“Technology is an expectation; it’s not just a ‘nice to have.’ I’m such a stickler with our vendors because I want this experience to be seamless for our guests.” — Jennifer Bell, CMO, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises
10 Removing friction from technology Jennifer Bell, chief marketing officer at Lettuce Entertain You, shared how her Gen Z son abandoned using a restau - rant gift card after difficulties in trying to use the gift card in the brand’s mobile app. “His tolerance for technology is an expectation; it’s not just a ‘nice to have,’” Bell explained. “I’m such a stickler with our vendors because I want this experience to be seamless for our guests.” This friction has grown alongside operational complexity. During the same panel, Iwona Alter, chief operating officer of Habit Burger & Grill, noted that her brand expanded from primarily dine-in to “11 possible points of entry” post-pan - demic. “It used to be simple,” she said. “Today, our tools and chan - nels have multiplied.” 11 Getting back to basics Hospitality was one of the most repeated buzzwords at the FSTEC conference, as operators discussed investing in tech - nology without sacrificing the humanity of old-fashioned customer service. Jennifer Dodd, CEO of Main Squeeze Juice Co., said when she joined Main Squeeze, she found the company wasn’t leveraging consumer data to the best of its ability, so she and her team began creating focus groups to garner feed - back from their top rewards customers. “What we took from that is to double down on what brought you to the dance in the first place,” Dodd said. “Like, why did they come to you as a foodservice provider?” For Main Squeeze, it was about using technology to get to the core of why people loved the brand and learning how not to stray too far from that identity.
12 Knowing technology ‘don’ts’ FSTEC speakers had strong opinions around popular tech buzzwords: Robotics — “It’s a lot of investment for not a huge amount of return.” (Tom Kincaid, Google) Dynamic pricing — “People will get pissed off if you charge them $3.50 for a taco one day and the next day $5. Smart pricing — knowing what your competitor is charging — is a better model.” (Eric Knott, CEO of Tiki Taco) Data (invasion of) privacy — “There’s so many laws that are out now about data privacy. So the challenge on the legal side is, how do you actually connect your data in a way that you fully know and understand the consumer?” (Kevin Bent - ley, head of technology and digital for Jollibee)
8 | FSTEC 2025
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