Digital restaurant trends 2022

By Eric Nomis

For 2022 and beyond, operators double down on ‘digital’

As the restaurant industry prepares to move past the pandemic, it is facing challenges of epic proportions. Inflation is at historically high levels and although unemployment is low, the industry faces workforce challenges. To attract talent, an industry that has traditionally offered workers their “first job,” now has started to reflect inward and revise tactics, compensation and career paths.

These pressures have impacted how owners and executives are strategizing their next steps, and have redefined the trends currently gaining momentum. Let’s explore some of the most prevalent trends:

Consumers have continued to embrace frequent off-premises ordering post-pandemic. According to the National Restaurant Association’s “State of the Industry’’ report, 68% of adults are more likely to order carryout from a restaurant and 58% are more likely to order delivery now than before the pandemic.

As to-go ordering has become more prevalent, the ordering experience has increased in importance. For restaurants simply to offer digital ordering is not enough, says Carl Turner, chief executive and founder of Swipeby, a digital arrival platform to make any business a drive-thru for customers. “To merely process a transaction is not meaningful enough to stay competitive in the marketplace. Creating an outstanding ordering experience from placing the order, to tracking to the final pickup is what are the new key differentiators in the marketplace.”

Ordering technology should have features that enhance the experience by making it more memorable. Does it remember your favorites and recent orders? Can you finish the transaction in just a few clicks? Does it seem to be designed to make your life easier, not harder? Moreover, these features should also create stickiness with the customer, create higher transaction sizes or upsell, and open new customer channels.

As an example, many apps, such as Dunkin’s, use location to offer a point of entry for ordering, allow the customer to recall last or saved orders, and proceed to the checkout within seconds. During the ordering process, the app also suggests items “you may also like,” to prompt an increased order size.

Panera Bread’s ordering kiosks in-store are fashioned much like their smartphone app, allowing log-in in seconds and recalling last order information and favorites. Kiosks typically allow more efficient ordering than having to wait in line, particular when these cafes may also be dealing with staffing issues. capturing customer location. The location will not only enhance an off-premise experience, but also “augment the entire arrival and departure journey” of that customer within any physical store, adds Turner.

Ghost kitchens no longer invisible

Ghost kitchens used to lurk in remote parts of town where only third-party delivery drivers could reach. Now they’re out in the open and in high-traffic areas, Mintel notes in its 2022 US Foodservice Trends. Twenty-eight percent of consumers want to see more order delivery and carryout options, but only 15% of restaurant delivery users have ordered from a ghost kitchen, according to data from the research firm. This disconnect has opened up collaboration opportunities for restaurant chains and ghost-kitchen operators.

Take Kitchen United for example: Its MIX platform allows for in-store kiosk ordering from various food providers, food pick-up and even on-location dining, where feasible. When Kitchen United opened its MIX ordering platform in Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara, California, it brought a suite of ordering and fulfillment capabilities to the shopping mall.

Customers could order within the mall from various foodservice providers, but neighborhood customers could also order from the platform for delivery. Plus, customers were able to order from multiple providers on one ticket. A conveyor belt was installed to transport food from the mall’s participating food providers to the lower floor for pick-up by third-party delivery drivers. Koja Kitchen, Pizza My Heart, Big Fish Little Fish, Men Oh Ramen, and Haagen Dazs participated in the original rollout. MIX acts as an extension of the ghostkitchen concept because in these instances, Kitchen United was not involved in the food preparation.

More recently, United Kitchen installed digital to-go ordering in Ralph’s and Krogers grocery stores. Through the service at The Heights in Houston, Texas, customers can order

restaurant food via mobile app, website, or in-store kiosks. Deployed in February, the system allows users to choose food pick-up at the Kroger location. Alternatively, orders from restaurants can be directed through third party delivery, and multiple-restaurant orders can be batched on one ticket.

The launch of DoorDash Kitchens shows how having a prominent, physical presence in a market can further connect the ghost kitchen into mainstream dining. The original Redwood City, California location also emulates the ghost kitchen model, preparing food remotely for restaurants. However these locations enhance ghost kitchen appeal with visibility.

With the launch of a San Jose location, DoorDash implemented its Full Service program to offer outsourced staffing and operational support to restaurant operators looking to expand to new markets, but not wanting to invest in physical, brick-and-mortar locations. DoorDash takes care of meal prep, equipment procurement and day-to-day operations. This allows smaller restaurant operators to test new markets without ever having a physical restaurant, offloading many of the operational headaches, while partnering with DoorDash on a revenue-share basis.

DoorDash’s foray into providing a restaurant within a ghost kitchen operation represents one more way ghost kitchens are coming out into the open. With 69% of QSR and 66% of fast-casual operators acknowledging offpremises dining presents the best opportunity for growth in 2022, the use and adoption of ghost kitchens by multi-unit operators will only continue to grow.

To-go-only restaurants grow

Certain restaurant chains have done exceedingly well with to-go ordering; Chipotle Mexican Grill is a strong example. Growing rapidly, the fast-casual operator’s digital orders now account for 41.9% of sales. Its order-ahead drive-thru locations, “Chipotlanes” represent an astonishing 80% of new-store units. So it was no surprise when Chipotle announced a digital-order-only restaurant opening in Highland Falls, New York last November.

Then, in December, the Mexican-style chain opened yet another to-go only location in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, with no seating or indoor ordering kiosks. At the time, Tabassum Zalotrawala, chief development officer for Chipotle, said, “Chipotlanes are a key growth strategy for the brand. Our portfolio of approximately 300 Chipotlanes perform with the highest margins across the board, so we continue to evolve our restaurant design with formats such as the Chipotlane Digital Kitchen to best suit our growing digital business.”

There’s good reason restaurant chains are eyeing the opportunity to enhance orderahead. According to a Rakuten study in 2020, customers are looking to spend less than two minutes from the time they drive up/walk up to a restaurant and the moment they have

Kitchen United has partnered with Kroger’s to set up ghost kitchens inside grocery stores. Photo by Kitchen United.

While Chipotle continues to make great strides in the area of order ahead, it’s obviously not alone. Many restaurant chains are emphasizing their curbside and pick-up shelf fulfillment options, particularly Applebee’s, which scored in the top ranks (shortest wait times) in Rakuten’s time study, and a growing number of casual-dining chains. P.F. Chang’s investment in its To Go fast-casual concept is noteworthy: It recently opened another offpremises-focused location in Washington, DC, leveraging onsite and order-ahead capabilities.

Restaurant robotics get deployed

The use of robotics is on the rise, to both reduce labor and increase efficiency. Robotic applications are numerous, from preparing pizza and burgers in the kitchen and blending shakes in vending machines, to delivering food to customers’ tables and homes. The trend is expected to continue, particularly as labor and supply costs continue to increase.

Miso Robotics had already committed to deploy 100 Flippy 2 frying units at White Castle restaurants in its partnership with the quick-service slider chain when it announced a partnership with Wing Zone this spring. A franchise of the chicken-wing chain will test and deploy the Flippy 2 robot at new units. Wing Zone Labs, the franchisee, will make good use of the second generation autonomous cook, which followed the rollout of the famous Flippy, the burger-flipping machine.

“We couldn’t be more excited to announce a

truly groundbreaking partnership with Wing Zone to incorporate back-of-house automation into all of its future restaurants from this point forward,” said Mike Bell, chief executive of Miso Robotics, in the announcement. “No other brand has accepted automation to this degree, and we don’t take their trust in us lightly. We want to establish Wing Zone as the franchise of the future, and this is just the first step in doing so.”

Nala Robotics will help Slice Factory prepare its pizza, pasta and salads as the pizza chain continues to expand. Announced in June, the installation of its automated chef, Pizzaiolaä, in new units, will help Slice Factory continue to dole out its pies and 28-inch jumbo slices to customers. At its flagship store in Chicago, Pizzaiolaä will take over nearly all the offpremises kitchen operations and fulfill offpremises orders.

Domino’s Pizza launched a test in Houston last year with Nuro’s R2 Robot. The R2 delivers pizza in autonomous fashion to select delivery customers. In this new delivery experience by the pizza behemoth, customers who are selected for robot delivery will receive text messages to update their pizza’s location, or they can check a confirmation page to track the order by R2’s GPS. Upon arrival, a PIN can be used to open the compartment holding the hot pizza order.

Announced last year, Coco will deliver food for C3, the digital, virtual restaurant brand platform that includes Umami Burger, Krispy Rice, Sam’s Crispy Chicken, Cicci di Carne, and new brands including Sa’Moto by Chef Morimoto, EllaMia, and Cindy Lou’s Cookies. The mobile cart robots on wheels were deployed on Broadway and Main Street in Santa Monica, The Grove in West Hollywood and Los Feliz to service C3 kitchens within a two-mile radius.

Coco can also provide faster delivery times and consistency, notes C3. The robots are not impacted by traffic patterns and peaks, so they are able to deliver 30% faster than driver-based services with 97% accuracy. C3 delivery via Coco also enables higher-quality food, as it will arrive fresher, according to the announcement, and food is delivered sans courier handling, increasing sanitation and reducing the risk of contamination.

C3 is taking a digital-first approach to expand into new markets faster than any of our delivery-focused competitors,” said Sam Nazarian, founder and chief executive of C3, during the rollout. “As an industry leader with a rapidly growing food empire, we are responsible for making sure our growth is sustainable for the environment and the consumer. We are proud to support a fellow disrupter that has created a techadvanced delivery solution and we hope other restaurateurs follow our lead.”

In its seed capital fund raise, C3 invested in Nommi robotic kitchens. The kitchen technology that autonomously prepares food bowls raised $20M in the financing round. Digital restaurant ecosystem C3 will invest as part of a 50/50 deal to add robotic Nommi kitchens to the C3 community, including a pilot program through its Sa’Moto restaurant brand.

Nommi is creating a standalone robotic kitchen able to produce and dispense dishes made of any grain, noodle or lettuce through a fully-integrated cooking system. Nommi is backed by Wavermaker Labs, a robotic incubator.

As part of a mostly-virtual collection of restaurant brands, C3 is behind Umami Burger, Sam’s Crispy Chicken, Krispy Rice, Cindy Lou’s Cookies, EllaMia, Plant Nation, and Kumi, as well as new concepts such Sa’Moto, a collection of Chef Morimoto’s favorite Pan-Asian fare, El Pollo Verde, serving rotisserie from Chef Dani Garcia, Cicci Di Carne, a local deli and butcher’s shop helmed by world-renowned Chef Dario Cecchini, and Mediterranean-style Soom Soom Fresh.