How Has Guest Behavior Evolved?

Many things shifted in the restaurant industry during the
pandemic. A lot of restaurants were forced to change and change
quickly to keep up with ever-evolving regulations. Many
restaurants transitioned to online, pick-up, and delivery models,
which will most likely stick around.


On this episode of The Main Course, Host Barbara Castiglia talked
with Alex Canter, CEO of Ordermark, which helps restaurants
increase efficiency and grow profits by aggregating mobile orders
across all of the major online-ordering services into a single
dashboard and printer.


The duo talked about what’s next for the restaurant industry
post-pandemic, technology in restaurants, and Ordermark/Nextbite.


“This last year has been absolutely devastating for our
industry,” Canter said. “We’ve seen over 100,000 restaurants
permanently shut their doors, which is really just a difficult
number to digest.”


For the restaurants that made it through to the other side, it is
a much different world. General managers, owners, chefs, and
front-of-house must now rely more heavily on digital tools in the
restaurant. The shift was expected to happen over the next ten
years, but COVID-19 accelerated that shift in just a few short
months.


“Pretty much every restaurant from fine dining to fast-casual to
QSR has figured out a digital strategy, a delivery strategy, and
has had to get really creative to make it to this point,” Canter
said. “I’m really impressed with the way restaurants have
adapted. It’s always been who we are as restaurant owners, people
who are resilient.”