Restaurants’ tech wish: Digital crystal balls
Presenters touched on such futuristic uses of tech as drone delivery (likely to be embraced by one in four adult consumers, the NRA said) and robots (which are still a Jetsons-caliber fantasy at this point, presenters agreed).
The application restaurateurs would most like to see is predictive ordering, or nailing what customers are going to want before they go ahead and order, indicated Hudson Riehle, SVP of the NRA’s research and knowledge group.
Weather forecasting should also be a concern, according to Riehle. Earlier, he had aired meteorologists’ consensus that temperatures will be “above or exceptionally above the normal level.” Research and past experience has shown that aberrant weather is a sales detriment, he noted.