We have been at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago this week. Three days and about 30,000 steps in, here are some of the tech trends that caught our eye on the floor.
Rotary phones
Just as we predicted. Well, not really, but voice AI was a big trend this year, and some vendors decided to make the tech a little more approachable by putting old-fashioned landlines in their booths. It made us a little nostalgic. (What’s next? Cash registers at the POS booths?)
Robots
These are certainly not a new sight at the Show, but they were as present as ever in 2026. And while they can often seem like more novelty than reality, operators have high hopes for them. Several told us that they think robots will be game-changers for restaurants once costs come down.
Rich Hull, CEO of Miso Robotics, argued that robots aren’t as expensive as some operators think. A Flippy automated fry cook costs $75,000, which can be paid off monthly, plus $3,000 a month for service and software upgrades, roughly what a fast-food chain might pay an employee, he said.
Flippy.
Drones
Along with the robots, there were also a few drones on display, advertising the possibility of airborne delivery for restaurant food. The technology could get a boost from looser FAA regulations that would allow them to fly farther.
AI assistants
You don’t need us to tell you that AI was everywhere at the Show, but within that sprawling category, the new hot application seemed to be AI assistants that sit atop restaurants’ data and provide insights and action items.
For instance, these assistants might tell an operator that a certain location is busier than usual, or that they’ve run out of ketchup.
Several of the big POS companies were offering a version of this, with the goal of saving operators the manual labor of keeping tabs on all that info themselves.
“Restaurant people wear a ton of hats,” said Toast CMO Kelly Esten. “How can we start to take some of that work that’s not core to why they got into running a restaurant off their plate with AI?”
AI fatigue
While many booths were booming with AI, some operators were asking for a break. Many said they are tired of the AI hype and skeptical of how much “intelligence” it actually has. Here’s how a few attendees responded to the question, “What tech trend could turn out to be just a fad in the next few years?”:
Restaurants made their thoughts on AI heard.
Homegrown AI
At the same time, operators were eager to share how they’re using AI in their restaurants outside of the vendor-sphere. Amir Harpaz, owner of The Mudpuppy in Vonore, Tennessee, has trained AI to run all of the restaurant’s social media accounts, and developed another program that optimizes menu layouts and can even send the new designs to the printer.
He was not the only operator we spoke to who was planning to build their own AI apps and save some vendor costs in the process.
“The AI that we’re seeing is not necessarily solving the immediate problem,” said Khara Mangiduyos, owner of Kalei’s Kitchenette in San Diego. “That’s why you end up creating your own.”
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