POPULARITY
11 episodes with chowly
2 episodes with chowly
2 episodes with chowly
2 episodes with chowly
Restaurant tech is a double-edged sword—it can streamline operations and drive profits, or it can be just another expense that complicates everything. Sterling Douglass, co-founder and CEO of Chowly, has spent years solving that problem. He's built a platform that not only automates online ordering but also optimizes pricing, increases average check sizes, and turns data into dollars. In this episode, we unpack why most restaurant tech fails, how operators can make digital channels work for them, and the key strategies to boost sales without adding complexity. If you're ready to get more from your tech stack and grow profitably, this conversation is a must. To find out if your restaurant's website is killing your online sales, get a free audit today by clicking here.____________________________________________________________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.We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other content:Yelp for Restaurants PodcastsRestaurant expert videos & webinars
Gregory shares how he built his brand on the foundation of family values and entrepreneurial grit. Following his passion for coffee, he launched his first café in New York City in 2006 - with a focus on quality, innovation, and authentic customer experiences, Gregory's Coffee has grown into a beloved chain that still carries the heart and soul of a family business.Key Takeaways:• Schatzy and Jimmy touch on Toast Point of Sale (POS) system. A user-friendly and highly recommended POS system for restaurants, referring to it as the "Apple of point of sale.”• Brewing up some grounds-breaking news: Gregory's Coffee is expanding nationwide with Simon Property Group.• Gregory discusses the new partnership with Simon Property Group and the opening of 15 stores in key mall locations, including Southern California, Washington state, Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania - "They were looking for a brand that they thought could play well across the country, not a regional player, not too niche, something that could be catering to, you know, high-end boutique, you know, type of concept."• Jimmy recognizes a strategic and fitting collaboration, as Simon is actively working to enhance the mall experience by integrating food and beverage (F&B) options to attract customers back into physical retail spaces.• Gregory discusses leveraging technology like Chowly and Toast to enhance their delivery services, making the process more seamless and efficient both for their team and customers. Jimmy touches on the importance of "return on time”, and asks about the role of AI and automation in Gregory's Coffee's operations. Does Gregory envision a future where robots could be brewing coffee?• Committed to innovation, authenticity, and creating unique, high-quality products helps Gregory's Coffee stand out in a crowded market.• Gregory talks about "passion and grit" as Gregory's Coffee expands and his hands-on approach, ensuring that every new store opening embodies the same energy and authenticity that started the business.• In "Talking Back," Gregory flips the script, asking Schatzy and Jimmy about their current interests and focus within the intersection of technology, investing, and hospitality. Gregory mentions Steve L's work with "kernel and flippers", asking them what is exciting them the most in this rapidly evolving industry.Gregory, Schatzy, and Jimmy enjoy a lively session with games like "What's Hot and Not," "The Spice is Right," and "Trivia Tuesday”.
Simply WOW!!! What a CEO and what a program that will set you apart in the industry. Your Off-Premise Platform... Learn more about Chowly right here!
Simply WOW!!! What a CEO and what a program that will set you apart in the industry. Your Off-Premise Platform... Learn more about Chowly right here!
#59. Join host Josh Sharkey on this engaging episode of The meez Podcast as he sits down with Sterling Douglass, the dynamic co-founder and CEO of Chowly, a trailblazing food tech company that enhances your sales through strategic first and third-party distribution channels, alongside sophisticated advertising and marketing support.Sterling shares his journey from an actuary to a leading entrepreneur, revealing the challenges and triumphs of building a company. This episode dives into the innovative concept of dynamic pricing in restaurants, drawing parallels with fluctuating airline ticket costs. Sterling offers his expert insights on how this approach could revolutionize profitability in the food industry. Josh Sharkey and Sterling Douglass will both be present at this year's NRA Show as well as Utility, taking place from May 19th-20th. Drop by and meet them in person!This conversation is essential listening for anyone at the crossroads of technology and the culinary industry. Whether you're steering a startup or operating within a large corporation, the insights and advice from Sterling can profoundly impact your approach. Where to find Sterling Douglass:InstagramLinkedInTwitterWhere to find host Josh Sharkey:InstagramLinkedInTikTokTwitterIn this episode, we cover:(04:32): Sterling's background as an actuary and why he changed careers(12:44): Where the idea for Chowly came from(17:08): What Chowly is and who it serves(22:08): Why restaurants get the short end of the stick(26:22): Chowly and first party ordering(31:34): Should companies, "do it all"? Or should they focus on one thing(41:05): The 11 star experience(54:54): Being a parent and a founder
Summary The conversation focuses on scaling restaurant brands and provides tips and insights on what to consider and what to avoid. The speakers, Avi Gorin (CEO & Co-Founder of Marqii) and Sterling Douglas (CEO & Co-Founder of Chowly) share their experiences in helping restaurant groups scale their concepts. The main themes include the importance of data for investors and consumers, considerations for opening additional locations, the role of people in scaling a restaurant, the significance of brand consistency online, and the selection of a tech stack. The conversation provides insights and advice for restaurant owners looking to expand their businesses. Chapters 02:50 Transitioning from Restaurant Owner to Business Owner 11:41 The Importance of Digital Consistency in Scaling 13:21 Balancing High Standards and Growth 21:35 Challenges and Strategies for Fundraising 22:03 The Role of Data in Restaurant Evaluation 24:01 Considerations for Opening Additional Locations 25:23 The Importance of People in Scaling a Restaurant 28:19 Achieving Brand Consistency Online 32:44 Selecting the Right Tech Stack for Restaurant Expansion 40:30 Prioritizing and Setting Goals for Restaurant Growth Exclusive Partners Want to learn more about Marqii? Check them out here, and instantly level up your digital presence. Hate paying sales tax? Let DAVO do it for you, so you can pay on time, and sleep at night. Try DAVO for FREE! Connect with Closed Monday Instagram: @closedmondaypodcast Email: kyle@four-turns.com Check out that TikTok on Birthday Party Invitations. Special Offers Take a screenshot of you listening to the show, and tag @closedmondaypodcast, and I'll send you a FREE Closed Monday t-shirt. Subscribe & Share If you found value in this episode, please subscribe and share it with your friends and network. Your support helps us bring you more actionable insights every week! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/closedmondayshow/message
In today's episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg, “The Restaurant Guy,” and Jimmy Frischling, “The Finance Guy,” are joined by Sterling Douglass, Co-Founder and CEO of Chowly, Inc., and Andrew J. Nash, CEO of Targetable.Sterling and Andrew talk about Chowly's recent acquisition of Targetable and the benefits this strategic move brings to restaurant operators. They discuss their combined vision of creating an all-in-one digital ordering and marketing solution tailored specifically for small and medium-sized businesses. The duo emphasizes simplifying technology processes, minimizing workloads for operators, and providing comprehensive, done-for-you services. Their goal is to address the entire customer journey from awareness and acquisition to retention marketing.Key Takeaways:(5:16) Targetable provides cost-effective digital marketing for restaurants.(9:31) Chowly aims for an all-in-one digital ordering solution for SMBs.(12:48) Addressing the entire customer journey from awareness to retention.(16:08) Simplifying technology processes and minimizing operator workload.(19:27) Offering comprehensive, done-for-you solutions for lack of marketing staff.(24:35) Emphasizing return on time (ROT) in addition to ROI.(34:14) Focusing on discoverability, awareness, acquisition, and retention marketing.(38:53) What is the ideal marketing spend?(43:43) Leveraging organic strategies for cost-effectiveness and targeted reach.(46:13) Serving SMBs and addressing their unique challenges.Resources Mentioned:Chowly, Inc.Targetable
As voice AI and robotics technology becomes more intelligent and widely-used, one of the more common user-end complaints is that the technology is not quite sophisticated enough to handle interactions as perfectly as a human might. For example, Presto Voice AI company recently published an article detailing its “Human in the Loop” approach to voice AI: people that are able to take over if and when AI is unable to understand a human—which Presto says it does not have to do 85% of the time.Not only are robots and AI becoming more adept at understanding human guests, they are also becoming more conversational. Vox AI is (yet another) voice AI company that is looking to revolutionize the drive-thru and the company differentiates itself by claiming to be the most intelligent and conversational voice AI on the market now. RichTech Robotics — known for its robotic barista/bartender, ADAM — announced similar updates to the drink-making robot, which makes him more conversational than previous iterations.In other news this month, POS integration platform Chowly acquired digital marketing platform Targetable, and PathSpot introduced a new platform that targets food safety.
How inflation is impacting loyalty, Is big-tech stifling innovation and how is automation helping Sweetgreen see a 5 point hike in margins. All these headlines and more represent our thoughts and views on the world of restaurants, technology and off premise food in our round up of last week's hot news stories - subscribe today to The Digital Restaurant and register at www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com for more bonus content.Articles mentioned in the video:1. Dine Brands partners with Franklin Junction to grow internationally through virtual brands Related Article: Red Robin pulls the plug on MrBeast Burger and its own virtual brands 2. Paytronix shares how restaurants are adjusting loyalty to deal with inflation 3. Juicer is helping restaurants communicate value to their guests 4. Chowly's CEO pushes for ongoing restaurant tech innovation 5. Sweetgreen's infinite kitchen Access the full transcript here.Support the show
Sterling Douglass is the Co-Founder & CEO of Chowly, a leading restaurant technology company helping restaurants optimize off-premise sales and operations. Sterling began his career in data analytics as an actuary before founding Chowly. His entrepreneurial spirit drove him to make it simpler for small and mid-sized restaurants to leverage best-in-class technologies. Sterling currently serves on the President's Club of FSTEC, Advisory Council of RTN, Venture Partner at Emerging Venture Capital, and is an active angel investor in early-stage restaurant technology startups. He's also co-hosted and frequently appears on the Hospitality Hangout, Tech Chef, and Kitchen Obsessed podcasts. And was recently named one of QSR Magazine's “21 Digital Disruptors Shaping Restaurants in 2022.”On this episode, you'll learn from Sterling about:Building a digital connectionOff prem POS integrationFixing up online orderingMore!Thanks, Sterling!
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, broadcast from The National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago, hosts Michael Schatzberg "The Restaurant Guy", Jimmy Frischling "The Finance Guy", and special guest Sterling Douglass, Co-Founder & CEO of Chowly, interviewed Joe Donnelly, Group Director & Publisher of Informa's Restaurant & Food Group. The discussion centered on Informa's recent acquisition of Winsight, a company offering services in data, analytics, events, and content marketing for the foodservice industry.Winsight, with its portfolio of clients, is expected to enhance Informa's capabilities in delivering superior enterprise experience to all its restaurant clients, regardless of size. Donnelly explained that this acquisition would bolster Informa's position in the foodservice sector, especially as it already owns considerable assets in this industry across Asia. Combining these resources with Winsight and Informa's existing Nation's Restaurant News assets, they anticipate a substantial growth in their vertical.The merger of Informa and Winsight is viewed as part of the ongoing trend of consolidation in the foodservice industry, where restaurant groups and tech companies integrate to drive synergies. Donnelly highlighted that the integration process would focus on two key aspects – creating improved experiences for their audiences and attendees and increasing ROI for their customers. Informa anticipates that bringing together the assets of Winsight and its own offerings will substantially benefit the industry.Schatzberg, Frischling, and Douglass expressed their enthusiasm for the acquisition, appreciating the potential synergies between Informa and Winsight, and looking forward to this consolidation's future contributions to the restaurant and foodservice industry.To hear the questions and Donnelly's responses to “ Branded Quickfire” check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout.
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, broadcast from The National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago, hosts Michael Schatzberg "The Restaurant Guy", Jimmy Frischling "The Finance Guy", and special guest Sterling Douglass, Co-Founder & CEO of Chowly, interviewed Joe Donnelly, Group Director & Publisher of Informa's Restaurant & Food Group. The discussion centered on Informa's recent acquisition of Winsight, a company offering services in data, analytics, events, and content marketing for the foodservice industry.Winsight, with its portfolio of clients, is expected to enhance Informa's capabilities in delivering superior enterprise experience to all its restaurant clients, regardless of size. Donnelly explained that this acquisition would bolster Informa's position in the foodservice sector, especially as it already owns considerable assets in this industry across Asia. Combining these resources with Winsight and Informa's existing Nation's Restaurant News assets, they anticipate a substantial growth in their vertical.The merger of Informa and Winsight is viewed as part of the ongoing trend of consolidation in the foodservice industry, where restaurant groups and tech companies integrate to drive synergies. Donnelly highlighted that the integration process would focus on two key aspects – creating improved experiences for their audiences and attendees and increasing ROI for their customers. Informa anticipates that bringing together the assets of Winsight and its own offerings will substantially benefit the industry.Schatzberg, Frischling, and Douglass expressed their enthusiasm for the acquisition, appreciating the potential synergies between Informa and Winsight, and looking forward to this consolidation's future contributions to the restaurant and foodservice industry.To hear the questions and Donnelly's responses to “ Branded Quickfire” check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout.
Chowly is a cloud-based solution that helps restaurants of all sizes integrate third-party online ordering systems into point-of-sale (POS) systems to manage orders, payments, billing, and more.The end result is a technology that saves restaurants time and money. Earlier this year, Chowly launched its Restaurant Control Center, which serves as a centralized hub for integrations and empowers restaurants with consolidated data and business insights. Sterling found that a lot of online ordering systems had great consumer experiences or great operations and back-end experiences for restaurants, but not both. Chowly's acquisition of Koala allowed them to offer superior experiences to both consumers and restaurants. Sterling predicts that dynamic pricing will take off in 2023, with companies like Sauce, Pricing and Juicer leading the way. Apps need to provide an intrinsic value. They can't just be used to check a box. Dynamic pricing will be a shaky system at first, but after 18-24 months, it will have found its footing and be widely accepted by consumers. Quotes “Co-opetition is wild in the restaurant space. The amount of overlap of features from point-of-sale to online ordering companies to loyalty systems to marketing systems – everyone's got overlap of features.” (Sterling) “I feel like the restaurant industry is going through a bundling cycle right now. It's not uncommon to see industries go through bundling and unbundling cycles.” (Sterling) “The consolidation has to make sense. It has to pair well together. Consolidation for consolidation's sake isn't helpful to anyone.” (Sterling) “The first question to ask is, ‘Do I need another app on my phone?' I'm at the point now where the only time an app really matters is if it's completely built with the customer in mind.” (Joseph) “Half of the restaurant industry is small operators and independents. We don't have the same big-player mentality (as the travel industry).” (Sterling) “You can't commoditize a really great burger. The airlines are very much commoditized. The experiences are very similar. In a restaurant, they're completely different.” (Sterling) “As digital threatens the viability of restaurant dining rooms, the question becomes, ‘What makes my dining room worth sitting in?'” (Joseph) “Restaurants need to meet consumers where they are. I don't think on-premise is going away, no matter how much I love the convenience of getting my food delivered to me.” (Sterling) Quotes 00:00.55 vigorbranding Hey guys today I'm joined by my new friend sterling Douglas he's the co-founder and Ceo of Chali which we're gonna dive into a lot so many things happening over there and just so you know we've been chatting for about 10 minutes on all things. So I think it's gonna be great episode. Ah. Sterling say hello and give up a backstory. 00:17.83 Sterling _Chowly_ Hey Joseph thanks for having me on I'm excited to kind of dive into a bunch of these topics that we were getting into yeah cofounder Ceo Chali where digital platform that enables restaurants to expand their off-prem capabilities before. Chaey I used to be an actuary deep into data analytics and just found that data really wasn't moving cleanly between restaurants and you know that really prompted kind of the founding for chaey so that we could take data from you know uber eats grubhubs of the world and help restaurants kind of adopt this new technology without. You know the operational headaches that a lot of them break. 00:56.73 vigorbranding Yeah,, that's Amazing. So Let's actually just dig right into that founding a little bit. Um, suffice to say online ordering and the tech that you got into there's a lot of players out there. So what. Really prompted because it seems like a big risk right? It's like I'm going to launch another online ordering platform you're going into a C of a lot of varying degrees of competition from the old guard to the New. Um, what made you feel like hey I think we're going to do this Better. We're going to do this different. 01:26.51 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah I mean look over the years um I've looked at hundreds of online ordering and white label tools from like you said you know groups that started in you know, 2003 2005 and to you know some of the recent upstarts that have raised a lot of venture capital. They get their business going. It's something that we've been deep but we we partner with a ton of them. We've resold them. We've referred them. We've helped restaurants get stood up and we've gotten all this feedback. Um, and we always got to ask that question. Restaurant. All the time like hey, what's chali going to do an online ordering tool and and I always mostly just said I don't't really want to there's there's already so many out there. But what we ended up finding is that there was always most of these online ordering Tus fell into 2 buckets 1 they had great. Ah, front end and consumer experience which which was really helpful but then they lacked on the backend and the operational side at the restaurant. It was hard to manage didn't really work with their point of sales system or fifth or flow or you found the exact opposite scenario. Really great backend operational side. Ah, but the consumer experience was pretty lacking. Um. And so when we were kind of evaluating this the the opportunity to bring Koala under the same umbrella came out and the most interesting part to me is that that's all they do is the frontend and the consumer experience and they're so good at it. Even the biggest dog out there in the online ordering space olo refers them in and as a top partner. 02:53.52 vigorbranding Are. 02:55.47 Sterling _Chowly_ So we found literally the best in class on the frontend and on the chaey side most of our product is the operational flow. We're helping you know things like Gruhub and uber eats fit into the restaurants flow integrated the point of sale get all the data and everything so we knew we were really good at that. And 1 of the reasons that we didn't want to build that is because we knew it's really hard to be good at both. You know we didn't have the rightup on staff. It would have taken a long time and even if we did build it. It have been expensive and it still might not have been enough and so this opportunity to bring Koala and is like hey we can actually get both of these things we can have literally the best in-class consumer experience. And the best in class operational experience to the restaurant and if we can truly meld those together that's going to be the best experience for the restaurant industry and especially in the independent operator space where they just you know they don't have a good option to kind of get multiple things under 1 roof. 03:48.33 vigorbranding Yeah, and so for for those who have been um, either stuck in the kitchen and not able to ah bring their head up for the last few weeks chali just completed acquisition of Koala if you're unfamiliar with Koala we did do an episode with Brett ah from koala a few back and we'll make sure we have a link to that in our show notes. Um, Koala basically started ah for lack I'm going to make this sound really dumb. But basically they skinned the olo dot com services so you had a bit more brand control. You had a bit more um control over upsells and how that looks instead of just the out of the box solution that olo provides. And I think thereby reducing the um average of 5 clicks to get through a completion of an order so you guys scoop them up at its core chali started as more um, would you say an integration mechanism between pos and online ordering. 04:39.29 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, yeah, point of sale integration company. You know how we described ourselves for a while almost an api as a service right? because we were basically leveraging and creating apis to help data flow between these systems so bringing in you know Koala that specializes on. 04:49.10 vigorbranding Um, a. 04:57.66 Sterling _Chowly_ The user experience. Not only is it are they veniacal about conversion rates which I think is is lacking in the restaurant space but they've got you know machine learning that helps make recommendations to increase basket sizes and the customization of it is so Amazing. Go look at you know Mod pizza. And go look at Pf chains's they're both koala but they're completely different experiences. They're unique to the brand and it was one of the things that I thought was so special about what they were building. 05:25.60 vigorbranding I love that. So yeah, chali essentially is the zapier of the ah of the restaurant technology world. You know what's interesting is when you go when you go to the website. The Chali website. Um I think a lot of us who aren't super integrated into the online ordering and in the pos world. You know you say online orderering most people are going to say grubhub postmates door uber eats and maybe another one and and what's funny to me is like I almost had to take a step back and question how much I know about this industry when I see your ticker of logos and I'm like oh brother I haven't heard of like half of these. Um, oh my gosh. 05:58.63 Sterling _Chowly_ Um. 05:59.98 vigorbranding And so it's interesting to see um to see those those competitors out there now when when looking at Koala as a mechanism to get into a stronger online ordering offering. How do you imagine? That's going to play out. Um. As being basically viewed as a competitor to some of the folks that may have been a partner in the past. 06:21.42 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, yeah, so so 2 things on this one? Ah co-optition is just wild in the restaurant space. The amount of overlap of features from point of sales to online ordering companies to loyalty systems to marketing ones. 06:29.00 vigorbranding A. 06:38.67 Sterling _Chowly_ Everyone's got overlap of feature sets. That's that's something that's really just become standard in the industry. So that's not new, all right? Some of our partners have ah Third -party marketplace integrations and they just use us for the point- ofale side some of them are point- ofale systems that have a couple direct integrations but use us for everything else. And so that's commonplace in this industry. That's not new. Um, so for us, it's it's really something that isn't going to shock a lot of people but I think the important part that we need to always maintain and that we will is to create an even playing field. Ah, koala module and how it says today is going to work and use the exact same api that we make available to everybody so it doesn't matter whether you're you know billion dollar publicly traded grubhub you're using the same api that a new startup is using on the online ordering side that built to our system. And that's the same as we what koal is going to be using so making sure that we have an even playing field for everybody is is important and to be honest, the the co-opetition is not new. It's something that's been around for a while. 07:45.87 vigorbranding Yeah I love that it's um, it's It's part of I think a bigger issue too or not issue. But I think a new wave of challenges that are coming because the restaurant industry was so far behind in technology comparatively to other industries that are way ahead. Um. 08:02.41 vigorbranding I think we're going to start to see a lot more of this convergence of tech. Um, how do you see that playing out now. Obviously you know you know the the Chali roadmap. Ah even the stuff that we're not allowed to know yet. Um, but as you look around the the landscape. 08:19.10 Sterling _Chowly_ Is it. 08:20.87 vigorbranding Um, is this something that you're cheering on like this consolidation converging. Um and and where do you think the next step is going to be with this. Um, once we've aced the the combination of pos on online ordering What's the next um world that we're going to enter into. 08:35.93 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, so when when we think about the the convergence or the the consolidation and the tech space. You've got you had globs of venture capital poured into tech tech companies into the restaurant space and they all focused on a specific problem to solve because. Restaurants are deceptively difficult business models and people often underestimate how complicated it is and how big a business you can build solving one really meaningful pain point that restaurants have so you created a ton of these companies in all different spots. And as you've seen customer or as you've seen restaurants you know, go through last year where you just saw this crazy increase in labor costs and food cost all of a sudden it made a lot more sense for them to maybe I can reduce vendors save a few dollars here I might not get best of breed. But I'll still get enough for me to kind of make the advances and technology to meet my my consumers where they are and so you started to see a lot more of that consolidation and so I I feel that the restaurant industry is going through a bundling cycle right now. And it's not uncommon for industries to go through bundling and unbundling cycles. We weren't through a big unbundling cycle where best to breed was really taking place because the acceleration that covid you know, provided for restaurants and now you're starting to see a bit of a bundling cycle. Ah, and so. 09:47.89 vigorbranding Um, and. 10:05.28 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, you're going to see some of it but at the same time There's so much innovation coming in the restaurant industry so you're seeing consolidation on certain features. But you're still seeing tons of innovation in new ones you're seeing you know what's next I mean dynamic pricing is going to really take off this year that's a new and kind of separate. Ah, you know piece of technology that's going to go and it's going to grow a ton companies like sauce pricing and and juicer you know I'm they're the talk of the show and so you're gonna be seeing a lot of that you're seeing a lot on the data side. So you're seeing a lot of data consolidation. Not just from the point of sale. But how do I get my what. 10:25.37 vigorbranding Yep. 10:43.43 Sterling _Chowly_ You know my food costs my labor costs my sales and my customer and my payments all in 1 place. So I can look at these things together and so I think you're going to see just as much innovation in new companies and new product lines as you're going to see on the consolidation side. But I think the consolidation has to make sense. It has to pair well together consolidation for consolidation's sake I don't think is helpful to anybody. 11:07.24 vigorbranding Yeah I think it's a natural progression that you kind of talk about I mean what we saw is We had these Og old Guard Pus systems that sort of just tacked online ordering on as a oh yeah and we and we do that? Um, and I think what's great about um the innovation world or whatever you want to call it is. 11:17.59 Sterling _Chowly_ This is. 11:24.49 vigorbranding People see that and they say hey this actually is not good and that's like that is the seed of innovation we can do it better and if we can find a way to tap into that system. Well now we have a nice path forward. So you're right? It is this like natural ebb and flow. Where innovation really is the driver as people zero in on the pain points of those like micro. Not even maybe micro but like little bits of the of the picture that are already there from the Pos system. So they're focused on their machines. They're focused on their hardware. Maybe their software online orderings tacked on and actually it's funny because I see that happen a lot with email marketing. 11:59.31 Sterling _Chowly_ Is it. 12:01.30 vigorbranding Feel like it's like hey we have online ordering and email marketing is a thing too Anyway, the online ordering and you're like right? but that is such a huge thing that could be so much better with segmentation and automation and all these things but you just sort of crammed it on there. Ah I'm looking at you toast I'm sorry. But. 12:10.72 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, yes. 12:20.53 Sterling _Chowly_ Um. 12:21.57 vigorbranding Email marketing system is terrible and you could tell it's an afterthought. Um, so if you just open up a little bit guys then then other email marketing Anyway, all right off topic but the other thing that you mentioned too. Yeah. 12:25.32 Sterling _Chowly_ It. No, it's but but it's a good point because it's box checking tech right? like I need to check a box on this Rfp or I need to say that I have it I mean the amount of the amount of restaurants who say well I have to have loyalty right because in in the head they're like I need it and then I dig in and I'm like well what. Loyalty mean like what? what are the features that do it I get answers from being able to reorder something to email to things that are more of a crm and there's this huge sloth of things and a lot of a lot of companies especially tech companies get a deal done. They do box checking. 13:05.61 vigorbranding Right. 13:07.47 Sterling _Chowly_ And that was exactly what I wanted to do avoidid when we looked at Koal I wanted this to really make sense really be complimentary I wanted the missions do a line you know I wanted core values to align like it had to make sense for it really to truly work in my head. 13:21.94 vigorbranding Yeah, it's interesting. Um, you know, bringing up the loyalty side of things. Ah there sales people are always to blame I'm sorry guys I love you. But it's always that you know because it's like you're so good at your job. But. The first question hasn't been asked which is like do I need another app on my phone and and if it's just to check the box that I came here isn't there a better way now you know friends at big check and I'm sure you've run into them before Sam Standovich and and ah Jason Jason um great guys. 13:41.30 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, this. 13:49.53 Sterling _Chowly_ Course. 13:54.00 vigorbranding I mean they took that and ran I got to hear them talk um last year a little bit about it and they just they've connected it to the thing that matters most which is your payment mechanism and it's like yes we want to benefit you if you come here often. We don't need you to download an app I'm at the point now like where the only time an app really matters is if it's. Completely built with the customer in mind like Starbucks like Papa John's like some of these well-designed apps that are out there these out-of-the-box solutions are just that it's it's it's a loyalty. Yeah and not loyalty. It's ah it's a repeat traffic tracker and a fast track to getting into a mobile order. Um, have you seen have you I mean do you agree and do you see a world where those experiences are going to become better and more worth it because I've I've heard leaders basically say like we did the app and we paid for it and um, it just doesn't work for us. 14:48.31 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, it is a It's a hot topic because there are situations where it it really depends on the intrinsic value that you're providing So when I when I talk to to restaurants and they say I want an app you really dig in and and understand why and I have found that. Typically when they want the app to want the app while they go with a vendor who checks the box and they get in what they they get out what they put in but I've also seen situations where ah, they've wanted to get the mobile app because it's an it's they're meeting where their consumers want the. 15:18.39 vigorbranding Um, here. 15:27.35 Sterling _Chowly_ Have customers who actually want to interact this way when you're on mobile you have you can actually create easier flows. You can make it easier to order. You can build all of really good hospitable experience in it and then all of a sudden you've seen it like literally make them more money because all of a sudden they know that 10% of their traffic's going through. 15:41.43 vigorbranding Are. 15:47.24 Sterling _Chowly_ App because that's what their consumers are using the app has a 2.9 rating on the app store has a crappy conversion rate then they get 1 and they say hey we already know we have customers here. We want to give them a better experience and you build it with that intention. All the sudden you have a 4.9 rating on the app store. You're converting 70% other users that start in order and all of a sudden you went from 10% of your sales to 20% of the sales and it's almost all incremental. That's when it makes a difference That's when you're providing that intrinsic value. So we we have this discussion a ton internally on like what are we doing with the mobile app. And on my side I'm like ah we need to provide intrinsic value like we're not going to make the box checking product. That's not what I but I want us to do um and so when we provide that intrinsic value I think it is there. So I think that having that has tons of advantages to both restaurants big and small. Ah, but it has to be done with this intent and it has to be done deliberately and if you do it that way. That's how I think you can provide a great experience and at the end of the day make the restaurant more money and make their customers happier. 16:53.70 vigorbranding Yeah, love that and in online ordering I think is probably the better approach to really thinking about loyalty loyalties beginning start with repeat traffic repeat purchases and having a fantastic um experience time in timeout whether it's digital. Physical in Personson or even non-transactional and so if you have control over that online ordering report and you have the look there then it makes a lot of sense that you could easily start to push that into what does loyalty really look like and how do we reward it. How do we recognize it? um. And and it sounds like that's what koalas the acquisition of Koala is giving you almost a basis to start to approach. Um, maybe I'm digging into something you shouldn't talk about but it seems like that's the path forward right? yeah. 17:34.81 Sterling _Chowly_ But yeah, we we have so much work to do on. You know, getting getting the the first party experience the mobile app experience our third party experience making all the data we have enough on our plate right now I'm not not trying to add big things like that. Right now we have we have some great partners today on that side that are are experts in this and that's that's what we want to let them do. 18:02.86 vigorbranding I love it if it's being considered blink twice I'm just kidding all right? So no, that's great so you did bring up a topic that so I do think we're going to have Carl from juicer on the show here soon? Um I'm excited about it I am a. 18:16.64 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, excellent. 18:20.34 vigorbranding Unk Bullwark against dynamic pricing. Ah yeah, like like don't buy into it I get it from the operator side. It is so sexy to be able to make the money you want to make I think it's going to be a loyalty killer or at least in the way it's being thought about now. So tell me your I would love to hear your hot takes on dynamic pricing and how do you think. 18:21.43 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah I bet. 18:40.25 vigorbranding We can launch dynamic pricing without harming our our loyalists the people who they know that with tax. My pizza is going to be 1172 and now all of a sudden because it's Friday at six p m my pizza is 1892 um, how do we. Tackle that right. 19:00.58 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, yeah I I think there's a I can take this in a lot of different directions. Ah but let me start out by dynamic pricing is not applied to every purchase. Ah the same. 19:20.41 Sterling _Chowly_ There's there's a handful of ways that dynamic pricing can be kind of dispatched to make sure that you're not harming that that experience to your loyal loyalless and I can think of ah a ton that are literally live today and ones that will probably be live as the end of years. The technology gets better and better. But I think to start most of the uses I'm seeing on dynamic pricing are with third -party marketplaces and on these third -party marketplaces customers are paying for convenience. It's not a very It's not the most profitable channel for the restaurants and the operators. And so what dynamic pricing is really saying like hey if you want the added convenience. It's pushing that cost to the consumer when they're really busy and they have the opportunity and they say you know I have 100 orders to fill in this hour I can only fill eighty. how do I how do I handle that how do I maximize and optimize my my operations well basically making that eighty first order slightly more expensive and then the eighty second order a little bit more in the eighty third order a little bit more now. All of a sudden. The customers are paying for the convenience and ones that they really want it. 20:13.62 vigorbranding Or. 20:30.23 Sterling _Chowly_ And the restaurant is being able to benefit from like the convenience and like this is going to stress my system. It's going to be harder and harder for me to ah execute this order these orders so by the time I get to the one hundred and first order the risk in the executing it well to provide a good experience is already. There. So if I can help taper that down. So I don't get that high and I can optimize those orders so they're profitable. It's helping really share the risk. It's helping diversify that and it's why it's actually better for the customer because the customer look this restaurant's just too busy to take this order right now if you really really want it. Like you can have it but you can also self self select out so that you don't have a bad experience because it's hard to execute orders the busier that it gets so I think that's one case where it's really smart. You can always buy it to your third parties but not your first party so your loyal customers are going to be owing from your first party icing groups starting to do subscription services. You could easily set it so anyone who's part of like your subscription. Service always gets like standard pricing there. There's a number of ways that you can handle this and look restaurants are really good at being hospitable. They're getting better at doing it in the new digital world and I think that yeah when it first starts out. It's going to be shaky. You're going to have some grumpy customers. 21:26.71 vigorbranding Um, a. 21:45.49 Sterling _Chowly_ But we're going to figure this out and as long as technology companies continue to be mer first think about their operators and think about the experience I think that this is going to work and it's going to be normal. It's going to be standard. You know you know 12 to twenty four months from now. 21:58.30 vigorbranding Yeah I mean how how do how do you think that we prevent from getting into more of ah ah the same situation that happened with travel right? with Ota's online travel advisors because that's that's the other thought side is like everyone's like look at it worked for the travel industry I'm like did it because like now. The margins are even more razor thin. The competition is even fiercer. Um, that doesn't seem like a really good output for the industry like I get everything you're saying I don't disagree with what you said either I think it makes sense. It's almost like expenditure-d driven throttling as opposed to literal throttling. 22:34.95 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, exactly. 22:37.70 vigorbranding Um, but you know this this all of a sudden like I Love my hamburger from you know, sterling's burger shack but man that thing's double now. So I guess I'll try this other one that I wasn't going to try now I become a little more a little less loyal right. 22:54.46 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, yeah, but you're also trying out another restaurant and the other restaurant has a better burger. Ultimately, that's better for you as the consumer right? So like if you know at the end of the day. There's a bounce you know when Chali first started the third party marketplace. 23:00.38 vigorbranding Sure yeah. 23:12.42 Sterling _Chowly_ Ecosystem was really different I mean uber eats wasn't a marketplace. It was literally a guy drive around his car with hot subbs around a busy block for a couple hours during lunch. Um, you know e 24 was actually one of the biggest ones at the time so it was very different ah very different industry when we joined and. 23:19.48 vigorbranding A. 23:24.94 vigorbranding Oh wow, Yeah, go back. 23:32.37 Sterling _Chowly_ I remember going through investor conversations and everyone told me the same thing. It's like us's just like the travel industry. It's just like the travel. Everything's gonna end up just like the expedia of the world and my ah my counter to that was that absolutely not. This industry is completely different. Um, the amount of. Diversity you have in the supply side is great half of the restaurant industry is small operators independent Only half are big chains so you're you're going to run into issues. There's only a dozen airlines and there's 3 that do like 80% of travel so you don't have the same big player mentality. 24:07.52 vigorbranding Um, a. 24:10.13 Sterling _Chowly_ You also have a crazy amount of reinvigoration and into the supply 3% of all restaurants go to business every single month and 3.1% open up new every single month you have a constant rotation of supply and so your players are always changing. This is not at all how the travel industry works. Um, not to mention the business models are completely Different. You can't commoditize a really great burger like it's just not how it works.. The airlines are very much commoditized. The experiences are very similar. 24:34.68 vigorbranding Um, a. 24:40.41 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, in a restaurant. They're completely different and all it takes is a new general manager new ownership and even at the same brand The experience will change a ton that type of like diverse Variability. That's just constant in your face makes it a completely different Industry. So I've never thought that it was going to turn like the travel agencies. I get on the surface. There's similarities but the fundamental business model that restaurants are is very very unique and very complex very different from most other businesses. 25:09.60 vigorbranding Yeah,, that's ah, it's a great response to it. Um, you know taking into account like travel in general. Um, and again mother of all inventions. So if it does create the ah you know the pain for people there will be someone that comes along to try to solve that pain. It's the beauty of ah. Free market enterprises and you know ability to innovate. 25:29.85 Sterling _Chowly_ If if if point- ofsale systems and third party marketplaces built their products with open apis in minds and were really like embracing of moving data chali would have never existed. 25:42.99 vigorbranding Um, yeah. 25:45.26 Sterling _Chowly_ We existed to solve that pain point and that pain point didn't exist before 2012 right it it didn't barely existed when we started really the problem really exacerbated 2019 2020 so it's ah it's the same thing. 25:53.45 vigorbranding Um, right. 26:02.93 vigorbranding Yeah, absolutely love it. So one of the things obviously that that sparked I think a rapid embracing of technology. We were kind of embracing it as an industry but um, you know, being forced into our houses and having to find a different way to get our food really just kicked it into the highest gear possible. Um, do you think that the behaviors have permanently changed like from consumers like obviously some things have come back but not to the way that we saw it. Um, do you think there's a world where dining in person becomes. More adopted than it has been in the last year or so or do you think we're we're in the hey the way I get my food is from the palm of my hand. 26:47.34 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah I think ah, yeah, like covid accelerated things a ton it. It took consumer adoption and drastically increased it. But you know what also has happened over the past three or four years that had nothing to do with covid. Is that a larger percentage of the gen z generation has disposable income and is entering the workforce. This is a generation that grew up with tablets grew up with screens. They've been order on doordashson's before high school so you're going to see the natural progression that we have but then you also saw each of these generations. Take a big jump during the pandemic because they had to so baby boomers went from being 2 out of 10 wanting to order app from 4 out of 10 that's double and you saw you know gen z's always been I think like 8 out of 10 but now genzrep you know is double represents instead of you know. 27:30.66 vigorbranding Um. 27:38.19 Sterling _Chowly_ 3% of the workforce at 6% I'm making up those numbers. Someone will fact, check me and correct me on it. But you're seeing kind of both of those factors come into play and you know restaurants again. They need to meet consumers where they are and so that'll be part of it. So Yeah I think it's definitely changed but I Also don't think On-premise is going away. No matter how much I love the convenience of getting my food. You know, delivered to me or I go pick it up I Also love sitting down Love breaking bread with people interacting with people ordering food getting recommendations like that experience I don't think goes away at All. It's just kind of the the percentage share. That that people kind of want to enjoy their food. 28:19.60 vigorbranding Yeah I Love that I think it it makes the interior design and the architectural and and the customer experience I think even more important. Um so many branches open up and it's like throw throw tables in there. Get some paint on the walls or vinyl If you're the person I'm thinking Of. Um, and you know just give them give them a roof and give them a seat and then get them out. Um, you know so we can turn the table but I do think now is the time as as I don't want to use the word threat but I will but as digital threatens the viability of our dining rooms. The question becomes like what makes my dining room. Worth. Sitting in you know and and I think Tech desperately has a role to play there to make the ordering experience even better I've said it before I've I've made some people mad about it. But I'm like I'm not quite sure that my waiter is always the better Choice. Um. 28:57.99 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, yeah. 29:11.39 Sterling _Chowly_ It yeah a hundred percent I mean look at there's there's restaurants who like look at jets pizza. For example, the average jets pizza has to have like 3 or 2 tables in it. It is it is meant for like it is meant for pickoff. 29:14.70 vigorbranding The way we use them. Yeah. 29:19.00 vigorbranding E. 29:27.10 vigorbranding Um, bright. 29:28.70 Sterling _Chowly_ Is meant for delivery that is how they've designed their business model. That's what their consumers have wanted. They've leaned into it. They added things like text ordering super early and like that's when they're focused and they've done really? Well then I can point to a number of other different change that. Never did delivery or or pick up even during a pandemic when they didn't do it and that was another route to go and they're very successful and I enjoy going to these places I mean during the pandemic you saw I saw in Chicago especially there's. 1 2 and even 3 michelin star restaurants that were doing pickup and to go and they actually did really well and when the pandemic ended they ended those services but what they did do is they got involved in separate companies that focused on that and now you have literally you have ah. 30:00.98 vigorbranding A a. 30:18.17 Sterling _Chowly_ Are restaurant groups. So the guy like guys from Millenia For example, ah you know you have basically similar quality that they had on their takeout for finish at home and now it's available for delivering you can order it through an appp right? And so sometimes you want that super high quality food. You're going to finish it at home like that's its own experience in itself. 30:34.72 vigorbranding Right. 30:36.80 Sterling _Chowly_ There's a company called called entree doing this out of Chicago and and so that the experiences are shifting but the fundamentals are all there and again it's just meeting your customers where they are. 30:49.87 vigorbranding I Love that. So obviously so far it's already a pretty darn big year for chali. Um, what's next man like what are you? What are you able to kind of tease out there. What does the future hold for the company. 31:02.54 Sterling _Chowly_ Yeah, now we've ah we've got a big year in the store. This is just the beginning in January we we launched our new restaurant control center with some really cool, unique features that a lot of restaurants haven't seen and kind of putting them back in the driver seat giving them more control. Um, we've got a few features in there now we're going to pump a lot more into that throughout the year you've got the the bringing Koala in-house. So we're going to be able to have a combined offering for the s and b space. Um, you know right around midyear timeframe and there's there's more to come. 31:38.15 Sterling _Chowly_ We're we're not done yet. We've got a lot. We want to accomplish we think we're really well positioned to do it and you know to be honest, it's it's all for the sake of helping restaurants and I've never had a clearer picture of what we can do to help them. So yeah, more to come. And know it's only march third but I'm excited you know for? What's next. 31:57.14 vigorbranding Yeah, it's a big year. Um, final question then I'll let you get back to your day ah might be the hardest 1 of all if you had 1 final meal. What would you eat where would you eat it and why. 32:09.46 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, man um I know it's probably a corny answer but it would probably be my mom's homemade Mac and cheese that she's been making for me since I was a kid. 32:22.71 vigorbranding Oh. 32:27.10 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, it's ah I've never had anything quite like it. It's It's unique. Reminds me a home and I love it growing up and still love it every time I go visitor so that would probably be it. 32:40.60 vigorbranding I did not corny at all I've said it before my my final meal is Thanksgiving dinner. Um, you know I just I love it whenever I'm blue or feeling stressed out I find a way to make thingsgiving dinner and it's just the best. 32:44.41 Sterling _Chowly_ Um, nice. Oh yeah. 32:51.51 Sterling _Chowly_ Whatever whenever I'm balloons stressed out. It's usually pootine least healthy, but absolutely delicious thing. So you know that's that's probably the more common occurrence I can't get my mom to ship me Mac and cheese. You know too much. 32:56.78 vigorbranding Yeah, well. 33:04.15 vigorbranding I Can't blame you come on Mom step up a vet man. That's awesome. Well hey man thanks for being so candid. Thanks for everything you're doing for the industry I'm really excited about what's happening next with chali. 33:11.86 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, not she's she's amazing. She's amazing. 33:24.90 vigorbranding Um I will have all the links to Chali and the ah and your social channels and all that stuff as well. But is there a way for people to connect with you directly sterling. 33:33.33 Sterling _Chowly_ Ah, yeah I mean look I'm I'm not hard to find very active on on Linkedin go through all that it's usually the best place to reach out, get people connected I go to a lot of conferences and shows love visiting. You know, different cities restaurants and things like that I so always happy to to chat. But. Mean our website's the best place for for chali information to get in contact with us if you fill out that form. We reach out. You know, literally in minutes. So we're not, we're not hard to get a hold of. 34:00.60 vigorbranding I Love it man. Thanks again for all your time I appreciate it and we'll we'll catch up real soon. Hopefully in person. 34:05.91 Sterling _Chowly_ Thanks for having me Joseph.
One consequence of success for a startup is outgrowing the very strategies that made you successful. As an experienced founder, it's a challenge Justin McNally was prepared to tackle as Chowly grew from a seedling idea to a market leader in point-of-sale integration. At each stage of growth, Justin's role, and sometimes title, evolved to meet the changing needs of the organization. Through the lens of his current role as Chief Innovation Officer, Justin discusses traversing the gap from startup to established company, shifting hiring emphasis from generalists to specialists, and adapting competitive strategies as a market matures. He also offers perspective on avoiding stagnation and continuing to innovate even as the risk calculations change with scale. (01:07) - Starting Chowly (05:16) - Growing up with entrepreneurship(12:33) - Defining your moat(16:55) - How risk tolerance changes with growth (19:06) - Checking your ego at the door as a founder(21:52) - Role of the Chief Innovation Officer(24:35) - What's ahead for Chowly and the industry Currently, Justin McNally is the Chief Innovation Officer at Chowly, a direct POS integration for third-party delivery platforms. Justin is an experienced founder with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. He graduated with a BLA focused on Interactive Arts & Media from Columbia College Chicago. Some of his skills include Digital Strategy, PHP, WordPress, Ruby on Rails, and Content Management Systems.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Innovation and the Digital Enterprise in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps others find the show.Podcast episode production by Dante32.
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Sterling Douglass, Co-Founder & CEO of Chowly.Douglass says “Chowly is a leading point-of-sale integration company. We're enabling restaurants to expand and maintain different off-premise capabilities. So you know today we're seamlessly integrating orders from all the biggest platforms. So, Grubhub Uber Eats, DoorDash, and when Google food ordering came out last year and we've got a couple of hundred other integrations on different platforms.” He adds, “We've got over 12,000 restaurants on our platform and they're increasing their revenue. They're improving their operational flow and they're saving on labor costs.” The guys tease with breaking news that will be shared on this podcast and Douglass shares it. He says, “So with great pleasure and excitement to announce we've closed the deal to bring Koala this is an online ordering company with an absolutely stellar best-in-class guest experience platform under the Chowly umbrella, we are combining forces. We are the same company and we're going to be bringing an amazing product to the space. I can't be more excited about what the future brings for these 2 companies and what we can do together.”Douglass noted that Koala's mission statement is what really spoke to him. He says, “their mission statement is to democratize premium online ordering for restaurants and so when I thought about what we could do in combination with them and you know they've done a great job with companies like Shake Shack and Mod pizza and P.F. Chang's. If we could bring that experience and the revenue generators and the features that they have and we could bring that to the mom and pop and to the independent operator I thought what better way could we help accelerate that aspirational mission that they have.”To hear more about the acquisition and the answers to the Tuesday trivia questions, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout.
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Sterling Douglass, Co-Founder & CEO of Chowly.Douglass says “Chowly is a leading point-of-sale integration company. We're enabling restaurants to expand and maintain different off-premise capabilities. So you know today we're seamlessly integrating orders from all the biggest platforms. So, Grubhub Uber Eats, DoorDash, and when Google food ordering came out last year and we've got a couple of hundred other integrations on different platforms.” He adds, “We've got over 12,000 restaurants on our platform and they're increasing their revenue. They're improving their operational flow and they're saving on labor costs.” The guys tease with breaking news that will be shared on this podcast and Douglass shares it. He says, “So with great pleasure and excitement to announce we've closed the deal to bring Koala this is an online ordering company with an absolutely stellar best-in-class guest experience platform under the Chowly umbrella, we are combining forces. We are the same company and we're going to be bringing an amazing product to the space. I can't be more excited about what the future brings for these 2 companies and what we can do together.”Douglass noted that Koala's mission statement is what really spoke to him. He says, “their mission statement is to democratize premium online ordering for restaurants and so when I thought about what we could do in combination with them and you know they've done a great job with companies like Shake Shack and Mod pizza and P.F. Chang's. If we could bring that experience and the revenue generators and the features that they have and we could bring that to the mom and pop and to the independent operator I thought what better way could we help accelerate that aspirational mission that they have.”To hear more about the acquisition and the answers to the Tuesday trivia questions, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout.
Couch Dining made easier with Roku & why independents should be excited for the Google/Toast deal. All these headlines and more represent our thoughts and views on the world of restaurants, technology and off premise food in our round up of the last week's hot news stories - subscribe today to the Monday Minute and register at www.learn.delivery for more bonus content. Articles mentioned in the video:1. Toast teams up with Googlehttp://bit.ly/3YH9QIPhttp://bit.ly/3Yu1RiDhttps://bit.ly/3S74uEV2. Uber's Full Year results reviewhttp://bit.ly/3IhJack3. Chipotle's robotic makelinehttps://bit.ly/3jLTyQihttp://bit.ly/3HRapJu4. Chowly acquires Koalahttp://bit.ly/3ROklIh5. Roku partners with DoorDashhttp://bit.ly/3jTIOPN-Follow us on our socials!Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/learn.deliveryInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedigital.restaurant/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LearnDeliveryLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deliveringthedigitalrestaurant/Support the show
Practical insights into how hopeful entrepreneurs can begin carving a path within the restaurant tech industry. View the full video interview here. Sterling Douglass is the Co-Founder & CEO of Chowly, a leading restaurant technology company helping restaurants streamline their POS integrations to expand and maintain a diverse set of off-premise capabilities. He has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, leading start-ups and building solutions for long-standing unsolved problems. Sterling began his career in data analytics as an actuary in management consulting. His experience in data and client relationships, coupled with his passion for entrepreneurship in the hospitality industry, led him to establish Chowly.
The Tech Chef, Restaurant, Hospitality and Hotel Technology Business Podcast
It's been a little while since we last spoke as I have been traveling around like a madman with client work and lots and lots of shows. I saw quite a few of you at FSTEC in Dallas. It was a great show this year and certainly loved the venue. There was tons of energy out there on the trade show floor…. I think everybody was glad that things finally seem back to normal. The networking was some of the best I have experienced at a conference. Between vendor dinners and cocktail happy hours, this proved to be extremely beneficial to most, from what I have been told by some of my collegues. I think, from the sessions I was able to attend, one of the key takeaways is that the customer is still looking for change and their habits continue to evolve. Long gone are the days of what we considered conventional dining experiences. My advice to all of you is to stay on top of the current trends, evaluate them if they are a trend or a fad, and move forward, full force before you are the one that is left behind. Okay, I'll step off my platform now. Today's guest on this show has been a dear friend for quite some time. For some reason, we always “clicked” and I love nothing more to run into him at a conference so we can hash out the newest trends and also discussing how we can make our industry better. I really wanted to do an episode on real life data warehousing, data pipes and of course, visualization of that data. When I replayed back my history of conversations about these subjects, well, none other than https://www.linkedin.com/in/sterlingddouglass/ (Sterling Douglass) came to mind. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sterlingddouglass/ (Sterling) is the Co-Founder & CEO of https://chowly.com/ (Chowly), a leading point-of-sale integration company that enables restaurants to expand and maintain a diverse set of off-premise capabilities. Today https://chowly.com/ (Chowly) processes over $1 billion in orders annually for its 12,000+ restaurant partners. With a focus on lean start-ups and building a business from scratch, Douglass thrives in environments defined by ambiguity and takes challenges head on while designing creative solutions to the hardest problems. He has a natural ability to grow a team and develop processes that are distinctive and unparalleled. Plus, his entire sales team could win offensive linemen of the year, just saying'. How To Contact MeWebsite: https://skipkimpel.com/ (https://SkipKimpel.com) (all archived shows and show notes will be posted here) Website: https://constrata.io/ (https://ConStrata.io) Instagram: https://instagram.com/skipkimpel (https://instagram.com/skipkimpel) Twitter: https://twitter.com/skipkimpel (https://twitter.com/skipkimpel) Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skipkimpel1/ (https://www.facebook.com/skipkimpel1/) TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@skipkimpel (https://www.tiktok.com/@skipkimpel) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skipkimpel/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/skipkimpel) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/constrata-consulting (https://www.linkedin.com/company/constrata-consulting) You can also hear all these new episodes on the ConStrata website at https://my.captivate.fm/ConStrata.io (ConStrata.io) Email me at skip.kimpel@constrata.io Next Week's ShowNext week will be a show I recorded on the road recently at an NFT minting party for a mom-and-pop restaurant. Intrigued? I was, that is why I made the trip to the middle of the Midwest to see how they were going to pull this off. It is such a fascinating story that you would be doing yourself a disservice to miss next week's show. I witnessed 90 year old's minting their very first NFTs! Now I know you are hooked to see how they did it.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Which Came First” and “The Crystal Ball Moment.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Who Would You Beat Quickfire question with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. Schatzberg and Frischling would ask each guest who they would choose to have better odds of beating in a selected game. Frischling says, “It is by far the funniest question, and one where I will say, I hold the record as the stronger competitor over Schatzy. We've had funny answers throughout the season such as Schatzy being compared to a skinny can of shaken soda waiting to pop.” Schatzberg asks Douglass, “If you were to challenge Jimmy or I to a game of Paintball, who do you have the better odds of beating?” Douglass answers definitely Jimmy. You can check out the best of episode to hear Steven Simoni who at the time was the chief executive officer at Bbot choose who he would have the better odds in beating at Scrabble. Michael Jacober, CEO of Blanket gets asked about Clue, Clockedin's chief executive officer, Eric Smith's question was a round of bowling. Smith sounds like he was going to choose Frischling but picks Schatzberg. To hear all of the best of who would you beat answers to the questions they asked CEO of Ingest, Daniel Meth's challenge response to Slip N' Slide, Targetable, CEO, Andrew Nash pick his odds for Gin Rummy, Minnow's CEO, Steven Sperry's choice for Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, who Mighty Quinn Barbeque's co-ceo, Micha Magid picks for Pin The Tail On The Donkey, Josh Goodman, chief executive office of PourMyBeer answer for thumb war and Dispatch Goods CEO Lindsey Hoell gets asked who she has better odds of beating at Yahtzee. Ivan Matkovic, CEO of Spendgo gets asked who he would have better odds of beating in a game of risk. Matkovic picks Schatzberg. Tune in to hear the challenges and learn who Scott Siegel, chief executive officer from Curbit, Clayton Wood, CEO of Picnic, Rob Carpenter of Valyant AI, Kimberly Smith, chief executive officer of Copia, Taj Adhav CEO of Leascake, Zack Oates, Ovation CEO, Brandon Barton, CEO of Bite, Gary Goodman CEO of Yumpingo and Agot.AI CEO, Evan DeSantola on this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Which Came First” and “The Crystal Ball Moment.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Who Would You Beat Quickfire question with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. Schatzberg and Frischling would ask each guest who they would choose to have better odds of beating in a selected game. Frischling says, “It is by far the funniest question, and one where I will say, I hold the record as the stronger competitor over Schatzy. We've had funny answers throughout the season such as Schatzy being compared to a skinny can of shaken soda waiting to pop.” Schatzberg asks Douglass, “If you were to challenge Jimmy or I to a game of Paintball, who do you have the better odds of beating?” Douglass answers definitely Jimmy. You can check out the best of episode to hear Steven Simoni who at the time was the chief executive officer at Bbot choose who he would have the better odds in beating at Scrabble. Michael Jacober, CEO of Blanket gets asked about Clue, Clockedin's chief executive officer, Eric Smith's question was a round of bowling. Smith sounds like he was going to choose Frischling but picks Schatzberg. To hear all of the best of who would you beat answers to the questions they asked CEO of Ingest, Daniel Meth's challenge response to Slip N' Slide, Targetable, CEO, Andrew Nash pick his odds for Gin Rummy, Minnow's CEO, Steven Sperry's choice for Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, who Mighty Quinn Barbeque's co-ceo, Micha Magid picks for Pin The Tail On The Donkey, Josh Goodman, chief executive office of PourMyBeer answer for thumb war and Dispatch Goods CEO Lindsey Hoell gets asked who she has better odds of beating at Yahtzee. Ivan Matkovic, CEO of Spendgo gets asked who he would have better odds of beating in a game of risk. Matkovic picks Schatzberg. Tune in to hear the challenges and learn who Scott Siegel, chief executive officer from Curbit, Clayton Wood, CEO of Picnic, Rob Carpenter of Valyant AI, Kimberly Smith, chief executive officer of Copia, Taj Adhav CEO of Leascake, Zack Oates, Ovation CEO, Brandon Barton, CEO of Bite, Gary Goodman CEO of Yumpingo and Agot.AI CEO, Evan DeSantola on this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Top of the Tech Stack” and “Which Came First.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Top Of The Tech Stack with special guest, Sterling Douglass, Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc. Top of the Tech Stack first made an appearance in season 2 and held up strong through season 6. Branded is all about the tech stack, each guest who played “Top of the Tech Stack” was asked, what areas of hospitality technology would they recommend that operators have on the top of their tech stacks?
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Top of the Tech Stack” and “Which Came First.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Top Of The Tech Stack with special guest, Sterling Douglass, Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc. Top of the Tech Stack first made an appearance in season 2 and held up strong through season 6. Branded is all about the tech stack, each guest who played “Top of the Tech Stack” was asked, what areas of hospitality technology would they recommend that operators have on the top of their tech stacks?
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Best of On The Road” and “Top of the Tech Stack.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Which Came First with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. Frischling says, “the idea for this segment came about over a common joke that the only other industry slower to embrace technology behind hospitality is coal mining. This got them thinking, is hospitality that far behind or actually ahead of the game? Each guest on Season 6 got to take their very best guess on whether hospitality was ahead of the game, or not, in a string of fun questions.Here are a few of the Best of Questions: Which came first, the first online pizza hut delivery order or the first online amazon order?Which came first, the digital menu board or the first digital billboard?Which came first, the restaurant drive-thru or the bank drive-thru?Which came first, the automated baggage claim at airports or the supermarket conveyor belt checkout lane?Which came first, the ability to make a restaurant reservation online or the ability to make an airline reservation online?Which came first, the car wash or the dishwasher?The first question went to Evan DeSantola, CEO of Agot. Which came first, the restaurant drive-thru or the bank drive-thru? The answer is the bank drive-thru. Schatzberg says the first drive-thru in America was Hillcrest State Bank out of Dallas, Texas in 1930. It was Harry and Esther Snyder, of the In-N-Out Burger chain that built the first drive-through restaurant in 1948. Fun fact, so In-N-Out because the restaurant name promised exactly what it delivered: In-N-Out.The guys close out the Which Came First episode with Robert Earl, Co-founder of Virtual Dining Concepts and Chairman of Earl Enterprises. Earl's question was which came first, the clothing iron or the waffle iron? The answer is the waffle iron. The waffle iron was created in 1869, by Cornelius Swartwout of Troy, N.Y. The Clothing Iron was not invented for another 13 years when Henry W. Seely patented his electric flatiron on June 6, 1882. To hear the questions they asked Lindsey Hoell, Founder & CEO of Dispatch Goods, Alonso Castañeda, VP of Brand Development & Strategy at Savory Restaurant Fund, Scott Siegel Co-Founder & CEO of Curbit, Tim McLaughlin, CEO of GoTab, Jon Sherman, Co-Founder and CEO of Sticky's Finger Joint, John DiLoreto, President of Flipdish US, Danny Klein, Editorial Director at Food News Media, Scott Gladstone, SVP Strategy & Innovation at Dine Brands and Kimberly Smith, CEO of Copia , check out this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Best of On The Road” and “Top of the Tech Stack.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Which Came First with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. Frischling says, “the idea for this segment came about over a common joke that the only other industry slower to embrace technology behind hospitality is coal mining. This got them thinking, is hospitality that far behind or actually ahead of the game? Each guest on Season 6 got to take their very best guess on whether hospitality was ahead of the game, or not, in a string of fun questions.Here are a few of the Best of Questions: Which came first, the first online pizza hut delivery order or the first online amazon order?Which came first, the digital menu board or the first digital billboard?Which came first, the restaurant drive-thru or the bank drive-thru?Which came first, the automated baggage claim at airports or the supermarket conveyor belt checkout lane?Which came first, the ability to make a restaurant reservation online or the ability to make an airline reservation online?Which came first, the car wash or the dishwasher?The first question went to Evan DeSantola, CEO of Agot. Which came first, the restaurant drive-thru or the bank drive-thru? The answer is the bank drive-thru. Schatzberg says the first drive-thru in America was Hillcrest State Bank out of Dallas, Texas in 1930. It was Harry and Esther Snyder, of the In-N-Out Burger chain that built the first drive-through restaurant in 1948. Fun fact, so In-N-Out because the restaurant name promised exactly what it delivered: In-N-Out.The guys close out the Which Came First episode with Robert Earl, Co-founder of Virtual Dining Concepts and Chairman of Earl Enterprises. Earl's question was which came first, the clothing iron or the waffle iron? The answer is the waffle iron. The waffle iron was created in 1869, by Cornelius Swartwout of Troy, N.Y. The Clothing Iron was not invented for another 13 years when Henry W. Seely patented his electric flatiron on June 6, 1882. To hear the questions they asked Lindsey Hoell, Founder & CEO of Dispatch Goods, Alonso Castañeda, VP of Brand Development & Strategy at Savory Restaurant Fund, Scott Siegel Co-Founder & CEO of Curbit, Tim McLaughlin, CEO of GoTab, Jon Sherman, Co-Founder and CEO of Sticky's Finger Joint, John DiLoreto, President of Flipdish US, Danny Klein, Editorial Director at Food News Media, Scott Gladstone, SVP Strategy & Innovation at Dine Brands and Kimberly Smith, CEO of Copia , check out this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “The Crystal Ball Moment” and “Top Of Tech Stack.”In this episode they feature a Best Of On The Road with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. The guys said they have been fortunate to have been able to record the show on site at industry trade shows like Winsight, EnsembleIQ, The Spoon, Franchise Times, and Networld Media Group. Schatzberg says that the show offers a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends and gain insights plus create new connections. Frischling gives some takeaways for this Best Of On The Road episode, saying technology, innovation, virtual and ghost kitchens are here to stay, it is incredible to be back in person and connecting for the first time with clients and co-workers, off-premise is still a big topic plus food tech and the way we eat is heading to a new era. They kick off with Wade Allen, SVP Head of Innovation at Brinker International and Derek Canton, Founder of Paerpay for the first on the road episode at 2021 FSTEC. Allen, when asked about what he is looking to learn from the show replies he is looking to find inspiration and to see who is doing something different. He is also looking for the evolution of tech and how it changes his environment. Canton says how it is like being in the middle of the action being on the floor of the marketplace with innovation alley. Next Schatzberg talks about the 2021 Food on Demand Conference in Las Vegas where they ask Trish Giordano, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Earl Enterprises what she has learned from the show and what's everyone talking about. Giordano says, the big thing is relationships. She said that the most important thing is all of the new technology companies that have come to market, especially with the labor shortages. Through tech you can create efficiencies for restaurants. She added, everyone is talking about virtual brands. In this Best Of Talking Back Series you hear from Steve Heeley, CEO of Poke Works and Dirk Izzo, President & GM of NCR Hospitality at the the 2021 Restaurant Leadership Conference, Michael Wolf, Founder & CEO & Editor in Chief at The Spoon from CES show, Phil Crawford, CTO at CKE Restaurants and Astric Isaacs, CTO at Bloomin's Brands both judges of the MURTEC Start-Up Alley all offering insights to the shows. Plus check out what Laura Rea Dickey, of Dickey's BBQ and Josh Halpern, CEO of Big Chicken and Beer Park have to say from the Restaurant Franchise and Innovation Summit. They wrap up the On The Road episode with Alyssa Abraham, Digital Innovation Lead at Cargill and April Rogers, Director of Off-Premise and Guest Relations at Ruby Tuesday. To hear all of the insights and recaps from the industry trade shows, check out this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “The Crystal Ball Moment” and “Top Of Tech Stack.”In this episode they feature a Best Of On The Road with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. The guys said they have been fortunate to have been able to record the show on site at industry trade shows like Winsight, EnsembleIQ, The Spoon, Franchise Times, and Networld Media Group. Schatzberg says that the show offers a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends and gain insights plus create new connections. Frischling gives some takeaways for this Best Of On The Road episode, saying technology, innovation, virtual and ghost kitchens are here to stay, it is incredible to be back in person and connecting for the first time with clients and co-workers, off-premise is still a big topic plus food tech and the way we eat is heading to a new era. They kick off with Wade Allen, SVP Head of Innovation at Brinker International and Derek Canton, Founder of Paerpay for the first on the road episode at 2021 FSTEC. Allen, when asked about what he is looking to learn from the show replies he is looking to find inspiration and to see who is doing something different. He is also looking for the evolution of tech and how it changes his environment. Canton says how it is like being in the middle of the action being on the floor of the marketplace with innovation alley. Next Schatzberg talks about the 2021 Food on Demand Conference in Las Vegas where they ask Trish Giordano, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Earl Enterprises what she has learned from the show and what's everyone talking about. Giordano says, the big thing is relationships. She said that the most important thing is all of the new technology companies that have come to market, especially with the labor shortages. Through tech you can create efficiencies for restaurants. She added, everyone is talking about virtual brands. In this Best Of Talking Back Series you hear from Steve Heeley, CEO of Poke Works and Dirk Izzo, President & GM of NCR Hospitality at the the 2021 Restaurant Leadership Conference, Michael Wolf, Founder & CEO & Editor in Chief at The Spoon from CES show, Phil Crawford, CTO at CKE Restaurants and Astric Isaacs, CTO at Bloomin's Brands both judges of the MURTEC Start-Up Alley all offering insights to the shows. Plus check out what Laura Rea Dickey, of Dickey's BBQ and Josh Halpern, CEO of Big Chicken and Beer Park have to say from the Restaurant Franchise and Innovation Summit. They wrap up the On The Road episode with Alyssa Abraham, Digital Innovation Lead at Cargill and April Rogers, Director of Off-Premise and Guest Relations at Ruby Tuesday. To hear all of the insights and recaps from the industry trade shows, check out this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Top of the Tech Stack” and “The Branded Quickfire.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Talking Back with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. When Schatzberg and Frischling started Hospitality Hangout podcast to talk to people in the industry, they quickly learned that their guests had questions for them as well. They created Talking Back to give their guests the opportunity to ask them questions. This episode shares several great questions from many industry leaders. David Bloom, Chief Development and Operating officer at Capriotti's and Wing Zone had a three part question. He asked, “What are you the most excited about for the future of tech?” Frischling answered he was most excited and loves the optionality and the large “menu” of tech available to operators. Bloom also asked, “What is the biggest lever a brand can pull to position themselves ahead of the curve?” Frischling said that the biggest lever would be to leverage AI and automation to address the issue of labor shortage and that he's interested in a combination of data and analytics dominated decision making. Marty Hahnfeld, Chief Customer Officer at Olo was a guest on season 4 and he asked, “What is one thing that is a normal part of the restaurant experience today that will be gone in 5 years?” Schatzberg answered, Handwriting menus and written reservation books will be a thing of the past. Everything will be done on mobile. Also the idea of walking into a McDonalds and an employee asking what you would like, that will become fully automated. When Anand Gala, Managing Partner at Gala Capital Partners asked, “What does Branded think about restaurant companies buying tech companies?” Frischling believes no one size fits all and that there are opportunities for restauranteurs to be good investors in tech companies, as well as good clients in tech companies. It depends on the company goals. Schatzberg said being a good customer is key, but maybe as a defensive measure, a restaurant could invest in a company to stop it from going exclusively to a competitor. To hear Dan Rowe, CEO of Fransmart ask about trends, CEO of Piestro, Massimo Noja De Marco's question about helping smaller operators and Steven Elinson, Head of Worldwide Business Development, Restaurant, Catering and Food Service Industries for Amazon Web Services ask about opening a new restaurant during the pandemic plus get the guy's answers, check out this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
This month on Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” are taking a break from their usual interview episodes and bringing you a Best Of season of all your favorite segments. They bring back “Best Of” old favorites such as “Top of the Tech Stack” and “The Branded Quickfire.”In this episode they feature a Best Of Talking Back with special guest and Co Founder & CEO at Chowly, Inc., Sterling Douglass. When Schatzberg and Frischling started Hospitality Hangout podcast to talk to people in the industry, they quickly learned that their guests had questions for them as well. They created Talking Back to give their guests the opportunity to ask them questions. This episode shares several great questions from many industry leaders. David Bloom, Chief Development and Operating officer at Capriotti's and Wing Zone had a three part question. He asked, “What are you the most excited about for the future of tech?” Frischling answered he was most excited and loves the optionality and the large “menu” of tech available to operators. Bloom also asked, “What is the biggest lever a brand can pull to position themselves ahead of the curve?” Frischling said that the biggest lever would be to leverage AI and automation to address the issue of labor shortage and that he's interested in a combination of data and analytics dominated decision making. Marty Hahnfeld, Chief Customer Officer at Olo was a guest on season 4 and he asked, “What is one thing that is a normal part of the restaurant experience today that will be gone in 5 years?” Schatzberg answered, Handwriting menus and written reservation books will be a thing of the past. Everything will be done on mobile. Also the idea of walking into a McDonalds and an employee asking what you would like, that will become fully automated. When Anand Gala, Managing Partner at Gala Capital Partners asked, “What does Branded think about restaurant companies buying tech companies?” Frischling believes no one size fits all and that there are opportunities for restauranteurs to be good investors in tech companies, as well as good clients in tech companies. It depends on the company goals. Schatzberg said being a good customer is key, but maybe as a defensive measure, a restaurant could invest in a company to stop it from going exclusively to a competitor. To hear Dan Rowe, CEO of Fransmart ask about trends, CEO of Piestro, Massimo Noja De Marco's question about helping smaller operators and Steven Elinson, Head of Worldwide Business Development, Restaurant, Catering and Food Service Industries for Amazon Web Services ask about opening a new restaurant during the pandemic plus get the guy's answers, check out this best of episode on Hospitality Hangout.
Stacey Arenson, Marketing Director at Chowly, talks with Jeremy about innovations in restaurant delivery services.Highlights:How the B2B to C model worksHow the "C" affects marketing strategyThe meaning behind "Restaurant as a Service"Learn more about ChowlyConnect with Stacey on LinkedIn
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” were on the road at the Restaurant Leadership Conference in Arizona. Schatzberg and Frischling chat with Steve Heeley, chief executive officer at Pokéworks, Dirk Izzo, president and general manager at NCR Hospitality, Sterling Douglass, co-founder and chief executive officer at Chowly,Inc., and Alan Hickey, co-founder of VROMO. Heeley from Pokéworks stops by and talks about being back in person at the Restaurant Leadership Conference. He talks about technology innovation and technology consolidation. Pokéworks started in 2015 in New York City, the company started franchising in year two and has eight company stores, seventy franchised locations and is in twenty states plus Mexico. Fresh seafood sales have increased by sixty percent and Heeley says that Pokéworks has felt that momentum. He says, “I think people are eating more plant-based, more clean proteins, and you know seafood particularly, raw seafood is very clean protein and people are more conscious of their health but they also want to know where their food comes from.” Izzo has been running the restaurant business for the last two years at NCR Hospitality. He chats with Frischling and Schatzberg about servicing over one hundred thousand restaurants as well as NCR's Aloha restaurant POS system and their cloud-based solution product Silver. Izzo talks about being back at RLC, what's new in the hospitality space for NCR, and where the restaurant industry will be in two years. Chowly's co-founder and CEO, Sterling Douglass stops by to talk about what's new. Douglass says, “it's whatever is new that's helping restaurants adopt new technology, so you know we talked a lot about virtual restaurants at our last show, our partnerships with C3 helping restaurants get more brands and more concepts generating more dollars in their unutilized kitchen space.” Adding, “That's been awesome for us the last couple of months. We've been able to launch tons of new restaurants on this, and it's really helped a lot of these restaurants increase that monthly revenue five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars a month which has been great.”Hickey, CCO and co-founder of VROMO, a software built to optimize delivery operations, talks about the conference and the adoption of technology. He also chats about what's new at VROMO saying, the big news is that VROMO has been working on building an ecosystem and an infrastructure that's going to support restaurants and they will be putting their software into restaurant delivery companies. To hear more from all of the guests that stopped by Hospitality Hangout at the Restaurant Leadership Conference check out this episode. Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators.This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” were on the road at the Restaurant Leadership Conference in Arizona. Schatzberg and Frischling chat with Steve Heeley, chief executive officer at Pokéworks, Dirk Izzo, president and general manager at NCR Hospitality, Sterling Douglass, co-founder and chief executive officer at Chowly,Inc., and Alan Hickey, co-founder of VROMO. Heeley from Pokéworks stops by and talks about being back in person at the Restaurant Leadership Conference. He talks about technology innovation and technology consolidation. Pokéworks started in 2015 in New York City, the company started franchising in year two and has eight company stores, seventy franchised locations and is in twenty states plus Mexico. Fresh seafood sales have increased by sixty percent and Heeley says that Pokéworks has felt that momentum. He says, “I think people are eating more plant-based, more clean proteins, and you know seafood particularly, raw seafood is very clean protein and people are more conscious of their health but they also want to know where their food comes from.” Izzo has been running the restaurant business for the last two years at NCR Hospitality. He chats with Frischling and Schatzberg about servicing over one hundred thousand restaurants as well as NCR's Aloha restaurant POS system and their cloud-based solution product Silver. Izzo talks about being back at RLC, what's new in the hospitality space for NCR, and where the restaurant industry will be in two years. Chowly's co-founder and CEO, Sterling Douglass stops by to talk about what's new. Douglass says, “it's whatever is new that's helping restaurants adopt new technology, so you know we talked a lot about virtual restaurants at our last show, our partnerships with C3 helping restaurants get more brands and more concepts generating more dollars in their unutilized kitchen space.” Adding, “That's been awesome for us the last couple of months. We've been able to launch tons of new restaurants on this, and it's really helped a lot of these restaurants increase that monthly revenue five, ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars a month which has been great.”Hickey, CCO and co-founder of VROMO, a software built to optimize delivery operations, talks about the conference and the adoption of technology. He also chats about what's new at VROMO saying, the big news is that VROMO has been working on building an ecosystem and an infrastructure that's going to support restaurants and they will be putting their software into restaurant delivery companies. To hear more from all of the guests that stopped by Hospitality Hangout at the Restaurant Leadership Conference check out this episode. Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators.This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” take the show to the first in-person trade show, FSTEC 2021 where restaurants and technology connect. Schatzberg and Frischling chat with Wade Allen, senior vice president, head of innovation at Brinker International, Inc., Derek E. Canton, chief executive officer and founder at Paerpay, Sterling Douglass, co founder and chief executive officer at Chowly, Inc., and Marcus Viscidi, VP, Enterprise Sales - National Restaurant Association Show & Foodservice Conferences at Winsight, LLC.Allen talks about what he is looking to learn from the show, saying that he looks for organizations that inspire him and are doing things not in the traditional way, adding companies that can truly change their business. Allen says he is looking at new technology in loyalty programs to delivery drones to the future of POS. He talks about Brinker International's development of virtual brands and launching them.Derek Canton from Paerpay stops by to talk about being on the market place floor at FSTEC. Paerpay is a contactless payment platform for restaurants and Canton shares what's new at the company. He says the number one thing he wants the audience to know about Paerpay, can get their customers up and running in an hour. Tune in to hear Canton's quick fire answers.Sterling Douglass of Chowly, who has been on the show before chats with the guys about technology change for restaurants and consumer adoption having an impact. A lot of technology that has been around has finally been picked up, like QR codes and delivery technology. Douglass says that he is excited to see the maturity in virtual restaurant space as well. To learn more about Chowly's partnership with Google, listen to the show.The last guest to stop by to chat, Marcus Viscidi from Winsight, LCC, he talks about putting together the first in-person restaurant trade show, FSTEC 2021 since the pandemic and answers quick fire questions.To hear more from all of the guests that stopped by Hospitality Hangout at FSTEC 2021, check out this episode. Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators.This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “ The Finance Guy” take the show to the first in-person trade show, FSTEC 2021 where restaurants and technology connect. Schatzberg and Frischling chat with Wade Allen, senior vice president, head of innovation at Brinker International, Inc., Derek E. Canton, chief executive officer and founder at Paerpay, Sterling Douglass, co founder and chief executive officer at Chowly, Inc., and Marcus Viscidi, VP, Enterprise Sales - National Restaurant Association Show & Foodservice Conferences at Winsight, LLC.Allen talks about what he is looking to learn from the show, saying that he looks for organizations that inspire him and are doing things not in the traditional way, adding companies that can truly change their business. Allen says he is looking at new technology in loyalty programs to delivery drones to the future of POS. He talks about Brinker International's development of virtual brands and launching them.Derek Canton from Paerpay stops by to talk about being on the market place floor at FSTEC. Paerpay is a contactless payment platform for restaurants and Canton shares what's new at the company. He says the number one thing he wants the audience to know about Paerpay, can get their customers up and running in an hour. Tune in to hear Canton's quick fire answers.Sterling Douglass of Chowly, who has been on the show before chats with the guys about technology change for restaurants and consumer adoption having an impact. A lot of technology that has been around has finally been picked up, like QR codes and delivery technology. Douglass says that he is excited to see the maturity in virtual restaurant space as well. To learn more about Chowly's partnership with Google, listen to the show.The last guest to stop by to chat, Marcus Viscidi from Winsight, LCC, he talks about putting together the first in-person restaurant trade show, FSTEC 2021 since the pandemic and answers quick fire questions.To hear more from all of the guests that stopped by Hospitality Hangout at FSTEC 2021, check out this episode. Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators.This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
You don't need a dedicated storefront to make great food. With the rise of virtual brands and ghost kitchens, companies are producing and delivering food out of underutilized kitchens and making a killing. Owners of virtual brands like Umami Burger, C3 is partnering with companies to expand into even more locations. They've recently raised $80 million in a Series B funding round to help boost their expansion efforts as they utilize ghost kitchens. Join restaurateur Philip Camino and chef Nyesha Arrington as they take a closer look at what hospitality companies like C3 are doing and the boom of ghost kitchens and virtual brands on your favorite food delivery apps. Listen to Philip and Nyesha discuss C3: C3, known as Creating Culinary Communities, recently raised $80 million in a Series B funding round C3 is a food tech company that has several virtual restaurant brands, including Umami Burger, Krispy Rice, and Sam's Crispy Fried Chicken in ghost kitchens C3 recently partnered with the point-of-sale integration company Chowly, giving more than 10,000 partners access to C3's virtual brands This allows partners to create additional revenue streams by allowing C3's virtual brands to work out of their kitchens C3 is looking to expand to 12,000 locations by 2021, leasing an assortment of hospitality and retail spaces to open food halls and physical locations for its virtual restaurants They plan to open a 40,000 sq/ft food hall at Brookfield Manhattan West in NYC They also agreed to acquire a 24,000 sq/ft food hall in Atlanta by 2022 C3 recently started their Citizens Go app, allowing customers to order from multiple virtual brands in one order Dickey's Barbeque Pit recently announced plans to add 100 ghost kitchens to its operations via a partnership with Combo Kitchen In a deal with Nathan's Famous, Franklin Junction will operate Arthur Treacher's also out of 100 ghost kitchens before 2022 Links: Happy Mouth Podcast Instagram Restaurant Dive - C3 raises $80M to grow virtual brand footprint Restaurant Dive - Dickey's to add 100 ghost kitchens through Combo Kitchen partnership Restaurant Dive - C3, Chowly partner to bring virtual brands to 10K restaurants C3 - Website We have a lot more content coming your way! Be sure to check out our other shows: Full Comp The Happy Mouth Morning Show Restaurant Marketing School The Playbook
Mark Achler is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Chicago-based MATH Venture Partners. Previously, Mark drove innovation and sales at Redbox and co-founded a number of successful startups in his career. He began his VC career in the Chicagoland area at Kettle Partners. He then co-founded MATH Venture Partners in 2014, which invests in early-stage technology businesses, such as Chowly, Acorns, and Built In.Mark spoke with Matt about his background, what led him into Venture Capital, the genesis of Math Venture Partners, why doing your homework is so important, and the history of the Chicago startup ecosystem.
Show notes… Calls to ACTION!!! Join Restaurant Unstoppable Network and get your first 30 days on us. Subscribe to the Restaurant Unstoppable YouTube Channel Join the private Unstoppable Facebook Group Join the email list! (Scroll Down to get the Vendor List!) Brittany and Eric (but mostly Brittany) suggested some really great resources. If you're interested in ANY of these, please use RUNetwork links..... Chowly - "Simplifying technology for restaurants." Restaurant 365 - "Restaurant Management Software." Toast POS - "All-in-one restaurant POS." Revel - "Leading cloud-based iPad POS system." Plate IQ - "Simplify and automate your accounts payable." Postmates - "Food delivery, groceries, alcohol - anything from anywhere." Quickbooks - Accounting "Run your whole business." Contact info: Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for joining today! Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post. Also, please leave an honest review for the Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. Huge thanks to Brittany McCrary for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time! Restaurant Unstoppable is a free podcast. One of the ways I'm able to make it free is by earning a commission when sharing certain products with you. I've made it a core value to only share tools, resources, and services my guest mentors have recommend, first. If you're finding value in my podcast, please use my links!
Colin Keeley is Co Founder & CEO of Avocado Audio, Host of the Tech in Chicago Podcast, and has been ferociously building & growing internet companies for the past decade. He’s been on both sides of the fence as a serial founder and venture capitalist, and done everything from building a personalized tv/movie guide, a stretchy denim company for men, a sharing economy startup, and a multi-million dollar software marketing business. With no plans of slowing down, he has just launched a platform for the world’s best audio courses with instructors who range from best selling authors, youtube stars, investment bankers, to Wharton professors.With the audio industry booming, it is easy to see why this insightful entrepreneur is on a mission to turn your spare listening time into productive learning time. Podcasting alone is forecasted to reach over 160 million listeners by 2023 and will continue to grow an extra 20 million each year after. Streaming giant Spotify has invested hundreds of millions of dollars on podcast-related acquisitions while behomeaths like Amazon are expanding their audio library into podcasts within the next few months.This explosion of growth is something Colin knows well. Through his highly acclaimed podcast Tech in Chicago, which has been a top 100 business podcast with 100,000+ downloads to date, and has been sharing the inspiring stories of Chicago’s top founders and investors and their startups like Chowly, Leaftrade, and Cameo.Find all the shownotes at https://www.evolvethe.world/
On this episode of the Takeout, Delivery, and Catering podcast series, hosts TJ Schier and Sam Stanovich sit down with Sterling Douglass, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Chowly.
On this episode of the Takeout, Delivery, and Catering podcast series, hosts TJ Schier and Sam Stanovich sit down with Sterling Douglass, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Chowly.
Today we are talking to Justin McNally, the Chief Product Officer at Chowly. And we discuss takeaways from growing and scaling teams, why he made the transition from CTO to Product, and the importance of establishing a framework to grow new leaders within an organization. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!
In the final part of this four part Coronavirus series of the Hospitality Hangout Podcast, Michael Schatzberg Schatzy “The Restaurant Rabbi” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Sterling Douglass, founder and chief executive officer of Chowly, to discuss innovative ways around operating during the Coronavirus crisis.This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
In the final part of this four part Coronavirus series of the Hospitality Hangout Podcast, Michael Schatzberg Schatzy “The Restaurant Rabbi” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Sterling Douglass, founder and chief executive officer of Chowly, to discuss innovative ways around operating during the Coronavirus crisis.This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
During this episode of Tech Qualified, Tristan Pelligrino and Justin Brown chat with Stacey Arenson, the Marketing Director at Chowly. Chowly is a restaurant tech company that integrates third-party online ordering platforms with restaurants’ point of sale (POS) systems. During the episode, Stacey discusses what it’s like handling marketing with restaurants during the pandemic, pinpoints some of the company’s initiatives with content and highlights how she diversified the overall marketing strategy. Episode Highlights: Initially, Stacey discusses her background in B2B tech and what brought her to Chowly as a Marketing Director She discusses the primary value proposition of Chowly which helps restaurants avoid the manual entry of third-party delivery orders Restaurants have been one of the hardest hit industries after social distancing measures were put into place At the beginning of the year, one of the main objectives of the company's marketing activities was to ensure that every single person in the restaurant industry knew who they were When coming on board, Stacey focused on diversifying the portfolio of their marketing initiatives and trying to get in front of restaurants in every way possible using a variety of channels When developing content, the team always starts with the customer... What are they interested in? What are they going to look for? How can we start the conversation? The organization’s thought leadership hasn’t been a quick process, it takes time to get in front of people and build awareness As a start-up, Stacey looked to hire people that would hit the ground running and have an immediate impact on their marketing projects Stacey walked through the customer journey for prospects who engage with Chowly Stacey works very closely with the sales team and arms them with the collateral they need to engage with prospects along the journey Stacey leverages feedback from the sales team to create a lot of the ideas for content Case studies have proven to be a very effective form of content across both marketing and sales Chowly launched a COVID-19 relief package for restaurants who are trying to get on the platform - restaurants had to make the choice to either close or shift to delivery - and this was really helpful to their situation Key Points: Right now, the organization is focused on what's going to be helpful for the restaurant industry instead of selling products. During the current situation, Stacey and her team are planning marketing activities using two-week increments versus longer timeframes such as quarterly or even annual strategies. It's important to not just talk about what everyone else is talking about, Chowly aims to be the first to bring their ideas to the table. Resources Mentioned: Stacey Arenson: LinkedIn Chowly: Website Motion: Ultimate Thought Leadership Course for B2B Tech Companies
Sterling Douglass & Justin McNally, Co-Founders of Chowly, a restaurant technology company that integrates third-party online ordering platforms with restaurants' point-of-sale (POS) systems. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top early podcast guests and trusted partner of many of Chicago’s hottest startups. Check out what they’re up to at StartingLine.vc.
With most places still in lockdown, many restaurants are trying to survive by going off-premise through a combination of delivery and takeout. The Spoon's Chris Albrecht caught up with Chowly's Sterling Douglass to talk about what he's seeing out there in what is a rapidly changed restaurant landscape and to discuss strategies for going off-premise. This conversation took place as part of The Spoon's COVID-19 Virtual Strategy Summit. If you missed the summit and would like to see some of what you missed, all the sessions are now available to watch here: https://thespoon.tech/covid-19-strategy-summit-for-food-session-videos/ via Knit
A Chicago native, Justin Turner got his start in fine dining serving for years as a private chef to NBA star Shane Battier. When Shane was traded to the Rockets, Justin followed to Houston, but when the baller moved on again, the chef stayed, converting a yellow school bus into one of Houston’s first food trucks and naming it after his grandfather: Bernie’s Burger Bus. His gourmet burgers and fries were wildly popular and led to a fleet of buses, a spot at NRG Park and now 4 brick-and-mortar restaurants. Show notes… Calls to ACTION!!! Subscribe to the Restaurant Unstoppable YouTube Channel Join the private Unstoppable Facebook Group Join the email list! (Scroll Down to get the Vendor List!) Favorite success quote or mantra: "If you feed the masses you will eat with the classes, but if you feed the classes you will eat with the masses." In today's episode with Justin Turner we will discuss: Fine dining vs. casual The importance of organization in the kitchen Listening to mentors who believe in you Don't ask for money; learn the trade and the money will come Kitchen efficiency Working as a personal chef The insanity of truly driven people Operating a food truck (or bus in this case) Transition from bus to brick and mortar How to take on partners Branding and marketing Importance of testing the market with farmers markets/Pop-ups How to scale Hiring passion over skill Selling product in stores Today's sponsor: BentoBox empowers restaurants to own their presence, profits and relationships. The hospitality platform disrupts third-party services that come between the restaurant and the guest. BentoBox puts the restaurant first and offers tools that drive high-margin revenue directly through the restaurant’s website. BentoBox is trusted and loved by over 5,000 restaurants worldwide including Union Square Hospitality Group, Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern, Lilia and more. Gusto offers modern, easy payroll, benefits, and HR to small businesses across the country — they were even named best online payroll by PCMag. And as a listener, you’ll get three months free when you run your first payroll. Sign up and give it a try at Gusto.com/unstoppable. MarginEdge is the only restaurant management system to combine automatic invoice processing with POS and accounting integrations, improving financial performance, visibility, and efficiency. It all starts with snapping a photo of invoices with your smartphone. We take it from there – every line item and every handwritten note is captured. We then integrate with your POS, so each day you know everything you bought and everything you sold. We create a rolling P&L with drill-down capability and it flows effortlessly to your Accounting System of choice. For 50% off your first year. Go to me.marginedge.com/unstoppable Gusto offers modern, easy payroll, benefits, and HR to small businesses across the country — they were even named best online payroll by PCMag. And as a listener, you’ll get three months free when you run your first payroll. Sign up and give it a try at Gusto.com/unstoppable. Knowledge bombs Which "it factor" habit, trait, or characteristic you believe most contributes to your success? Passion What is your biggest weakness? My heart What's one question you ask or thing you look for during an interview? What do you love? What makes you excited to wake up everyday? Share one code of conduct or behavior you teach your team. Teach them about our MVP What is one uncommon standard of service you teach your staff? Make people feel special What's one book we must read to become a better person or restaurant owner? The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection by Michael Ruhlman GET THIS BOOK FOR FREE AT AUDIBLE.COM What's one thing you feel restaurateurs don't know well enough or do often enough? Take the time to get to know your staff Name one service you've hired Robert and Jeremy Levine Lawyers Jeff Garcia - Food CPA What's one piece of technology you've adopted within your restaurant walls and how has it influence operations? Chowly - Streamline and integrate third-party delivery orders into your POS If you got the news that you'd be leaving this world tomorrow and all memories of you, your work, and your restaurants would be lost with your departure with the exception of 3 pieces of wisdom you could leave behind for the good of humanity, what would they be? Hire slow and fire fast If you can't change people, change people Bone it like you own it, drive it like you stole it Contact info: Website: www.berniesburgerbus.com Instagram: @berniesburgerbus Twitter: @BerniesBurgers Facebook: @berniesburgerbus Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for joining today! Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post. Also, please leave an honest review for the Restaurant Unstoppable Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. Huge thanks to Justin Turner for joining me for another awesome episode. Until next time! Restaurant Unstoppable is a free podcast. One of the ways I'm able to make it free is by earning a commission when sharing certain products with you. I've made it a core value to only share tools, resources, and services my guest mentors have recommend, first. If you're finding value in my podcast, please use my links!
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast Ep. 073: The Guys talk with CEO and Founder of Chowly Sterling Douglass about 3rd party delivery and ghost kitchens. https://www.chowly.com/
We did a huge delivery business in our restaurants, but we also had the hassles of doing it all ourselves. This was long before technology revolutionized delivery. Now there are endless platforms that drive business to your door. Only problem is you probably need to use several to serve all your customers who have their favorite service. This means lots of tablets, clutter, confusion, lost orders, lost food, lost profit! Well, now there’s a new game in town. In this episode of the Restaurant RockStars Podcast, I’m speaking with Sterling Douglas the Co-founder and CEO of Chowly. These guys have eliminated all the tablets and instead pulled together what they call the “Tech Stack” - that is using your P.O.S. as the hub and seamlessly integrating Online Ordering, Inventory Management, Loyalty Programs, etc.. It’s amazing what Tech can do for your operation. Listen on as we talk about all the pain points that used to come standard with online ordering and how all this has changed. If you have been holding out on using technology in your operation, decide for yourself if this might be your solution on how to gain new sources of profit. This is how to increase restaurant sales and find yourself a new profit center. Now go out there and Rock Your Restaurant! Roger Check out The Restaurant Rockstars Academy: https://restaurantrockstars.com
This podcast brought to you by Bench.co. Get 20% Off Small Business Accounting For Your Restaurant For Six Months! http://refer.bench.co/wZcntModern consumers expect restaurant operators to use and fully integrate cutting-edge technology into their business model. However, most restaurant operators in the industry find themselves unable to keep up with today's constantly evolving tech trends.On the latest episode of The Barron Report, host Paul Barron chats with three emerging companies that are handling the necessary tech shifts for operators so that the restaurant industry can focus on doing what it does best: making delicious food.Sterling Douglass is the co-founder and CEO of Chowly, a first-of-its-kind company that helps restaurants lower the cost of labor and improve margins by fully integrating a restaurant's third-party online orders into its point-of-sale system. Simon Bocca, the COO of Fourth, has helped his company grow into a comprehensive provider for practical restaurant and hospitality management solutions. As the founder and CEO of next-generation software platform Harri, Luke Fryer is dedicated to finding employee-facing solutions for labor-related challenges in the hospitality industry.
This week we go inside that heavenly scented bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken as we pull back the curtain on the 89-year-old KFC brand with the help of KFC U.S. President CEO Kevin Hochman. Then, Chowly CEO Sterling Douglass helps restaurateurs untangle that growing mass of third-party delivery providers in their playing field today.
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Are you tired of living in "tablet hell" trying to keep up with all the new-age delivery tools? Or maybe you're trying to expand your business with low overhead? Either way, Jeremy and Ryan discuss these topics and MORE with Sterling Douglass, Co-Founder and CEO of Chowly. You can learn more about Chowly at www.chowly.com.
Chowly, Inc. CEO Sterling Douglass joins Scott in-studio at WGN Radio to talk about Scott’s second-favorite thing after startups - food! You ever see those tablets at a restaurant that servers use to input orders? They’re clunky, slow, and annoying. Chowly eliminates the tablet middle-man and connects third-party platforms to POS systems.
Brian Duncan has over 12 years in the restaurant industry beginning his career in college working every job from dishwasher to server. After graduating from Purdue University, Brian went on to work in food and beverage consulting focusing on international chains and consumer products manufacturing for such companies as Hilton and Revolution Foods. During his time consulting Brain focused on creating efficiencies by utilizing technology. Brian’s background paved the way to multiple tech startups including Chowly. Brian now serves as co-founder and board member for Chowly Inc. and is primarily focused on business development, sales and marketing. What you’ll learn about in this episode: Brian’s background What Chowly is and why Brian created it The challenges of the early stage of a startup Why strong relationships are so important when you’re starting a business Why you need to plan for everything What Brian has learned from his mentor Why you need to provide your employees the opportunity to learn and grow Why Chowly offers unlimited time off for their employees Why your employees need to know that you understand that your business is not more important than their life Why Brian lives in his to-do list Why you need to speak with the people you depend on every single day Ways to contact Brian: Website: www.chowlyinc.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brian-duncan-5929745
Megan Cyrulewski opened her mediation practice in February 2015. Megan mostly deals with domestic relations issues such as divorce, child custody and parenting time. She is a member of the American Bar Association, State Bar of Michigan ADR section and Association for Conflict Resolution. Brian Duncan co-founder of Chowly. He went on to work in food and beverage consulting focusing on international chains and consumer products manufacturing for such companies as Hilton and Revolution Foods. During his time consulting Brain focused on creating efficiencies by utilizing technology. Brian's background paved the way to multiple tech startups including Chowly. Brian now serves as co-founder and board member for Chowly Inc. and is primarily focused on business development, sales and marketing For more information go to MoneyForLunch.com. Connect with Bert Martinez on Facebook. Connect with Bert Martinez on Twitter. Need help with your business? Contact Bert Martinez. Have Bert Martinez speak at your event!
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
