City Restaurants Gear up for Back-to-Office Rush With Labor-Saving Tech

While restaurants at the heart of a global city like New York might typically expect to see a rush of tourists over the summer, the pandemic’s ongoing impact on travel is changing the game for these city-center eateries. Plus, with many consumers still not back in their offices full-time, traffic is down from where operators might otherwise expect.

However, going into the fall, restaurateurs are predicting that the numbers will tell a different story, as Micha Magid, co-founder and co-CEO of barbecue chain Mighty Quinn’s, told PYMNTS in an interview. Mighty Quinn’s has 12 locations across four states and Dubai, including five in New York.

“I think this fall is going to be pretty busy. You know, we were hoping to see a step up in office occupancy after Labor Day,” he said. “Also, … it’s been a brutally hot summer and people are coming back to the city or even to our suburban locations and really enjoying outdoor dining [as it cools down]. We’re looking for strong trends this fall.”

He added that, for the barbecue chain, football season also causes an uptick in sales. With this uptick in traffic, however, will come a renewed need to improve the labor economics amid ongoing staffing challenges.

Git ‘er Done

Many restaurants are struggling to accomplish all they need to accomplish, given these hiring difficulties. Research from the 2022 edition of PYMNTS’ Restaurant Readiness Index, also created in collaboration with Paytronix, which drew from a survey of more than 500 managers of quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and full-service restaurants (FSRs) across the country, found that about one in three restaurants report that their level of service has decreased as a result of staffing issues.

Read more: More Than Half of Restaurants Depend on Digital Sales, Despite Uptick in On-Premises Orders

Additionally, the study found that well over half (56%) of all restaurants report that they are paying employees more, and 29% state that they have not been able to open as many tables as they could. Consequently, 28% of restaurants have implemented new technology to help with these challenges.

Mighty Quinn’s, for one, cites its POS system, provided by Toast, and its ability to integrate with other ordering platforms.

“We wanted to make sure that we had the ability to run payments reports and really understand channels and what day parts are driving volumes,” Magid said. “I feel like that’s going to be even more important going forward.”

Help Yourself

Another technology that has been key to managing labor challenges has been the implementation of self-service ordering kiosks in restaurants where the brand determines they would be appropriate.

“Placing orders through a kiosk system has allowed us to operate our stores with fewer people in store, which obviously … reduces the number of people that we require on that restaurant’s payroll staff, so that’s been an easier lift for us,” Magid explained.

However, consumers are mixed on their feelings about kiosk ordering. Research from the May/June edition of PYMNTS’ Digital Divide study, “The Digital Divide: Technology, The Metaverse And The Future Of Dining Out,” created in collaboration with Paytronix, which draws from a survey of around 2,500 U.S. adults, finds that reveals that 51% of grab-and-go customers feel positively about ordering via kiosk, while only 20% of dine-in customers share this sentiment.

Related news: Restaurants Tinker With Tech Recipe to Balance Efficiency and Personal Service

Mighty Quinn’s, for its part, is being selective about the placement of these kiosks.

“This is not something we’re doing at every location, but where we see an opportunity—usually they’re smaller format stores,” Magid said.

He noted that these are the top labor-saving tech upgrade that the brand is “really focused on.”

Getting Ghosted

Going forward, Magid predicts that small-format stores will only become more popular, as will ghost kitchens and dark kitchens.

However, he argued that, regarding the latter, the space has grown “a little oversaturated” in recent years with many competing virtual burger brands, pizza brands and more, and their inventory and labor investments in the space may be “just not worth it.” Instead, he contended, it is only the virtual brands with “unique positioning in the marketplace” that will make the grade as many players in the space bow out.

“There’s been a little bit of a learning curve like on in in terms of what brand can work in a ghost kitchen environment,” he said. “[With] 12 more months of understanding that channel I think we’ll see even more brands explore their ability to grow outside of traditional brick-and-mortar.”