PANERA AND DARDEN EXPERIMENT WITH TECHNOLOGY

It has been a while so I am sure there are large numbers of you who have been wondering when the ever popular 2 for 1 blog will return. That day is today my friends, and these 2 articles are a perfect match. We have talked a lot about technology, and how is it continually impacting the economy and our lives. These articles focus on how restaurants are using or planning to use technology to improve their sales and service. Darden Restaurants, owners of concepts like Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and Capital Grille, is rolling out online ordering in all of their Olive Garden restaurants nationwide by August. All of these concepts are traditional restaurants in that people sit down at tables and order their food from wait staff, unlike Panera which is what we call a fast casual restaurant. At those you order at a counter then either pick up your food or they have someone bring it to you. Darden is experimenting with web based reservations at LongHorn in June, similar to what Open Table does. Once a customer checks in with the host they get a text when their table is ready. They are also experimenting with having tablets on the tables, which will be used by wait staff and allow them to charge credit cards with them. It seems like the big technology push is actually in response to competitor Chili’s, who is already doing this and more. There customers can look at the menu and photos of the dishes, order desert and drink refills, play games and pay their bill. The customers like the tablets with 80% choosing them when given a choice. Strangely, the use of them has also resulted in a 15% increase in tips. The reason given was that customers no longer get mad while waiting for the check. Even more surprisingly, the use of the tablets has resulted in higher sales; 20% more in appetizer sales and 30% more in desert sales, supposedly due to customers being able to see photos of the foods. Whatever you may think of all this “progress”, it is clearly working. On the other hand, Panera is looking to do online ordering from mobile phones and tablets that will enable their customers to quickly stop in and pick up their already waiting order at set times. People will be able to order as long as 5 days in advance. Panera realized that their cumbersome ordering process was hurting their sales and are trying to solve that problem through technology. They are calling the process Panera 2.0, which sounds pretty corny. The initial problem with this is that it is going to take “several years” to roll this out to all of their stores. By then who knows what their competition will be doing, it seems like a very long time, especially considering that they have been testing this since 2010. As we know, technology results in less jobs, and Panera envisions less employees once the digital ordering reaches 30%, and I am sure that is just a start. If these large chains are doing this you better believe others will follow their lead. So this is the restaurant of the future? Not sure how I feel about it. I like talking with people and there is a very dehumanizing element to all of this. Like all people care about are their personal needs and convenience and nothing else. Of course they do but do they really need that sandwich or coffee a couple of minutes faster? Is this true progress? We will find out soon enough I am sure. As always thanks for reading and have a great day.