Restaurant technology trends worth your attention

Every year brings a new wave of predictions about the restaurant of the future. Robots flipping burgers, drones delivering dinner, menus that read your mood, dining rooms in virtual reality. Every year, most restaurants carry on doing what they did before, with a slightly better till, a booking page and perhaps a QR code on the table. The gap between the headlines and the dining room is wide, and it is expensive to get on the wrong side of it.

For a single venue, the question is not what technology might do one day, but what is worth adopting now, what is worth watching and what can safely be ignored. Some developments are already changing how good venues work, at a cost a small business can manage. Others are years from being practical, or will never make sense outside a few large chains.

This guide covers four restaurant technology trends worth your attention, four that are noise for now and a simple way to judge the next one that arrives. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

Technology trends are hard to judge because the loudest voices are often selling something. Suppliers, investors and journalists all have reasons to make new technology sound more important and more ready than it is.

New technology also tends to follow a familiar pattern, sometimes called the hype cycle: a burst of excitement, a period of disappointment when it does not live up to the promise, and then, for the technologies that last, a slow climb to everyday usefulness. Most restaurants do best by adopting in the last stage, not the first.

Before adopting any new technology, ask four questions. Does it solve a problem my venue actually has? Can I measure whether it works? Can my team use it during a busy service? Does it pay for itself within a year or two?

A technology that passes all four is worth considering now. One that fails any of them can wait, however exciting it sounds.

The first trend worth attention is guests ordering from their own phones at the table, through a menu they open with a QR code. It has moved from a pandemic necessity to a settled option, especially for second rounds of drinks, quick lunches and busy bars where catching a server's eye is hard.

QR ordering does not replace service in a full-service restaurant, and guests should never be forced into it. But as an option, alongside a server, it can speed up orders at busy times and free the team for the parts of service that matter. Our guide to QR ordering: the table orders, the kitchen cooks covers how it works in practice.

The second trend is kitchen screens replacing paper tickets. They have been around for years, but they are now affordable for small kitchens, and they bring real benefits: tickets in order, clear allergies, timings that can be measured and no lost slips of paper.

The benefits are measurable, which is what makes this trend worth adopting. Our guide to kitchen display benefits, measured not promised covers what to expect and how to tell if the screens are working.

The third trend is the move from many separate tools to fewer platforms that do more: bookings, the till, the kitchen, guest records and marketing in one system rather than five joined together. It reduces costs, removes the connections that break and gives the venue one view of each guest.

This trend matters most to venues with a patchwork of tools that do not talk to each other. For them, consolidation is often the single most valuable technology change available.

The fourth trend is venues building direct relationships with their guests rather than renting them from platforms: their own booking page, their own guest list, their own email to regulars. Platforms remain useful for discovery, but the venues that do best keep the relationship with returning guests in their own hands.

This is as much a business trend as a technology one, but technology makes it possible. A good booking page and a guest list the venue owns are now within reach of any venue.

Online booking has moved from a convenience to an expectation. Many guests, especially younger ones, will choose a venue they can book in a minute online over one that asks them to phone during opening hours.

This is less a trend to watch than one to have adopted already. A booking page that is quick to use on a phone, shows real availability and confirms at once is now part of the basic equipment of a restaurant that takes bookings.

Guests increasingly find restaurants through search engines and maps rather than guides and word of mouth alone. A listing with accurate opening times, a working booking link, a current menu and real photographs can bring in guests every day.

Keeping listings accurate is cheap and effective, and it is an area where small venues can compete with large ones. Check your main listings every few months, and after any change to hours or menu.

AI in restaurants is the trend with the most noise and the most uncertainty. Some uses are already practical and checkable, such as help writing a menu description or a draft forecast to compare with your own. Others are far from ready, or quietly unreliable.

The test that matters is whether the result can be checked by someone who knows the venue. Our guide to AI in restaurants: where it earns its keep today covers where it helps now and where it fails.

The first trend that is noise for most venues is robots in the kitchen: machines that flip burgers, fry chips or assemble bowls. They exist, and a few chains use them for very simple, repetitive menus. For a typical independent restaurant, with a varied menu and a small kitchen, they are years from making sense.

Watch them if you run a high-volume, simple menu. Otherwise, the money is far better spent on the team and the tools they already use.

The second is robot servers and runners: machines that carry plates from the pass to the table. They attract attention and sometimes delight children, but in most dining rooms they struggle with stairs, crowded floors and the dozens of small judgements a good runner makes.

A few venues use them as a novelty or for very specific tasks. As a replacement for people on the floor, they are noise for now.

The third is virtual and augmented reality dining: headsets that place guests in a different world while they eat, or menus that show dishes floating above the table. Some special experiences use them well, but for everyday dining they add cost, complication and little that guests want.

Guests come to restaurants for food, company and atmosphere. Technology that takes them away from all three is unlikely to become mainstream soon.

The fourth is facial recognition to identify guests as they arrive. It sounds like personal service, but it raises serious privacy concerns, is restricted by law in many places and makes many guests uncomfortable.

Recognising regulars is better done the old way, with good guest records and a team who remembers people. The technology may change, but the trust it costs is not worth it for now.

Tools that gather reviews from several sites into one place, suggest replies and track a venue's rating over time are widely sold. They can save time for a venue that receives many reviews, but the replies still need a person's voice and judgement.

For most single venues, reading the main review sites once or twice a week and replying personally to the reviews that matter works as well as any tool. The trend worth noticing is that guests read replies, and a thoughtful one can win back a guest who had a bad night.

Restaurant automation, systems doing routine tasks without someone pressing a button, is a trend that spans the useful and the noise. Automated booking reminders, automated emails to lapsed guests and automated reports are useful now. Fully automated kitchens and dining rooms are not.

The useful kind of automation removes small, repetitive tasks that people forget or resent. Start there, with tasks you can describe in a sentence and check easily.

Digital menu boards, screens that show the menu or the day's specials, have become cheap enough for small venues. Their advantage is that they can change instantly: a price updated, a sold-out dish removed or a lunch board replaced by a dinner board without reprinting anything.

They suit counter service, cafés and bars more than full-service dining rooms, where a printed or handheld menu still feels right. Where they fit, they save printing and keep the menu current.

As more of a venue's work moves into online systems, basic security matters more: strong passwords, two-step sign-in for the accounts that matter, staff who sign in as themselves and access removed when people leave.

These are not exciting, but a venue whose booking system or email account is taken over by someone else can lose days of trade and its guests' trust. A short review of who has access to what, twice a year, is one of the cheapest protections available.

Paying at the table, by card terminal or phone, continues to grow, because it shortens the end of the meal and reduces mistakes. For busy venues, the minutes saved on every table add up to more covers.

It is a trend worth watching closely, and adopting where it fits your service. The best approach depends on your payment provider and your guests, and it does not need to change everything at once.

A quieter trend is better use of the data venues already collect: covers by hour, ticket times by station, guests who return and those who do not. Modern systems collect far more than most venues read.

This is one of the cheapest trends to adopt, because the data is usually already there. A manager who spends half an hour a week reading the reports often finds more value than any new tool would bring.

Guests are increasingly aware of how their information is used. They expect venues to ask before sending marketing, to keep their details safe and not to share them, and many are uncomfortable with technology that seems to watch them.

Treat privacy as part of good service. A venue that asks clearly, keeps only what it needs and respects a guest's choices earns trust that more intrusive technology would lose.

As more of the guest's journey moves online, from finding the venue to booking and reading the menu, accessibility matters more. Booking pages and menus that work with screen readers, have clear text and can be used on a small phone serve every guest, not only those with a disability.

Check your booking page and online menu on a phone, with the text enlarged, and ask whether a guest with poor eyesight could book a table. Small improvements here reach many guests.

Kitchen equipment is becoming smarter: ovens that can be programmed for each dish, fridges that report their temperatures, dishwashers that track their own cycles. Some of it saves energy and time; some of it adds complexity for little gain.

Watch this trend at replacement time rather than replacing working equipment early. When an oven or fridge needs replacing anyway, a model with useful smart features may be worth the extra, especially if it reduces energy use or temperature checks.

Tools that track food waste, energy use and the environmental cost of a menu are growing, partly because guests and regulations increasingly ask about them. Some are simple, such as a waste log; others are complex systems with sensors.

Start simple. A waste log the team fills in honestly saves money and reduces waste without new technology. More sophisticated tools are worth considering once the simple habits are in place.

Delivery-only kitchens, sometimes called dark or ghost kitchens, cook for delivery without a dining room. They attracted a great deal of investment and attention, and the results have been mixed: some work well, many have closed.

For an existing restaurant, adding a delivery-only brand from the same kitchen can use spare capacity, but it adds menus, packaging, platform fees and pressure on the kitchen at busy times. Watch it carefully, and test small before committing.

Some of the most valuable technology changes help the team rather than the guest: kitchen screens, a till that is quick to use, a rota people can see on their phones, a team chat that replaces scattered messages. They make shifts easier, reduce mistakes and help keep good staff.

When weighing trends, give these their due weight. A guest-facing novelty may bring a little attention; a tool that makes every shift smoother brings benefits every day.

For trends that might matter but are not ready, watch rather than act. Read about venues similar to yours that have tried them, ask suppliers for evidence rather than promises and look for the moment when the cost falls and the reliability rises.

Set a reminder to look again in a year. Many trends that are noise today become sensible a few years later, and the venues that adopt them then pay less and get more.

Sometimes it pays to be early: when a technology solves a real problem your venue has, the cost is modest and you can stop if it does not work. A small trial, with a clear measure of success, limits the risk.

Being early is a mistake when the technology is expensive, hard to undo or depends on guests changing their habits. In those cases, let others go first and learn from them.

The restaurant technology that lasts is usually the technology that does an ordinary job better: taking bookings, ringing orders, sending tickets to the kitchen, recording payments, remembering guests. It is rarely the most exciting, and it is almost always the most valuable.

Our guide to restaurant technology: what a venue really needs covers the core systems every venue needs before anything else.

An invented bistro's owner is offered a robot runner, a virtual reality dinner package and an AI chatbot for the booking page in the same month. The owner applies the four questions. The robot cannot manage the bistro's stairs, the virtual reality package solves no problem the bistro has and the chatbot cannot be checked before it answers guests.

Instead, the owner adds QR ordering for drinks at busy times, as an option alongside the servers, and moves from paper tickets to kitchen screens. Both pass the four questions, both are measured after three months and both are kept: drinks orders arrive faster on busy nights, and ticket times become something the kitchen can see and improve.

In servearound, guests open the venue's menu with the table's QR code, and each venue chooses whether guest ordering is off, so the menu is for browsing, or on, so guests send their order themselves from a seated table and follow its status on their phone. Kitchen screens show each station's tickets oldest first, with the guest's allergies at the head of each ticket, and kitchen analytics measure ticket times afterwards. Bookings, the till, the kitchen, guest records, email campaigns and reports are one platform, and the venue's own booking page takes bookings with no commission.

Digital menu boards show a published board on a screen and keep themselves up to date, so a changed price changes on the screen too. The room can be shown in 3D, and the Digital Twin adds a scan of the room and your own furniture made from photos. servearound has no AI forecasting, writing or rota tools today. See Analytics.

Ordering from the table, kitchen screens, one platform instead of many tools and owning guest relationships directly.

Kitchen robots, robot servers, virtual dining and facial recognition, for most venues.

Ask whether it solves a real problem, can be measured, works in a busy service and pays for itself in a year or two.

Where its results can be checked by someone who knows the venue, yes, carefully.

No. It works best as an option alongside service.

Reading the data your systems already collect.

When the cost is modest, the problem is real and you can stop if it does not work.

Once a year.

Most restaurant technology trends are louder than they are useful. Four are worth attention for a single venue now: guests ordering from the table through QR ordering, kitchen screens, one platform instead of many tools and owning guest relationships directly. Four are noise for now: kitchen robots, robot servers, virtual dining and facial recognition.

Judge each new trend by four questions, adopt restaurant automation where it removes small repetitive tasks, treat AI in restaurants with care and checking, and read the data you already have. Watch the trends that are not ready, look again each year and remember that the restaurant technology that lasts is usually the one that does an ordinary job better.