked on brand turnaround, and then in real estate development. As she continued to scale the brand and opened locations in more expensive markets that had deliveries accounting for 40% of sales, she thought to herself, “It would be so awesome if there was just a commissary that we could deliver tacos out of.” Her forward thinking became a reality a few years later with the launch of ghost kitchens. Sandland connected with and joined the team at Kitchen United. She says, “They were making the thing, that I, as the customer, the Chief Development Officer of a big national chain, wished existed, and so I went and joined them.” She teases that this part of her story intersects with that of her co-author, Carl Orsbourn. Orsbourn, who held a senior level position at a major convenience retail leader, where he was accountable for $1.3 billion in sales of all in-store products, shares that during his experience in that role, he started to see a change in dynamics of food, and the way in which customers were becoming increasingly more demanding about convenience and better foods. He talks about his interest in getting involved in the start-up environment, which led to a mutual friend introducing him to Meredith Sandland. He shares that although he was new to the ghost kitchen concept when Sandland first mentioned it, but once he realized the opportunity in building out a customer success model and being able to scale it, he knew it was the right next step for his career.Schatzberg asks Sandland and Orsbourn to talk about what led to them writing their book, Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food. Orsbourn shares that between the two of them, they had been working and communicating with “pretty much every major restaurant chain in America”, and as they spoke to many independents, those conversations all had a similar thread, restaurants were having an immense challenge in trying to figure out how to win when it came to off-premise. Operators wanted to know, “How do we succeed in a ghost kitchen? What are some of the ways in which we need to be better, or what we do to succeed?” Sandland shares that they decided to buy a book to help navigate operators through those uncertainties, but after doing some research, no such book existed, so they decided to write one. Sandland recalls saying, “Let's write that book. Let's help the industry. Let's try and take all the various different players that are doing some really exciting things in this space, and tell their story.” They discuss the process of interviewing numerous players in the space, such as technology and restaurant leaders, to gain the insights and strategies to winning the off-premise game. They acknowledge that although some operators have shared their fears about this being “a very scary time to be in the restaurant industry.” Orsbourn says, “It's also one of the most optimistic and exciting times as well, and the future is bright and hopefully anyone that reads Delivering the Digital Restaurant will get that feeling.”Frischling says, “I think your book is not just for the industry, but it's also I think, for the consumer and our guests to understand what is going on in this transformation and how all these different generations are interacting with the food service and hospitality industry.” Sandland adds, “It has been really well received. We're very pleased about that.”To hear more from Sandland and Orsbourn about their book, their thoughts on the rise of curbside and what's next with ghost kitchens versus virtual kitchens, check out their full chat with Schatzberg and Frischling, in this episode of Hospitality Hangout on Spotify.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy'' and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy'' chat with Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, Authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food, to discuss their new book, ghost kitchens and how to win at off-premise.Sandland talks about her background in the industry. She shares that she has spent over 10 years in the space, initially at Taco Bell, where she worked on brand turnaround, and then in real estate development. As she continued to scale the brand and opened locations in more expensive markets that had deliveries accounting for 40% of sales, she thought to herself, “It would be so awesome if there was just a commissary that we could deliver tacos out of.” Her forward thinking became a reality a few years later with the launch of ghost kitchens. Sandland connected with and joined the team at Kitchen United. She says, “They were making the thing, that I, as the customer, the Chief Development Officer of a big national chain, wished existed, and so I went and joined them.” She teases that this part of her story intersects with that of her co-author, Carl Orsbourn. Orsbourn, who held a senior level position at a major convenience retail leader, where he was accountable for $1.3 billion in sales of all in-store products, shares that during his experience in that role, he started to see a change in dynamics of food, and the way in which customers were becoming increasingly more demanding about convenience and better foods. He talks about his interest in getting involved in the start-up environment, which led to a mutual friend introducing him to Meredith Sandland. He shares that although he was new to the ghost kitchen concept when Sandland first mentioned it, but once he realized the opportunity in building out a customer success model and being able to scale it, he knew it was the right next step for his career.Schatzberg asks Sandland and Orsbourn to talk about what led to them writing their book, Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food. Orsbourn shares that between the two of them, they had been working and communicating with “pretty much every major restaurant chain in America”, and as they spoke to many independents, those conversations all had a similar thread, restaurants were having an immense challenge in trying to figure out how to win when it came to off-premise. Operators wanted to know, “How do we succeed in a ghost kitchen? What are some of the ways in which we need to be better, or what we do to succeed?” Sandland shares that they decided to buy a book to help navigate operators through those uncertainties, but after doing some research, no such book existed, so they decided to write one. Sandland recalls saying, “Let's write that book. Let's help the industry. Let's try and take all the various different players that are doing some really exciting things in this space, and tell their story.” They discuss the process of interviewing numerous players in the space, such as technology and restaurant leaders, to gain the insights and strategies to winning the off-premise game. They acknowledge that although some operators have shared their fears about this being “a very scary time to be in the restaurant industry.” Orsbourn says, “It's also one of the most optimistic and exciting times as well, and the future is bright and hopefully anyone that reads Delivering the Digital Restaurant will get that feeling.”Frischling says, “I think your book is not just for the industry, but it's also I think, for the consumer and our guests to understand what is going on in this transformation and how all these different generations are interacting with the food service and hospitality industry.” Sandland adds, “It has been really well received. We're very pleased about that.”To hear more from Sandland and Orsbourn about their book, their thoughts on the rise of curbside and what's next with ghost kitchens versus virtual kitchens, check out their full chat with Schatzberg and Frischling, in this episode of Hospitality Hangout on Spotify.

The omnichannel experience that first wreaked havoc with the retail industry quickly began to make its impact on the restaurant industry even before the pandemic. The disruption caused by the pandemic accelerated this trend requiring restaurant owners of national chains and family-run businesses as well as every restaurant version in between to adapt or die.Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland worked together at Kitchen United, a ghost kitchen headquartered in Pasadena, CA in the early days of the company still in its start-up phase. Osbourn had formerly worked in the convenience retail world for 15 years at BP in the convenience store space where he first saw the shift in consumerism coupled with an increased desire for healthier food.Prior to joining Kitchen United, Sandland spent a decade working within the restaurant industry at Taco Bell where she started in brand development and then moved on to real estate development. When the omnichannel disruption created the desire for a “commissary where she could simply deliver tacos out the door and not have a restaurant, particularly in high-congested areas such as Manhattan.”At Kitchen United, the two worked together to create a business model that would support Sandland's dreams. And Orsbourn was introduced to “this incredible ecosystem of restaurants that are looking to change and move with the times. Even though they were looking to work in a ghost kitchen environment, which, of course, was pre-pandemic at this stage, a lot of them were actually still struggling to adapt to change.”Their experiences working with clients and consumers inspired them to collaborate on writing a book that would help restaurants succeed in a ghost kitchen world. And, in 2021, they published Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food.

The omnichannel experience that first wreaked havoc with the retail industry quickly began to make its impact on the restaurant industry even before the pandemic. The disruption caused by the pandemic accelerated this trend requiring restaurant owners of national chains and family-run businesses as well as every restaurant version in between to adapt or die.Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland worked together at Kitchen United, a ghost kitchen headquartered in Pasadena, CA in the early days of the company still in its start-up phase. Osbourn had formerly worked in the convenience retail world for 15 years at BP in the convenience store space where he first saw the shift in consumerism coupled with an increased desire for healthier food.Prior to joining Kitchen United, Sandland spent a decade working within the restaurant industry at Taco Bell where she started in brand development and then moved on to real estate development. When the omnichannel disruption created the desire for a “commissary where she could simply deliver tacos out the door and not have a restaurant, particularly in high-congested areas such as Manhattan.”At Kitchen United, the two worked together to create a business model that would support Sandland's dreams. And Orsbourn was introduced to “this incredible ecosystem of restaurants that are looking to change and move with the times. Even though they were looking to work in a ghost kitchen environment, which, of course, was pre-pandemic at this stage, a lot of them were actually still struggling to adapt to change.” Their experiences working with clients and consumers inspired them to collaborate on writing a book that would help restaurants succeed in a ghost kitchen world. And, in 2021, they published Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food.

Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland are Co-authors of the book Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food. They're also the Co-founders of Learn.Delivery, a website dedicated to helping food and beverage executives optimize their off-premise businesses and succeed in the digital economy. Carl has extensive global experience implementing product strategies, change, and innovation in retail, virtual restaurant, and digital food-related environments. Previously, he was Head of Retail at BP and the Vice President of Operations at Kitchen United. Meredith spent two decades as a consultant for corporate strategy and restaurant development. She helped build over 1000 restaurants as Chief Development Officer at Yum! Brands/Taco Bell and served as the Chief Operating Officer at Kitchen United. Now, Meredith is at the forefront of the profound change in America's food consumption patterns. In this episode… The global pandemic crammed about 10 years of digital transformation into 18 months. What does this mean for the restaurant industry? According to Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn's research, it means that you now have to meet the consumer where they're at. Restaurant owners need to be prepared to serve customers wherever, whenever, and however they want to be served. This means adopting DoorDash, UberEats, or a first-party ordering platform. It also means rethinking your menu, packaging, and process for adding extra additions like beverages. So, how can you start adopting these changes today? In this episode of the SpotOn Series, Chad Franzen is joined by Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, Co-authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant, to discuss how to upgrade your digital restaurant strategy. They talk about the industry experiences that influenced their innovative ideas, why ghost kitchens and virtual brands are the way of the future, and the key takeaways from their new book.

​​Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn are co-authors of the new book Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food, which explores the massive disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of food industry veterans and start-up entrepreneurs innovating the future of food. Combining sociological observations, rich industry data, and insider knowledge, Delivering paints a picture of how food is evolving and how leaders, owners, and operators can successfully innovate and meet the new consumer demands to capitalize on the opportunities ahead.Meredith Sandland spent two decades in consulting, corporate strategy, and restaurant development. After building 1,000+ restaurants as the Chief Development Officer at Yum! Brands' Taco Bell, Meredith observed that the on-demand economy was starting to affect restaurants. Meredith joined ghost kitchen start-up Kitchen United as employee #4 to create their business model, raise initial capital, and serve as the public face of the GV (Google Ventures)-backed disruptor. Carl Orsbourn led BP-owned ampm and its billion-dollar grab-and-go food and beverage offering across the brand's 1,000+ convenience retail locations. At BP, Carl obsessed over consumer convenience and transformed ampm's fresh food offerings to deliver record growth. In 2018, Carl joined Kitchen United to lead Operations, working with restaurant brands to reinvent an operating system that capitalized on the rapidly changing face of food delivery. Carl & Meredith created Delivering the Digital Restaurant's online companion, LEARN.DELIVERY, to help restaurants succeed in the digital economy. Learn. Delivery provides access to tools designed by leading experts that enable restaurants to chart their own path to digital maturity.

Welcome to The Restaurant Coach Podcast it is the cure for the common restaurant. The digital frontier is here my friends and if your restaurant is not actively looking on creating a strategy that incorporates digital delivery into you revenue steams you are going to be in big trouble this year. Digital isn't just about … Continue reading Episode 90 – Digital Restaurant Strategies with Carl Orsbourn & Meredith Sandland →

Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn are the authors of the Amazon #1 Best-selling book, "Delivering the Digital Restaurant".  Meredith comes with experience at Bain & Company, Yum! Brands, and Kitchen United. Carl has previously worked as the Head of Retail at bp, VP of Operations at Kitchen United, and Managing Director at People's California. We are excited to share their insights!On this episode, Meredith, Carl, and Zack discuss: How restaurants can win in the coming yearsHow societal changes affect restaurantsConsumers are driving change, not VC/techWhat it's like to co-author a book during a pandemicMoreThanks, Carl and Meredith!

Without question, one of the foundational elements of our industry's future is food delivery. But, almost two years into the delivery revolution, many of us are still struggling with execution and profitability. But what if there was a roadmap that could guide us toward success? Today we chat with Carl Orsbourn & Meredith Sandland, authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant. Together, we tackle the big ideas in the book and offer some actionable advice on how you can capitalize on the massive demand out there for food delivery. TIME STAMPED SHOW NOTES [2:30] Building the playbook: The Origin Story [6:08] Translating marketing: Understanding your niche's values [7:35] The right offering for the right location [8:20] Giving the customer what they want: Making money while experimenting [9:50] Converting your customers off the delivery platforms [13:40] Expanding revenue through delivery: How to serve your consumer demand [17:20] Ghost Kitchens: The fundamentals of success [20:47] Strategies for Surprise & Delight through delivery [24:50] The rise of personalization & The future of Dine-In: It all comes down to data [28:14] Shaping your restaurant to serve [30:23] A hopeful view for the industry To pick up their book visit https://www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com FULL COMP is brought to you by Yelp for Restaurants: In July 2020, a few hundred employees formed Yelp for Restaurants. Our goal is to build tools that help restaurateurs do more with limited time. ________________________________ CLICK HERE to Chat with Josh Free Download: 5 Steps to Achieve a 15% Net Profit We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out the FULL COMP media universe by visiting: FULL COMP Restaurant Marketing School The Playbook Industry Town Halls

The pandemic has permanently changed the restaurant landscape and the way we must do business in the future. As restaurateurs, we must stay relevant to our consumer and consistently deliver convenience, value, quality and service. Countless businesses and successful companies that once dominated their industries and didn't evolve, no longer exist. Don't let this happen to your operation. In this episode of the Restaurant Rockstars Podcast, I'm speaking with Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, industry veterans and co-authors of the new book “Delivering the Digital Restaurant, the Roadmap to the Future of Food” and cofounders of Learn.Delivery. Listen on as we talk about: • The massive disruption that continues to shape our industry and what this means for you the operator • What restaurant guests are looking for in the restaurants they patronize and their new expectations • Necessary technology and customer conveniences that you must offer • The steps you must take to not just survive, but to thrive now and in the years ahead • How the labor crisis will be resolved and what your restaurant can do now And how to increase efficiency, decrease costs and lower the need for labor by pivoting to a ghost kitchen or virtual restaurant. Survival of the Fittest has never been more relevant. To move forward as restaurateurs, we must stay ahead of trends, technology, and most of all the competition. Watch or listen to this episode and then go out there and ROCK your Restaurant! Roger Thank you to our sponsors: The Restaurant Rockstars Academy – The Ultimate Start-up & Management Courses. Everything you need to know to crush it in the restaurant business: https://restaurantrockstars.com/pricing/ Sysco - https://www.sysco.com/ 7shifts – Get 3 Months of Industry Leading Labor Management for FREE: https://www.7shifts.com/restaurantrockstars

Join us for a fascinating interview with Meredith Sandland, coauthor of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Roadmap to the Future of Food.” Meredith, a former Yum Brands/Taco Bell and Kitchen United executive, joined forces with her United Kitchen colleague Carl Orsbourn to pen this best-selling tome. They artfully explore the current disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry veterans and start-up entrepreneurs.    A detailed, insightful and lively read, “Delivering the Digital Restaurant” is, indeed, a roadmap for independent restaurant operators hoping to successfully navigate the future of the business. In fact, helping independents prepare “for this new frontier was a big motivation behind the book," says Meredith.   In this episode of the Corner Booth, Meredith leads us on a deep dive into the development of ghost kitchens and virtual concepts, how and why they work, how they are different, and how more restaurant operators can succeed by using these models to expand their businesses. She also shares her three steps for takeout/delivery success that every independent operator should be doing today.   Many of us are fully aware that the digital age of restaurants is in full force. Listen in as Meredith explains how you can leverage it to build your brand. (By the way, you can order “Delivering the Digital Restaurant” directly from the publisher at https://www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com)

#142 - INTERVIEW with Carl Orsbourn & Meredith Sandland This week's episode is also sponsored by STOCK MFG. With Stock you get all the style of retail, with the price, continuity, and customer service of a traditional uniform vendor. They offer an assortment of everyday items that are ready to ship with no minimum order quantity, and can also create custom uniforms to fit any aesthetic. Visit: stockmfg.co/chip to get get started. ***** Carl and Meredith have written a book that is both limely and timeless. Delivering the Digital Restaurant tracks the events that got us to this moment and maps out a future that offers all kinds of incredible opportunities for operators who are hungry for change. The key to profitability, they say, is wrapped up in our ability to rethink what we do and how we do it. Convenience and individuality is going to be paramount in the next decade, and those who fail to recognize that will fail to exist. IMPORTANT LINKS: Order directly from Carl & Meredith: https://www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com Order the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1645439488/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1645439488&linkCode=as2&tag=restauran0e69-20&linkId=226fe096b8c05fd35f94dd228478def1 Continuing Education: https://www.learn.delivery *****Join me for a FREE 3-day challenge starting on Monday, November 29... get ready for the year ahead so 2022 can be your most profitable one yet: https://www.restaurantstrategypodcast.com/challenge

#142 - INTERVIEW with Carl Orsbourn & Meredith Sandland This week's episode is also sponsored by STOCK MFG. With Stock you get all the style of retail, with the price, continuity, and customer service of a traditional uniform vendor. They offer an assortment of everyday items that are ready to ship with no minimum order quantity, and can also create custom uniforms to fit any aesthetic. Visit: stockmfg.co/chip to get get started. ***** Carl and Meredith have written a book that is both limely and timeless. Delivering the Digital Restaurant tracks the events that got us to this moment and maps out a future that offers all kinds of incredible opportunities for operators who are hungry for change. The key to profitability, they say, is wrapped up in our ability to rethink what we do and how we do it. Convenience and individuality is going to be paramount in the next decade, and those who fail to recognize that will fail to exist. IMPORTANT LINKS: Order directly from Carl & Meredith: https://www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com Order the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1645439488/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1645439488&linkCode=as2&tag=restauran0e69-20&linkId=226fe096b8c05fd35f94dd228478def1 Continuing Education: https://www.learn.delivery *****Join me for a FREE 3-day challenge starting on Monday, November 29... get ready for the year ahead so 2022 can be your most profitable one yet: https://www.restaurantstrategypodcast.com/challenge

Hear what these two digital restaurant savants and best-selling authors, Meredith Sandland & Carl Orsbourn, have to say about the future of the restaurant industry and what possible challenges restaurant operators may face during the digital age. Our guests had the idea to write their book, Delivering the Digital Restaurant, as they ''want the industry to survive this big omnichannel shift. And to do that, they need some tools and a group discussion to talk about how to navigate this"!Moments to Listen For:• The 2 Sides of Algorithmic Growth for Restaurants  - Not only has the digital age introduced new avenues for exponential growth for restaurants such as with ghost kitchens and online ordering, but it will also allow operators to use data and algorithms to optimize their advertising & operations to help grow their brand. • Bringing the Restaurant to the People - The digital restaurant will allow brands to transcend their brick-and-mortar locations, and bring the restaurant right to their guests' doorstep. Convenience is key. • Cater to Your Workers - The new generation of workers, the Millenials and Gen-We (a.k.a Gen-Z), is a different beast. They are truly digital natives and have different priorities than previous generations such as being motivated by purpose-driven work. Reaching and appealing to them will be a challenge for many operators. • Be Nimble & Aim to Innovate - The digital age brings a lot of unknowns to the restaurant industry. To be successful, operators must be willing to innovate, experience, and recognize that they're going to fail at times. Being flexible and having an agile tech stack will help you be ready for any change that is still to come.Resources:• Get your copy of Delivering the Digital Restaurant! • 5 Things You Need to Know About Gen We.• Is Your Digital Foundation Built on Sand or Stone? • 10 Best Practices for Launching a Virtual Brand & Ghost KitchenConnect with Meredith & Carl on LinkedIn!

In the 20th episode of the Food On Demand Podcast, hosts Tom and Nick give a brief preview of this year's Food On Demand Conference, and interview Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn, authors of “Delivering the Digital Restaurant,” about delivery providers diversifying their offerings, the convergence of the grocery and restaurants, and how these changes will show themselves in the build form of suburbia.

Delivering the Digital Restaurant teaches how to build a successful digital restaurant business that will survive and thrive into the future. Authors Meredith Sandland (@meresandland) and Carl Orsbourn (@carlorsbourn) were guests on the Digital Hospitality podcast to discuss what they learned while writing their must-read restaurant business book, Delivering the Digital Restaurant Your Roadmap to the Future of Food. ➤ ORDER THE BOOK: https://www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com Three Takeaways From This Podcast Episode: https://youtu.be/Wgqlw9npU28   1. Monthly Services Make Daily Differences – There was a time when only corporate companies could afford access to digital innovations that optimized orders or operations. That time has passed. Regardless of your size or scale, consider implementing software or systems that might come with a monthly fee but will change your business for the better day after day.   2. Your Competition is Your Community – We are all in this together. By having conversations with the restaurants in your community and discussing trends in your industry, you can create a better food landscape for your city or neighborhood as a whole.   3. There's No Such Thing as Throwaway Content – With all the research that went into writing a book, Carl and Meredith still had 90 percent of their conversations scrapped from the final copy that hit Amazon. So, did they just discard it? Of course not! They will continue to share untold stories through their social platforms as should you.   When Carl Orsbourn and Meredith Sandland began writing their book, Delivering the Digital Restaurant: Your Road Map to the Future of Food, they didn't know how they'd finish it, but they knew why they had to. “Our 'why' is really about helping restaurants navigate this digital change,” beams Meredith Sandland on the Digital Hospitality podcast. “We are incredibly passionate about the magnitude of this change and want to see everyone successfully get through it and thrive because they have figured out how to master it.” As alluded, that change is seeing restaurants of every size, shape and scale embrace evolving technology to better serve their customer base and grow their business. For years, both Meredith Sandland and Carl Orsbourn have worked in different ends of the food industry, expanding brands such as Taco Bell and British Petroleum to a new world with new customers. “I was seeing the enormous level of change of better quality food in the gas station environment,” reflects Carl Orsbourn. “There's so much change happening, so many exciting things that really are only at the front of where I think this industry is going.” Meeting at ghost kitchen company Kitchen United, the co-workers turned co-authors were already on the cutting edge of where the food industry was headed in the 2020s. After years of working for big brands and joining forces at a start-up, both could see that change was imminent. However, no one knew just how much 2020 would expedite this dramatic digital shift. “Everything that's happening is really an existential crisis for the restaurant industry,” Meredith Sandland shares. “We started the book back before the pandemic when we thought this would all take three to five years to play out. Of course, the pandemic accelerated all of that and laid bare the digital divide.”   Digital Restaurants: Because of the rapid change the restaurant industry faced due to the Coronavirus pandemic, restaurants either adapted or closed during the tough and evolving times. Even for those businesses that are still standing, it's essential that they learn through their competition and peers to best adjust their strategy and tools for the good of the communities they serve. “It is critical to figure this out together,” notes Meredith. “When I think in particular of our local independent restaurants, the ones that are the fabric of our community that make ...

It's 2021 and it took a pandemic in 2020 to get a LOT of restaurants out of the stone ages and into this DECADE :) Today we're talking with Carl Orsbourn, the co-author of Delivering The Digital Restaurant. We're going to GRILL Carl on the top 3 things brick and mortar restaurants can do to capitalize on all things digital with regards to selling food. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carlorsbourn Email: carl@deliverthedish.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/carlorsbourn

For our tenth episode, we welcome the authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant, Carl Osbourn and Meredith Sandland. Delivering The Digital Restaurant explores the world of off premise food and the massive disruption facing American restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry veterans, and start up entrepreneurs. We chat about how the book came about, who it's for, and how technology can help restaurant during the labor crisis. The Restaurant Growth Podcast is presented by 7shifts, and hosted by Dominick "DJ" Costantino. About Meredith Sandland Spent two decades in consulting, corporate strategy, and restaurant development. After building 1000+ restaurants as the Chief Development Officer at Yum! Brands' Taco Bell, Meredith observed that the on-demand economy was starting to affect restaurants. Meredith joined ghost kitchen start-up Kitchen United as employee #4 to create their business model, raise initial capital, and serve as the public face of the GV (Google Ventures) backed disruptor. Meredith lives in Orange County, California with her three favorite guys: husband, Scott; son, Lincoln; and dog, Kobe. About Carl Osbourn Carl led BP-owned ampm and its billion-dollar grab-and go food and beverage offering across the brand's 1000+ convenience retail locations. At BP, Carl obsessed over consumer convenience, and transformed ampm's fresh food offerings to deliver record growth. In 2018, Carl joined Kitchen United to lead Operations, working with restaurant brands to reinvent an operating system that capitalized on the rapidly changing face of food delivery. Carl, his wife Elicia, and their two cats, Positano and Ravello, live in Orange County, California. About 7shifts 7shifts is a team management platform designed for restaurants. We help managers and operators spend less time and effort scheduling their staff, reduce their monthly labor costs and streamline team communication. The result is simplified labor management, one shift at a time.

For our tenth episode, we welcome the authors of Delivering the Digital Restaurant, Carl Osbourn and Meredith Sandland. Delivering The Digital Restaurant explores the world of off premise food and the massive disruption facing American  restaurants through first-hand accounts of restaurateurs, food industry veterans, and start up entrepreneurs. We chat about how the book came about, who it's for, and how technology can help restaurant during the labor crisis.The Restaurant Growth Podcast is presented by 7shifts, and hosted by Dominick "DJ" Costantino.About Meredith SandlandSpent two decades in consulting, corporate strategy, and restaurant development. After building 1000+ restaurants as the Chief Development Officer at Yum! Brands' Taco Bell, Meredith observed that the on-demand economy was starting to affect restaurants. Meredith joined ghost kitchen start-up Kitchen United as employee #4 to create their business model, raise initial capital, and serve as the public face of the GV (Google Ventures) backed disruptor. Meredith lives in Orange County, California with her three favorite guys: husband, Scott; son, Lincoln; and dog, Kobe. About Carl Osbourn Carl led BP-owned ampm and its billion-dollar grab-and go food and beverage offering across the brand's 1000+ convenience retail locations. At BP, Carl obsessed over consumer convenience, and transformed ampm's fresh food offerings to deliver record growth. In 2018, Carl joined  Kitchen United to lead Operations, working with restaurant brands to reinvent an operating system that capitalized on the rapidly changing face of  food delivery. Carl, his wife Elicia, and their two cats, Positano and Ravello, live in Orange County, California.About 7shifts7shifts is a team management platform designed for restaurants. We help managers and operators spend less time and effort scheduling their staff, reduce their monthly labor costs and streamline team communication. The result is simplified labor management, one shift at a time.

This week, Kevin and Jesse meet with Carl Orsbourn to discuss his upcoming book, his views on automation in the restaurant industry, the emergence of the threat from C-Store and a plethora of other insights!