Restaurants are generally viewed as being behind the curve on technology. That is especially true for mom-and-pops, the one- or two-unit operators who make up much of the industry.
These small businesses don’t have the scale and resources of their counterparts in the chain world, which typically makes them slower to adopt new technology.
But that reputation may be more perception than reality. According to a new report from POS supplier TouchBistro, independent restaurants have been quick to embrace new technology since the pandemic, particularly artificial intelligence.
The report, which surveyed 600 independent, full-service restaurant owners, found that a whopping 95% of them are using AI in their operations. That’s up from 90% who said so last year.
“For the most part, independent FSR operators seem generally enthusiastic about AI, especially when it’s used behind the scenes where there is little impact on the guest experience,” the report said.
The most common uses of the technology were inventory management (35%) and “menu optimization” (35%). Other applications included reservations/booking (32%), menu creation (31%), marketing content creation (30%), voice ordering (30%) and phone answering (29%).
Christopher Pittsley, an operator featured in the report, said he has been using a chatbot called ChatOn AI to help create social media posts for his restaurant, Salsa Salsa, in Smithtown, New York.
“Because I handle all of our social media, AI has saved me an innumerable amount of time,” he said. “I feed it a picture, I tell it to craft me a post, and it does everything else.”
The only frustration, he said, is that the bot has a bit of a learning curve. “It needs to learn your style—you have to go in and teach it what you really want from it.”
Other operators said they have some concerns about AI’s reliability and about the complexity it could add to their business. But overall, sentiment about the technology was overwhelmingly optimistic: 89% of restaurants said they felt either positive or extremely positive about AI. Nine percent felt neutral, and 2% were negative or very negative.
Even restaurants that aren’t using AI told TouchBistro that they plan to eventually.
Artificial intelligence has been one of the most-discussed pieces of technology in restaurants this year. It has a wide range of applications and promises to help operators be more efficient at a time when food and labor costs are rising.
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