11 Tech Products That Should Be in Every Restaurateur’s Toolkit

Presto Flex is a versatile, multi-purpose tablet that was custom-designed for the hospitality industry. It can be deployed in a variety of restaurant dine-in and drive-thru applications, including pay-at-table, staff handheld, kiosk, and drive-thru line buster. The new platform also integrates Presto’s contactless QR Code ordering and payment to offer restaurants front-of-house flexibility. presto.com/flex

Olo’s white-label ordering experience, Serve, and its mobile app version allow brands to offer a fully responsive and consistent digital storefront and effectively improve the online ordering and guest experience across all platforms. Restaurants can use Serve to speed up ordering and checkout times, redesign the menu with higher ticket potential, and customize products. olo.com

Dispatch enables restaurants to manage the complete delivery experience through their direct channels, helping them to increase customer satisfaction. Restaurants can easily offer delivery on their direct channel by assigning online orders to delivery drivers. With Dispatch, they can follow orders through their flow of delivery as real-time driver updates and driver details are shared. deliverect.com

Offering restaurants an alternative to third-party delivery, InHouse Delivery eliminates commissions on repeat business. Restaurants can seamlessly access on-demand drivers, leverage their current employees as drivers, or hybridize the two options depending on demand. Operators can also share drivers across multiple locations or within a community of local businesses. inhousedelivery.com

Revel SmartPay is a modern mobile payments solution that supports SMS text-to-pay and QR code scan-to-pay for in-store consumer transactions. As a consumer-driven payment method, Revel SmartPay frees staff to attend to more service-oriented tasks. It also helps restaurants turn tables even faster by eliminating the steps of running cards to and from the point of sale. revelsystems.com

ChowNow’s Order Better Network connects restaurants to more than a dozen diverse channels for delivery and takeout, including major internet, social, and hospitality brands like OpenTable, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Seated, and more. Being part of the Order Better Network helps restaurants connect with millions of new customers and boost sales up to 30 percent according to ChowNow. orderbetter.com

Although full-service restaurants are eagerly welcoming guests back for dine-in, the Spot-On Sidekick can help them continue to take advantage of nimbler, alternative business models, like al fresco pop-ups and even food trucks. Using SpotOn Restaurant POS, the 5.5-inch handheld allows small-scale food businesses to take orders, process payments, and print receipts from a single device. spoton.com

Using technology and positive psychology, Pryze encourages employees to stay off their phones. When their shifts begin, staff use the app to start a timer on their cellphones, and by the end, they’ve accrued points and rewards for distraction-free time. Restaurants like P.F. Chang’s and Chili’s are using Pryze to boost employee engagement and enhance the guest experience. pryzeapp.com

The new mobile app Counter from CrunchTime helps restaurants manage their inventory by scanning food items to update quantities immediately. Counts can be made online or offline without any risk of losing data when an internet connection drops. The app allows for multiple users, all of whom can load count sheets and customize how the counts are organized. crunchtime.com

Hospitality platform BentoBox’s new Repeat Rewards was designed to help restaurants drive repeat orders at no operational or marketing cost. Restaurants can create personalized loyalty programs that incentivize their most committed online customers. Rewards are earned and redeemed across all e-commerce products, incentivizing guests to reach new milestones. getbento.com

The new app from Sculpture Hospitality converts the manual work of inventory management and order processing into a digital format. Available for iOS and Android devices, the Sculpture app is supported by a team of local experts around the globe who help restaurants streamline, centralize, and customize their inventory management processes. sculpturehospitality.com