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1 | FSTEC 2026
Chris Keating EVP, Conferences, Informa Connect Foodservice
We recently wrapped another unforgettable FS/TEC—this one marking the event’s 30th anniversary—where the leading minds in restaurant technology gathered to tackle the industry’s most pressing digital challenges. For three days in Dallas, restaurant leaders explored the delicate balance between digital innovation and genuine hospitality, sharing insights on the ROI of artificial intelligence implementations, strategies for meeting evolving consumer expectations, and practical solutions to integration hurdles that have long challenged back-of- house and front-of-house technology stacks alike. Attendees learned from some of the most cutting-edge brands in the business and also got a first-hand look at new products and tools, including a drone demonstration. This interactive report brings you the best of FS/TEC through video interviews, podcasts, exclusive data, and behind-the-scenes photos. Get top trends and takeaways from the editors of Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News, who were on the scene talking with decision-makers from such brands as Chili’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Swig, 7 Brew, and many more. Over three decades, FS/TEC has evolved alongside the industry it serves, growing from a niche gathering into the premier destination for restaurant technology leaders shaping the future. We hope this report gives you the insights and inspiration you need to ready your business for what’s next.
2 | FSTEC 2026
CONTENTS
4 RESTAURANT TECH CONFRONTS A TOUGH MARKET 8
WONDER EXECS LAY OUT PLAN FOR AUTONOMOUS FOOD PLATFORM 10 WHY NEXT-GEN RESTAURANT TECH SHOULD AUTOMATE THE TASK, NOT THE MOMENT 12 ‘THE THINKING MACHINE’ AUTHOR GIVES OPTIMISTIC VIEW OF AI, WITH GUARDRAILS 14 KEITH LEE ON THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA STORYTELLING 18 OPERATOR SPOTLIGHT 20 QSR’S BIGGEST COMPETITION IS THE C-STORE 22 THE NEST: C-SUITE LEADERS ON AI, LOYALTY, DATA 24 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MAIN STAGE 26 2026 RESTAURANT TECH POWER LIST 32 SCENES FROM THE SHOW 36 FROM THE MARKETPLACE 38 2026 FS/TEC TECHNOLOGY GUIDE
Photo by Jon Mouer
FSTEC 2026 | 3
RESTAURANT TECH CONFRONTS A TOUGH MARKET
Tech Check: A weak restaurant business, AI backlash, and a swing back to human-centric hospitality are putting pressure on restaurant tech companies. But restaurants still want tech. By Joe Guszkowski
Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Restaurant Association, spoke about how restaurants can navigate market challenges. Photo by Jon Mouer
T he recent FSTEC conference was a bit of a reality check for restaurants. Data shared at the event showed that traffic remains weak, profits are shrinking, menu price inflation is rising again, and U.S. population growth is slowing, among other concerns. It’s tough out there, to say the least. But it might be even tougher for the other half of the audience at the event — the companies trying to sell technology to those restaurants. It’s not just a sluggish restaurant market that’s getting tech vendors down. They’re grappling with AI and the opportunities and risks it represents. They’re also dealing with deeper
questions about whether tech is even helping restaurants at all. It all bubbled up at FSTEC, the annual celebration of restaurant technology that this year felt more like a referendum at times. We’re going to get into it, though I will note, for the faint of heart: Despite all of the doom and gloom you’re about to read, there is reason for optimism, which I have buried at the end of the column. But first, the bad news. Restaurant margins are shrinking As mentioned, running a restaurant is a lot less profitable these days. In
2019, median pretax income for full- service restaurants was about 4%; this year, that’s down to 2.8%, according to National Restaurant Association data presented at FSTEC. For limited service, that number has dropped from about 6% to 4%. “The restaurant industry has a profitability crisis,” said Rich Shank, VP of innovation for Technomic. That means restaurants are looking to cut their costs, not add to them, which makes it that much harder to justify new technology investments. Of course, tech could help restaurants grow their profits by making them more efficient, driving in more traffic, or getting customers to spend more. But
4 | FSTEC 2026
that isn’t always happening, which brings us to our next point. Tech isn’t turning the tide According to National Restaurant Association data, restaurants are seeing bottom-line benefits from technology, but not as much as one would like, as my colleague Jonathan Maze wrote recently. In a survey, about 29% of restaurants said that technology reduced corporate overhead, 27% said it reduced labor costs, and 20.4% said it reduced upfront costs. But more than 28% of restaurants said tech had no significant impact on their operating costs, and another 12% said that it had actually increased their costs. That’s 40% that aren’t seeing tech do what it’s supposed to. Even Chad Moutray, the restaurant association’s chief economist and a glass-half-full kind of guy, acknowledged that tech’s impact on costs is “not as high as I would have expected.” This means tech companies need to buckle down, be clear about their ROI, and focus on how they can help restaurants’ bottom line. Consumers don’t like AI In a presentation on AI, author and journalist Stephen Witt high- lighted data from a new Gallup poll showing that just 35% of Amer- icans believe AI will improve their lives. (Worldwide, the sentiment is generally more positive, Gallup found.) Witt tied Americans’ AI discontent to our current K-shaped economy, in which wealthy people are benefiting from a stock market that’s being fueled by AI stocks while everyone else is getting squeezed. “This creates a lot of political resentment of AI,” he said. And that’s just one reason consumers are anti-AI. There are also fears that it’s going to take everyone’s jobs, or, you know, end the world. Needless to say, this is a problem for tech companies selling consumer-facing AI products, such as AI that answers the phone or takes orders in the drive-thru. That’s showing up in survey data, too. According to Technomic, just 23% of consumers find ordering from an AI drive-thru bot appealing, making it the least popular restaurant ordering method. In a panel at FSTEC, Burger King’s VP of IT Chakri Somisetti said the chain is changing its AI drive-thru strategy after finding that some customers will drive away rather than order from a robot. This is part of a larger shift back to more human-centric hospitality at restaurants as the pandemic becomes an ever more distant memory. “There’s been this pretty strong re-emergence of the importance of experience, social occasions, and service,” Shank said. “How can you create that hospitality with a smile when you are building these technologies?”
FSTEC 2026 | 5
Restaurants are tired of AI, too Tech vendors have spent the past two or three years injecting more AI into their offerings for various reasons. Walking the vendor marketplace at FSTEC, AI was everywhere, just like last year, and the year before. And yet, as the above data demonstrates, AI has yet to make a real tangible imprint on the industry as a whole. And restaurants are simply tired of hearing about it. AI “is a dirty word right now,” said Joe Yetter, president of PAR Technology’s restaurant division. PAR is one of the many companies reshaping its business around AI. Asked how it plans to sell that technology to a skeptical audience, Yetter said PAR wants to focus less on the AI, and more on the outcomes AI can create. “There’s a number of avenues where we’ve invested in AI, but AI is not the goal in and of itself,” Yetter said. That seems to be how restaurants are approaching the AI overload as well. When assessing potential tech investments, Brinker International CTO Chris Caldwell said the company first starts with the pain points it wants to address and then looks at what technology might be able to solve it. “I think once you really narrow down the use cases that you’re going after, it makes it a little bit easier,” he said. “[You’re not just looking] at all aspects of technology and AI, but at the ones that are really playing in the spaces that you’re trying to solve for.” I should note here that the most impressive piece of technology I saw at FSTEC had zero AI in it. It was the Wingstop Smart Kitchen (supplied by the Perfect Company), a sort of gamified kitchen display system that tells employees exactly what they should be doing and when. It has apparently been working wonders for Wingstop.
Image: Envato
“Once you really narrow down the [AI] use cases that you’re going after, it makes it a little bit easier.” — Chris Caldwell, CTO of Brinker International
Vibe coding is coming Now, while many restaurants say they’re fed up with all the AI talk, AI has also given them an out: With the help of AI coding tools, it’s now possible for operators to build their own technology at a fraction of the cost of buying it from a vendor. In fact, a vendor-hosted workshop at FSTEC showed attendees exactly how to do it: Using Claude, presenters from Revmo AI built an AI “skill” that could take a bar’s inventory based on a picture of bottles on a shelf. “The build versus buy equation has started to shift very much in the favor of building,” said Witt. “That’s putting pressure on vendors, because customers don’t want these bells and whistles.” Though he is bullish on vibe coding, Witt also acknowledged that there are risks involved, particularly when it comes to scaling a homegrown app across a large organization — the kind of thing established tech companies are built for. “It could be easy to get trapped in a bad IT project, which is presumably the thing you’re trying to avoid,” he said.
He added that the best vendors will encourage restaurants to vibe code atop of their platforms by “de-siloing” their data for the operator to use. There is hope All that being said, things aren’t all bad. Nearly 700 operators attended FSTEC this year. That’s nearly 700 people who are interested in investing in tech- nology. There were plenty of success stories to behold on and off the stage. There’s a good chance that AI will be truly transformative, in time. There are still innovative new tech companies to be found and founded. And at the end of the day, there was still a sense that tech — the right tech — can be the answer to a lot of restaurants’ challenges. “Everybody in this marketplace has the coolest technology, right? There’s no doubt about it,” said Chris Padilla, CIO of Dine Brands, during FSTEC’s opening session. “It’s more focused on, as you go and you interact with all the vendors in the marketplace, being crystal clear what outcomes that you’re trying to achieve. … Know those with clarity, and that will guide your decisions.”
6 | FSTEC 2026
Josh Schoonmaker of PAR Technology elaborates on his FSTEC presentation, highlighting the value of data for engaging with restaurant guests, optimizing loyalty programs, and leveraging artificial intelligence. Watch for more advice on dealing with the foodservice industry’s challenges around data strategy, such as integrating tech stacks and resolving customer identity while enabling more digital-ordering channels.
Josh Schoonmaker SVP of Product, PAR Technology
partech.com
WONDER EXECS LAY OUT PLAN FOR AUTONOMOUS FOOD PLATFORM Company leaders explain how investments in AI, robots, and drones will help produce and deliver food more cheaply. By Joe Guszkowski A s soon as next year, consumers in Texas will be able to have lunch prepared by a robot and delivered by a drone, with less than a minute of human labor involved along the way.
courier or a drone. Human employees will be responsible for finishing and labeling the robot-produced food before it heads out the door, a job that will take as little as 30 seconds, Hoggett said. Wonder was founded in 2018 by Marc Lore, an ecommerce veteran and billionaire who has helped the company raise more than $3 billion to fuel its ambitious goals. In a wide- ranging interview with NRN Editor-in- Chief Jonathan Maze during the annual restaurant tech conference, Hoggett and Wonder’s head of robotics, Michael Farid, talked about the company’s unique business model and its plans for the future.
That’s the plan for Wonder, the food tech and delivery company that is aiming to develop a fully autonomous system for producing and delivering food. It even wants to use AI to generate customers’ meal plans, based on their tastes and dietary needs, with the goal of feeding them 21 times a week. “We’ll be able to plan for them, cook for them, and deliver without them even thinking about it,” said Wonder CEO Tony Hoggett during an interview at the FSTEC conference. “In five years’ time, we’ll have areas of our businesses that will be very much on that journey.” Elements of this plan are already in place, and Wonder will take another step forward next year outside Dallas, where a Wonder location will be outfitted with the company’s bowl-making robot, the Infinite Makeline, and plugged into a drone delivery network operated by Zipline. Customers in Wonder’s delivery zone will be able to decide whether they want to pick up their food or have it delivered by a human
8 | FSTEC 2026
Photo by Jon Mouer
Currently, Wonder consists of about 160 brick-and-mortar locations along the East Coast. Each one offers up to 30 different restaurants, all of them developed, licensed, or acquired by Wonder. Customers can order from these brands through the Wonder app, which allows them to mix and match items from across the entire catalog, or through third-party delivery apps DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grubhub, which Wonder owns. The idea is to offer something for everyone, especially families and groups that can’t agree on what to order. The company also owns Blue Apron meal kits, which it sells alongside its restaurant food. It categorizes the two segments as “food for later” and “food for now.” Hoggett said Wonder could eventually sell groceries as well. Wonder’s food is still largely prepared and delivered by humans. But it is rapidly introducing more automation into the process. The Infinite Makeline, developed by a company formerly known as Spyce and acquired earlier this year from Sweetgreen, can now produce bowl-based meals from several of Wonder’s restaurant concepts. It went live earlier this month in a Wonder location in Manhattan. Wonder is also using robotic arms to sort orders before they are bagged, and it is developing other bots to help manage its massive library of 700 menu items and 1,000 SKUs. The Infinite Mise robot will pick ingredients off shelves and bring them to the prep area, and Infinite Sauce will be able to make an array of sauces for different menu items. An AI-powered kitchen display system, meanwhile, helps orchestrate incoming orders from Wonder’s many restaurants so that employees know what they should be doing and when. The goal is to have all of the items from each order ready to go at precisely the same time, which can be “quite a complex puzzle,” Hoggett said. Wonder won’t be able to automate everything immediately, said Farid, who co-founded Spyce and joined
Wonder with the acquisition. Tasks like cooking and assembling burgers, for instance, will still be done mostly by humans in the near-term. “Maybe one day, we’ll address those,” he said. “But we’re starting with the core challenge of true authentic variety, which is handling hundreds, thousands of SKUs.” Of course, the company hopes that automation will also bring down its operating costs, including labor costs, allowing it to pass those savings on to customers in the form of lower prices. But Hoggett declined to share details about Wonder’s labor cost percentage or its unit economics. “What I can tell you is that across 30 restaurants, because of the way we built both the hardware, with robotics and automation, but just as importantly, the software through our sequencing algorithm, it allows a multi-skilled workforce to cook whatever is in front of them, super accurately, and importantly, to your question, incredibly cheaply,” he said. Wonder hopes automated delivery vehicles like drones will help lower costs further, while also speeding up deliveries and expanding Wonder’s radius. You don’t have to tip a drone, Hoggett said. And because they can travel at up to 70 miles per hour directly to their destination, they could double the number of households a Wonder location can serve. Doing all of this will not be cheap. Hoggett acknowledged that building a Wonder is “a bit more expensive” than a standard 3,500-square-foot restaurant, mainly due to all of the automation. But, he said, because Wonder is putting 30 restaurants under that roof instead of one, the unit economics are different. “We know in the way that we’re growing those locations, they’re comping year on year, is that you can take that bet on the capital that we put down, because we are growing into it very quickly,” Hoggett said. “And we have an appetite for risk and betting on ourselves.”
FSTEC 2026 | 9
WHY NEXT-GEN RESTAURANT TECH SHOULD AUTOMATE THE TASK, NOT THE MOMENT
Female restaurant technology leaders from 7 Brew and Smoothie King on how they are using AI to remove fric- tions while pro- tecting hospitality. By Joanna Fantozzi “ A utomate the task, not the moment,” said Smoothie King Chief Information Officer Jyoti Lynch during the New Architects of Foodservice Technology closing session of the 2026 FSTEC conference in Dallas, Texas. This women-led session was presented by the Women’s Foodservice Forum, and also featured 7 Brew Chief Technology Officer Danyel Bischof-Forsyth, as well as WFF Chief Brand Officer Ellie Doty as
moderator. Technology consistently
Technology leaders at FSTEC consistently emphasized a key principle: automation should ideally run seamlessly in the background, removing friction without distracting from the hospitality experience. Photo by Jon Mouer
leaders
at
FSTEC
emphasized key principle: automation should ideally run seamlessly in the background, removing friction without distracting from the hospitality experience. This balance between technology and hospitality was a major theme in this session. a “People can show up in the digital channels, the drive-thru or the store, and you don’t want to automate any of that because those are your personal
touchpoints with guests,” Lynch said. “But everything behind that to make their jobs easier is where automation comes in.” Lynch gave the example of a typical challenge a franchisee might face: If the point-of-sale system’s end-of-day process doesn’t complete overnight, stores can’t process sales the next
morning — creating immediate chaos when team members arrive. Smoothie King has worked on automating this process to run in the background while the store is closed overnight, so baristas walk into a fully functional system when the store opens the next day. Primarily, though, her team’s focus is on automating back of house tasks, which
10 | FSTEC 2026
would be completely invisible to the guest. “There’s a lot we can automate, and where we see great business value is bookkeeping and inventory predictions,” Bischof-Forsyth said. “It is not going to replace the interaction. That’s non- negotiable.” Some automation does take place closer to the customer interaction, but Lynch emphasized that it won’t take away from the hospitality experience. “If [our system] can recognize loyalty members the moment they walk through the door, then it can let the team member know,” she said. “We want to leverage technology to make their lives easier.” 7 Brew also considers the balance of customer engagement when investing in new technology. The rapidly growing drive-thru coffee chain recently launched its first app, and Bischof- Forsyth emphasized how crucial it was that the app was additive to the friendly service 7 Brew is known for. “The app gives you time in your own home or car to navigate the surprises and offers before you even get there,” she said. “It’s all about allowing you to do some things even before you get there to allow more time to engage with our baristas.” The investment in new technology like mobile ordering or kiosks has added an additional opportunity for connection between customers and employees: Technology troubleshooting. “We trained all of our baristas on the app so that they could be familiar and assist customers when they came through,” Bischof-Forsyth said.
“There’s a lot we can automate. ... [But] it’s not going to replace the interaction. That’s non-negotiable.”
— Danyel Bischof-Forsyth, Chief Technology Officer, 7 Brew
FSTEC 2026 | 11
‘THE THINKING MACHINE’ AUTHOR GIVES OPTIMISTIC VIEW OF AI, WITH GUARD- RAILS Author Stephen Witt wouldn’t trust a robot with a knife just yet. But he sees an autonomous future for restaurants. By Lisa Jennings S tephen Witt doesn’t trust a robot with a knife. But he does see a very near future
Huang. Nvidia, of course, is the maker of micro- chips, along with much of the equip- ment that goes into data centers that fuel the AI boom. Witt called Nvidia the largest and most powerful company in the world, and he said Jensen has President Trump’s ear. The data center buildout will be the biggest infrastructure investment in history, said Witt. It will be bigger than railroads and canals combined; bigger
than highways; and bigger than tele- com. And most of that construction will involve Nvidia, which is positioned to earn about $250 billion in profit this year, Witt said. Now Jensen is all in on robots, believ- ing that everything that moves will be- come autonomous and controlled by AI. And Nvidia has been working on robot brains since long before the robots even existed. When asked if we will have fully au-
in which everything that moves will have a motor on it with autonomous in- telligence. Witt, who spoke during the FSTEC conference in Dallas, is an investiga- tive journalist, television producer, and author of the book “The Thinking Ma- chine,” which offers insight into the tech company Nvidia and CEO Jensen
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Photo by Jon Mouer
“I would gladly have ChatGPT do my taxes. But if someone was like, ‘I’m going to give this robot a knife and chop some cabbage in the kitchen,’ I don’t want to be anywhere near that thing.”
— Stephen Witt, Investigative Journalist, Television Producer, Author
tonomous restaurants, Witt contended they already exist in China — though even there some humans are involved in actual cooking. As good as AI is on processing language and business intelligence, Witt argued there’s still a lot of work to be done on robotics, which remain somewhat unpredictable. “I would gladly have ChatGPT do my taxes,” he said. “But if someone was like, ‘I’m going to give this robot a knife and chop some cabbage in the kitchen,’ I don’t want to be anywhere near that thing.” Witt argued that now is the time for restaurant companies to start building the AI systems they need — rather than buying from vend- ors whose systems could rapidly become obsolete, given the pace of advancement and competitive pressures. Witt said five years ago he might have advised caution on building in-house, saying IT had a terrible track record of delivering on-time, tangible results and were constantly over budget. “Now it’s different,” he said. “I would advise you to build this stuff on the cheap. Take a team, if you’re considering an IT deployment, and you should know within just a couple of weeks of experimenting whether or not you have a pathway or a runway to cloud coding, essentially a bespoke software application for your organization.” But he advised against building stuff that requires a large-scale infrastructure deployment. “I would rely on a vendor for that,” he said. Despite many who are sounding the alarm on rapid rise of AI, Witt is mostly optimistic, though he does see some risk. He described himself as somewhat at odds with Jensen on this, be- cause Witt believes AI needs better guardrails. This summer we saw AI break out of its container and maraud through the internet, taking over other computers. AI is already solv- ing math problems that humans couldn’t solve. In some ways AI is superintelligent, but in other ways it’s still very stupid, which creates the risk, he said. “I don’t think it’s an engineer- ing problem that can’t be resolved.”
Image: Envato
Americans, however, hate data centers and are very skeptical about AI. The booming AI industry is contributing to the K-shaped economy, and those on the lower end are getting squeezed, which creates political resentment. He pointed to a Gallup poll recently indicating that 90% of Chinese respondents thought AI was good. In Singapore it was 70% and in Korea and Japan also very high. In the U.S. it was 35%. The majority think AI is bad. “And we’re the country that’s in the lead. We’re the country that’s building it,” he said. “I’m not any kind of socialist or anything, like, I’m pro-business. But I see this ending, and it could have real repercussions down the road.” Americans also hate data centers, or at least living near them. “There’s a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt),” he said. Witt believes the solution will likely be paying people who live near data centers. And, he said, “What they really love is cheap gasoline. So every data center should have a Buc-ee’s attached to it.”
FSTEC 2026 | 13
KEITH LEE ON THE POWER OF SOCIAL
MEDIA STORYTELLING The mega influencer shared how he has evolved from reviewing restaurants to becoming an advocate for small business owners. By Lisa Jennings K eith Lee calls himself basically a Yelp reviewer with a camera. But the mega influencer can restaurant operators he tends to visit, many of which are family owned and don’t have a budget for marketing.
the event, which was also designed for families, with music, activities, and rides. Lee is planning another Family Day restaurant event next year in Chi- cago. Fundamentally, Lee said the trust he has built with his followers is based on storytelling. Lee was a professional fighter, starting straight out of high school at age 18. He
make or break restaurants with a post, and he has millions of followers across multiple social media platforms. His re- views are known to cause “the Keith Lee Effect,” resulting in lines out the door for the concept (if he likes it). During a keynote at the FSTEC confer- ence in Dallas, Lee talked about how he has become an advocate for the small
This year, he hosted the inaugural Family Day Festival in New Orleans, an event that brought together some of those concepts to showcase their food. But, unlike most food festivals, the res- taurant operators didn’t have to pay fees to attend. The festival was supported by sponsors. And more than 20,000 people attended
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14 | FSTEC 2026
Photo by Jon Mouer
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was a 165 pounder at the time, trying to fight at 135, so his diet was key. He started cooking for himself and his wife. Saying he suffered from social anxiety, he started recording his cooking sessions and posting them, to build his own confidence for doing interviews on camera. And he started gaining followers. It was a storyline that many followers could relate to, he said. In those early days, he was on food stamps. He talked about his wife’s pregnancy, and how early videos were shot with him sitting in his daughter’s Paw Patrol chair with his phone propped on a sugar jar. Now Lee said he has been blessed with the finances to pursue opportunities to expand his brand. But he remains committed to simply being himself, he said. “I feel like people know I’m going to be me, and I’m go- ing to be honest,” he said. “I think people nowadays are starting to really enjoy getting the opinions of people who look like them and come from the same back- ground as them.” In traditional dining guides, like Michelin or news- paper columns, reviewers are typically culinary ex- perts who might use language that a lot of people don’t understand, he said. “What we do is from a consumer, by a consumer, for the consumer,” he said. “So one of our No. 1 rules is that, if I have an experience, I would like my mom to go in the next day and be able to have the exact same experience.” Many influencers charge restaurants for posts, but Lee does not. He pays for his own food. In fact, often he will return to the restaurant after the review and leave a large tip. These tips have ranged from $4,000 to $10,000, and they are designed to help the restaurant operator prepare for the Keith Lee Ef- fect by staffing up and ordering more inventory. “And this is out of pocket, if anyone out there would like to help with that,” Lee told the FSTEC crowd. The tech company Toast has partnered with Lee to leave $50,000 in tips for each of three businesses. One was The Puddery, in Texas, which was on the verge of closing when Lee first visited. Now she’s on her third location and also has a food truck. And, though Lee wants to be a platform for those small operators in food deserts who might get over-
Image: Envato
looked, he’s also engaging with chains. Lee said he met recently with Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves, who also has quite a following on social media. Lee also recently posted about The Cheesecake Factory’s Cajun sal- mon dish, which has gone viral. Across the country, the casual din- ing chain has been running out of Cajun salmon at times because the dish has become so popular. Other chains Lee loves include Topgolf (his wife used to work there), In-N-Out Burger, Shake Shack, and Chick-fil-A, he said. Fundamentally, he told the tech crowd to make an effort to engage with their guests on social media. “Everybody wants to feel like they can relate to something now,” he said. That social media interaction may just be “a 20-year-old laying in his bed and dropping memes. But it makes people want to be part of the experience.” Also, he urged the tech executives to hire young people who speak the language of social media, because it’s constantly evolving. “I’ll be 30 this year, and I’m already ‘Unc,’” said Lee.
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OPERATOR SPOTLIGHT Hear how 5 restaurant tech leaders approach AI, robotics and customer experience at their brands.
Swig Swig chief technology officer Ryan Gee talks upcoming projects with Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Business senior editor Joanna Fantozzi. Behind the scenes, Swig is working on consolidating back-of-house technology. On the customer-facing end, Swig app users will soon be able to save their custom dirty soda creations, and order their specialty drinks at any location.
Dave’s Hot Chicken Dave’s Hot Chicken chief technology officer Leon Davoyan talks with Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News senior editor Joe Guszkowski about why the brand is going all-in on robot and drone delivery.
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Another Broken Egg Another Broken Egg chief technology officer Chris Harrison talks with Restaurant Business executive editor Lisa Jennings about why simplicity is key to scalability for growing brands, and how he plans to modernize the fast-casual brand’s back office and point-of-sale systems.
Brinker International Brinker International CIO Chris Caldwell talks with Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News senior editor Joe Guszkowski about how understanding operational friction and employee pain points shaped Chili’s recent tech investments. He also offers insights on Brinker’s AI strategy.
Topgolf TopGolf CIO Jay Spears chats with Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Business senior editor Joanna Fantozzi about how the eatertainment brand is investing in new technology that will allow customers to order food and drinks before they arrive, so their first order arrives shortly after they begin playing.
FSTEC 2026 | 19
QSR’S BIGGEST COMPETITION IS THE C-STORE
Restaurants can stand out with a return to hospitality.
By Leigh Anne Zinsmeister
I n the year 2026, quick-service restaurants’ biggest competitors aren’t each other — they’re convenience stores. So said Rich Shank, senior principal and vice president of innovation of Technomic, at the recent FSTEC. “Ninety-five percent of C-store operators confirm that foodservice is a strategic priority for their business,” Shank shared. “Eighty percent agree that foodservice is vitally important to the success of their total store. … They’re coming aggressively for the restaurant space, because they see a pretty big opportunity to compete with all of us.” Not only that, but they are drawing in the consumers who were once attracted to restaurants. “Sixty-eight percent of consumers believe that C-stores are just as capable as restaurants of offering fresh, quality food and beverages,” he said. Store designs at C-stores including QuickChek, Dash In, and Sheetz now mimic traditional QSRs, Shank said, showcasing sleek interiors with kiosks, self-serve areas, and self-checkouts. The C-stores are heavily tech-driven, and therefore restaurant technology teams should emphasize more the human element of hospitality that they offer, thus differentiating themselves from tech-forward C-stores. In fact, consumers are looking for that human element. Although convenience is still crucial, 60% of consumers prefer ordering with staff as opposed to self-serve kiosks at limited-service restaurants, according to Shank. “When a customer orders through a staff member, their satisfaction and loyalty metrics average around 58%,” he said. “When they order from the brand or first-party digital app, it drops a little bit, but it’s not
statistically significant. You’re still showing me who you are through your brand’s apps and websites. … Once you start getting away from the human and the brand, and you get down to third party, satisfaction drops to 51%. When you go to a kiosk, satisfaction drops to 49%.” Of course, it also comes down to the reason for a customer’s visit. “Service the occasion that your customers are there for,” Shank said. “If your customers are there for something grab and go, [they] need to get in and out, that’s great. If some of your customers are there for grab and go and others are there because [they] want to go hang out, you need to service both ends of that consumer spectrum. If you’re only doing one, you’re probably going to struggle.”
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Rich Shank, senior principal and vice president of innovation for Technomic, said as brands add more technology, the human element will be a key differentiator. Photos by Jon Mouer
“C-stores are coming aggressively for the restaurant space because they see a pretty big opportunity to compete with all of us.”
He gave the example of Starbucks going through that moment about three years ago, before CEO Brian Niccol took over and re-emphasized the third place. Ordering methods in order of overall consumer appeal are:
create the desired hospitality. While traffic is sluggish across the industry, according to Technomic, there are pockets of growth in various segments. The brands that score highest on brand identity, innovation, and cultural relevancy are growing the fastest — restaurants that score above average grew at a rate of 8.2% in 2025, while below-average restaurants were at -3.4%. Technomic is projecting a return to real growth in 2026, although has downgraded earlier predictions to 0.7% growth due to rising gas prices. The highest growth this year is expected to come from coffee/ cafe and salad concepts on the LSR side and FSR Asian and steak restaurants. Meanwhile, the LSR pizza segment is likely to continue declining along with FSR seafood and Mexican. More of a rebound is expected in 2027, at 1.3% real growth.
• Inside the unit with an employee • Via the restaurant’s app or website • At the drive-thru with an employee • Inside the unit at a kiosk • Via a third-party app or website • At the drive-thru with AI voice assist
The human element can set QSRs apart from convenience stores, and technology can be used to
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L eading restaurant executives gathered at FSTEC for this year’s Nest Technology Summit, continuing the invitation-only collective’s tradition of bringing together C-suite leaders for high-impact, peer-to-peer discussion. This year’s Nest Technology Summit brought together nearly 70 top executives who shared insights on artificial intelligence, customer experience, third-party delivery, loyalty innovation, and the growing role of data in shaping restaurant strategy. The exclusive gathering, which was sponsored by 858 Partners, drew leaders spanning marketing, operations, and technology from some of the industry’s most recognized brands, including Yum Brands, Restaurant Brands International (RBI), Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, Raising Cane’s, Brinker International, Wingstop, Panda Express, Swig, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and many more. Nest members had multiple opportunities to connect and share dur- ing FS/TEC. In addition to the Technology Summit, Nest members also participated in a CMO Breakfast, and were in featured event sessions. Garrett Fadden, VP, restaurant technology for Inspire Brands shared his insights on the main stage, and Kevin Bentley, head of technology and digital, North America, for Jollibee Group, spoke about guest experience from the new Intelligence Stage. The Nest continues to grow as a trusted think tank for restaurant in- dustry leadership, and now includes more than 650 executive mem- bers across 12 distinct groups. Led by Mark Hatch, vice president of trade relations and head of Nest engagement for the Informa Con- nect Foodservice Group, The Nest remains committed to serving leaders across a wide range of roles, including president/CEO, COO, CIO, CMO, CFO, brand founders, and supply chain executives. THE NEST AT FS/TEC C-suite leaders convene to tackle AI, loyalty, and data.
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Photos by Jon Mouer
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MAIN STAGE Get more insights direct from leading restaurant technology experts.
How technology drives efficiency at 7 Brew: Want to know how technology is impacting your employees? Just ask them. Danyel Bischof-For- syth, chief technology officer at 7 Brew Coffee, discusses how her team gauges the real impact of technology on the restaurant brand’s store-level teams. Using direct feedback from baristas and franchisees, leadership can more effectively identify operational pain points and test new solutions.
How AI is changing the build vs. buy question for restaurant tech leaders: Stephen Witt, author of “The Thinking Machine,” discusses how AI, and re - cent advances in robotics, are reshaping foodser- vice operations and decision-making in real time. Plus, how these tools are changing the build vs. buy equation
How Wonder uses kitchen robotics to boost speed and accuracy: Wonder CEO Tony Hoggett and SVP, robotics Michael Farid sit down with Restaurant Business’ Jonathan Maze to discuss how the com- pany is turning to technology to address back-of- house bottlenecks and get food in customers’ hands in record time.
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How restaurants are approaching voice AI in the drive-thru: Chakri Somisetti, VP of IT for Restau- rant Business International, discusses how the company is leveraging the efficiencies of voice AI while making sure not to alienate customers who still prefer a human interaction.
Does technology lower restaurant satisfaction?: Rich Shank, senior principal and vice president of innovation at Technomic, cautioned restaurants to make sure technology doesn’t inadvertently put distance between the customer and brand, noting that satisfaction scores tend to decline when more layers of technology — third-party platforms, kiosks, voice AI, etc. — sit between the guest and the brand experience. Why clunky technology is a ‘locked door’ for restaurants: Yosra Saleh, vice president digit- al marketing for Potbelly Sandwich Works, sits down with Restaurant Business’ Joe Guszkowski to discuss how tech functionality issues, such as slow load times or frustrating sign-ons, can damage loyalty. Customers demand speed and convenience, and even small delays can have an outsized negative impact: “In digital, 10 seconds is like 10 minutes.”
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2026 RESTAURANT TECH POWER LIST Technology has never been more vital for restaurants. CTOs and CIOs are taking on a larger role in the C-suite, while tech vendors are becoming increasingly important partners for restaurant companies. And the digital revolution has brought all sorts of innovation to the industry. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the FS/TEC conference, held Sept. 23-25 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center outside Dallas, Nation’s Restaurant News compiled a list of 30 leaders who are setting the pace for restaurant technology today.
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Yasir Anwar CTO & Acceleration Officer, Inspire Brands
Danyel Bischof-Forsyth CTO & CIO, 7 Brew
Inspire’s six brands sit on a single tech platform, and it has quietly been one of the industry’s most tech-forward companies. Anwar will spearhead its AI strategy as it heads toward an IPO.
The country’s fastest-growing restaurant chain needs tech that can scale and hold up to frequent long lines. The seasoned Bischof- Forsyth has it covered.
Chris Caldwell CIO, Brinker International
Chris Chang CIO, Darden Restaurants
Caldwell helped lay the groundwork for Chili’s turnaround with upgrades to basics like WiFi and kitchen display systems. The results speak for themselves.
The long-tenured leader oversees tech for the country’s largest full-service restaurant operator, including its sophisticated in-house POS system, DASH.
Das Dasgupta Global Chief Data Analytics & AI Officer, McDonald’s
Jim Dausch Chief Digital Technology Officer, Yum! Brands
McDonald’s AI strategy will be closely watched, and Dasgupta is leading the charge, including a new test of drive- thru AI.
Dausch’s responsibilities at the world’s largest QSR company include Byte by Yum, the innovative AI-powered tech platform that sup - ports Taco Bell, KFC, Habit Burger, and previously Pizza Hut.
Leon Davoyan
Curt Garner Chief Strategy & Tech Officer, Chipotle
CTO, Dave’s Hot Chicken
The head of tech at one of the country’s hottest chains likes to think outside the box. For instance, Dave’s plans to use robots and drones for all first-party delivery orders.
Garner not only heads up tech for the country’s biggest fast-casual brand; he also leads Cultivate Next, Chipotle’s venture fund that invests in tech startups.
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Dawn Gillis
Noah Glass
CIO, Golden Corral
CEO & Founder, Olo
Gillis has helped modernize the buffet chain with a major POS overhaul while staying true to the brand’s audience and family- owned ethos.
Glass helped make online ordering ubiquitous with Olo. Now he’s taking on third-party delivery apps with the Olo App, a “second-party” ordering marketplace.
Zach Goldstein
Amir Hudda
CEO & Co-founder, Thanx
CEO, Qu
At Thanx, Goldstein has helped develop innovative marketing tools while changing the conversation about what a loyalty program can be.
Qu and Hudda have guided quick-service chains into the omni - channel era with a focus on funda - mentals like data and reliability over flashy tools.
Travis Kalanick
Anita Klopfenstein
CEO, Atoms
Global CIO & Digital Officer, Little Caesars
The controversial Uber cofounder has kept the ghost kitchen flame burning with CloudKitchens. Now he’s aiming to automate the whole operation, from food production to delivery.
Under Klopfenstein, the nation’s third-largest pizza chain is pushing the limits on tech with initiatives such as a ChatGPT-native app and a drone delivery test.
Lisa Landsman
Rhonda Levene
Head of Industry Engagement & SMB Success, Google
CEO, Ziosk
Landsman has been a force in helping restaurants optimize their online real estate, including those all-important Google Business Profiles.
With Levene at the helm, Ziosk has become one of the dominant tech providers in full-service restaurants, found on tables at Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, Chili’s, and more.
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Ben Leventhal
Marc Lore
CEO & Founder, Blackbird Labs
CEO & Founder, Wonder
The Resy and Eater founder has a history of bucking the status quo. He’s at it again with Blackbird, a high-tech loyalty platform for small restaurants that runs on the blockchain.
The ecommerce pioneer is out to disrupt the food chain with Wonder, a “mealtime platform” encompassing food halls, meal kits, delivery, and robotics.
Chris Main
Beth McCormick
CIO, Restaurant Brands International
CTO, CAVA
Main will be critical in shaping the tech portion of Burger King’s comeback effort, including the high-profile rollout of Patty, an AI assistant that lives in employees’ headsets.
McCormick has helped Cava transform its back-of-house into the Connected Kitchen, with digital displays, AI vision technology, and, in the future, automated makelines.
Justin Mennen
Hernan Mujica
CTO & CIO, Shake Shack
CTO, Texas Roadhouse
Mennen is behind Shake Shack’s new Project Catalyst, a compre - hensive tech strategy that includes a new POS and kitchen displays, AI, and its first loyalty program.
The nearly 15-year Texas Road- house veteran has helped evolve the chain’s tech infrastructure. A new digital kitchen system, for in - stance, has helped fuel a growing off-premises business.
Aman Narang
Mike Nettles
CEO & Co-founder, Toast
CTO, Zaxby’s
Narang leads the industry’s dominant POS company for independents and is now steering it upmarket and even into the drive-thru.
With stops at McDonald’s, Papa Johns, Panera Bread, and now the fast-growing Zaxbys, Nettles is regarded as one of the industry’s sharpest tech minds.
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Marc Lore Photography: Getty Images
Onome Okuma
Scott Scherer
Chief Digital Officer, Chick-fil-A
CIO, Jersey Mike’s
A member of Chick-fil-A’s IT team since 1994, Okuma has helped keep the 80-year-old chain consistently ahead of the curve on tech.
Scherer has led Jersey Mike’s tech team for over 20 years as the brand went from scrappy upstart to 3,300-unit franchise that just IPO’d. Next up? Plans to 5x its global footprint.
Savneet Singh
Debby Soo
CEO, PAR Technology
CEO, OpenTable
Singh took PAR from the brink of bankruptcy to one of the leading POS providers for quick-service chains. Now he is reshaping the company again with AI in mind.
As head of the country’s largest reservations platform, Soo is responsible for helping tens of thousands of local restaurants fill seats and run a smooth service.
Anand Varadarajan
Tony Xu CEO & Co-founder, DoorDash
CTO, Starbucks
The coffee giant has long been known for tech, but as it reinvests in the coffeehouse ex - perience, Varadarajan will be key in helping it find a new balance between the two.
Xu is expanding the nation’s dom - inant third-party delivery company into restaurants themselves with reservations and ordering software and even smart scales to improve accuracy.
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SCENES FROM THE SHOW
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Photos by Jon Mouer
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Photos by Jon Mouer
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FROM THE MARKETPLACE
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Photos by Jon Mouer
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DON’T MISS THE 2026 FS/TEC TECHNOLOGY GUIDE Cut through the noise and identify the righ solutions for your business. Restaurant tech is evolving fast. Is your business up to speed on the tools and trends shaping the future of restaurants?
The second annual FS/TEC Restaurant Technology Guide from Nation’s Restaurant News and Res- taurant Business is your essential resource for navigating today’s complex tech ecosystem.
This free digital guide features:
• • •
Company Profiles: Detailed information on nearly 200 tech solutions across POS, digital ordering, kitchen automation, payment processing, guest engagement, and more
Expert Insights: Strategic guidance from technology leaders on how to maximize ROI and avoid common technology pitfalls
Exclusive Industry Data: Benchmark your tech stack against industry standards with proprietary research from Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Business
Acces your free copy now.
Restaurant customers demand seamless experiences
Josh Gurley, VP of transformation strategic and growth at The Coca-Cola Company, discusses how restaurants can use technology to make it easy for customers to order in whatever channel and service model they prefer. Ideally, he adds, the customer is only aware of the great experi- ence, not the underlying technology.
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