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Onlineordering has transformed the restaurant industry, turning what was once a convenience into an absolute necessity. In 2025, the US online food delivery market is expected to reach $424.9 Customers expect to browse menus, place orders, and pay for their meals with just a few taps of their phones.
menu, hours, etc.), or place an order (for take out). Most people are calling to book especially when the online booking system says there are no available reservations, so many patrons call anyways thinking there is likely still capacity left. Access to the POS/online booking system if necessary.
2024 was a year of experimentation with AI, with restaurants testing it on customer-facing interactions, like AI drive-thru ordering, with varying degrees of success. The 700+-store chain had a challenge with the amount of time it took to schedule an interview for a new applicant once the candidate had submitted their application online.
When youre updating your onlinemenu or onlineordering system, its tempting to just copy over the dish names from your restaurant menu and call it a day. Well-written menu descriptions dont just tell guests whats in a dish; they entice customers, set the tone for your brand, and can increase sales.
By combining proactive planning, strategic menu adjustments, operational efficiency, and strong vendor relationships, businesses can effectively manage these challenges while prioritizing customer satisfaction and food safety. Regular Price Monitoring Implement a weekly review of ingredient costs to stay informed about market fluctuations.
You can have a crowd-pleasing menu, loyal regulars, and a packed dining roomand still watch your margins disappear. Too many restaurant menus are built on intuition and aesthetics, not real numbers. What Is Menu Engineering and Why Should You Care? Because not every dish thats popular is profitable.
When going through the ordering process, diners want three things: Speed Ease Clarity Your menu categories have more to do with delivering on those expectations than you might think. A well-organized menu—whether it’s a physical menu or an onlinemenu—guides guests quickly to what they’re craving.
What began as a traditional dine-in restaurant has evolved into a thriving business that seamlessly blends in-person dining with a robust onlineordering system. The Challenge of Limited Ordering Options Before partnering with ChowNow, CW Coop’s faced significant limitations with their takeout operations.
Steady OnlineOrdering Brings Food Waste, Donations to the Forefront of Priorities Ordering food online increases restaurant sales, but it also can potentially increase wasted food if proactive measures aren’t taken – for both the business and consumers at home. Now, the process is fully digitized.
Menu pricing isnt just about covering costsits about finding that sweet spot where profitability, customer perception, and operational reality meet. Understanding the Key Factors in Menu Pricing Before you develop your menu pricing strategies, its important to ground your decisions in the numbers.
Smart owners will seize on this opportunity and use reviews as a powerful tool to fill their dining rooms and onlineordering queues. A recent survey from BrightLocal found that 84 percent of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down.
Keeping menus updated across various onlineordering systems and third-party delivery apps can feel like a never-ending game of catch-up. Manually updating menus across multiple onlineordering channels is tedious, time-consuming, and prone to mistakes. What is Menu Management Software?
This shift highlights the growing reliance on social media for information, making it crucial for restaurants to engage with this audience where they are. Two-thirds of Gen Z and Millennials admit to spending more time online than they’d like, driving a desire for balance between online and in-person connections.
77% of diners look at a restaurants website before going out to eat or ordering takeout or delivery. If you dont have a website, that means over three-quarters of the people near your restaurantyour potential customerswill never come in or place an order because they have no way to find you when theyre looking for a place to eat.
Every onlineorder, email sign up, and reward program interaction generates valuable insightsbut if that data just sits there, youre missing a major opportunity. Think about it: What if you could automatically send a special offer to a customer who hasnt ordered in a while? Restaurants collect a ton of customer data.
With 90% of diners checking a restaurant online before visiting, you also need a strong online presence to attract and boost reservations. Let’s explore 26 proven online marketing strategies to help your restaurant thrive. A smooth mobile experience keeps people engaged and leads to more online bookings.
One location might offer seamless mobile ordering, while another struggles with glitchy payment systems, creating inconsistencies that can frustrate customers and impact revenue. Customers crave simplified steps at the beginning and end of their food service experiences, and it’s not hard to understand why.
An onlineordering system is table stakes for every restaurant these days. But if you're still on the fence about implementing online food ordering software at your establishment, take a look at some of the latest stats from the National Restaurant's Association's 2025 State of the Restaurant Industry Report.
Even your most reliable menu items can lose their shine over time. All of these things are ok, so long as you’re menu is evolving with the changes. Menus aren’t meant to stay static, and not adjusting to the ebbs and flows of business could be damaging your bottom line, and many times, you might not ever realize it’s happening.
If youre one of the thousands of restaurants that added online food delivery in recent years, you might be wondering: is it actually helping my business grow? These metrics give you a clear picture of your delivery performancefrom order volume and customer retention to delivery speed and profitability.
With a few key optimizations, your restaurant can rank higher on Google, get noticed by people searching for places to eat, and ultimately drive more foot traffic and onlineorders. Restaurants that rank higher in local search results get more foot traffic, onlineorders, and reservations.
Today, customers rely on Google searches, online reviews, and social media to decide where to eat. People want convenience, transparency, and a connection to the brands they support, and that starts with how you market your restaurant online. A strong online presence means more visibility, more orders, and, ultimately, more revenue.
While it's crucial to stay informed, stepping back and allowing experts to take charge can be key to overcoming these challenges. This will also allow the operator to concentrate on the operational and menu aspects, ensuring that both customer service and menu innovation remain exceptional and continuously evolving.
For a long time, third-party delivery apps seemed like the easiest way to get your restaurant online and in front of new customers. Instead of giving up control to outside platforms, some restaurants are shifting to a more direct approach: first-party ordering. First-Party vs. Third-Party Ordering: Whats the Difference?
A well-crafted email can remind a past guest to stop by again, encourage reservations for a new seasonal menu, or even boost onlineorders with a limited-time discount. A well-timed email with a special offer, new menu item, or exclusive promotion can be the nudge they need to place another order.
Youre delivering a great dining experience, yet foot traffic remains inconsistent, online engagement is low, and new customers arent coming in as often as youd like. Optimize Your Restaurants Online Presence Your restaurants online presence is often the first touch point for potential guests, so make it count.
In this guide, youll learn how to use ChowNow tools along with a handful of other effective strategies to increase order volume, boost your current customer traffic, and grow your overall sales. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to stay top-of-mind with customers and remind them its time to order again from your restaurant.
Understanding your target market is the foundation of making smart decisions for your menu, pricing, and overall guest experience. Without a well-defined target market, restaurants risk wasting resources on strategies that dont connect and menu offerings that dont selltrying to appeal to everyone, but standing out to no one.
You can’t control your online reputation if you’re not in the driver’s seat. Avoiding these common missteps can make a measurable difference in your online reputation. And if you offer direct onlineordering , make sure the link works, and the info matches your listing—an outdated menu or broken order button can cost you the sale.
Diners want the convenience of ordering, booking, and engaging with their favorite restaurants straight from their phones. Beyond mobile ordering, restaurant apps support operations in ways that were never available before. Onlineordering and delivery apps. Here is an example of a restaurants branded app.
When someone searches for your restaurant online, what do they see? Whether you like it or not, your restaurants online reputation is shaping first impressions long before a guest walks through your doors or even places an order. What is Online Reputation Management and Why Does it Matter?
The tool from the East Coast vegan chain — a digital take on a split-flap mechanical display that appears on its website and in the chain’s ordering app — estimates the amounts of water, land, CO2, and oil saved by eating vegan burgers. The “ PLNT Impact Tracker ” on PLNT Burger’s website wants you to think about what you’re eating.
Have you ever walked into a restaurant, excited for a great meal, but the server can’t answer your questions about the menu? Without the right training, even the best menu or ambiance can fall short due to poor service, leading to dissatisfied customers and lost revenue.
Its significantly more cost-effective to keep your regulars walking through the door than it is to get a new customer every time you take an order. Customers earn rewards by meeting thresholds you define, whether its the number of orders or total dollars spent. All you have to do is keep them happy. And when you do?
Is onlineordering inefficient? Experiencing over-ordering or last-minute shortages? Are you aiming to speed up service, cut labor costs, or increase online sales? With a modern cloud-based POS, restaurants can streamline order taking, reduce human error, and improve the overall speed of service. Set clear goals.
Each system has its own tablet, order flow, and set of requirements, making it difficult to keep up with operations smoothly. Each platformUber Eats, GrubHub, DoorDashrequires its own tablet, login, and order management system. Order management issues. Consumers report that 24.4% Staff training and inconsistent efficiency.
Understanding what customers order, when they order, and how often is an untapped goldmine of information for restaurant operators. What do repeat orders say about our customer preferences? Ordering data includes more than just what gets sold. Which dishes are getting ordered the most?
How to calculate your restaurant customer acquisition cost (CAC) As a business owner, understanding CAC is important if you want to make informed decisions about your marketing investments. For example, if you run a social media campaign or pay for onlineordering integrations, all of these contribute to your overall marketing expenses.
While these platforms do bring in orders, they also come with the price of high commission fees, loss of customer data, and a weaker connection between you and your guests. Its up to you to educate them on the impact and show them why ordering direct makes a difference. can be an eye-opener for customers.
According to a Gallup poll, guests only look at your menu for 109 seconds before ordering. Menu engineering uses real data to show you which items are the most profitable and should be your main focus. See how your menu items are performing with our free menu engineering worksheet. What is menu engineering?
89% of people do dining research on their phones, so if you’re not making the most of your online presence, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. The good news is there are plenty of ways to engage in local marketing, both online and offline. Local restaurant marketing can help you reach your target audience more effectively.
Increase sales by promoting high-margin menu items and special offers. This will make your budget strategic and sustainable, allowing you to make smart, informed decisions. Do you want to drive more onlineorders? Investing in digital ads, email marketing , and an optimized onlineordering system that can boost sales.
In today's digital landscape, restaurants have become prime targets for cybercriminals who take advantage of potential entry points from point-of-sale systems, onlineordering platforms, customer databases, loyalty programs and third-party delivery services. Consider the alarming pattern over the past three years.
If you want to increase order volume for your restaurant, focusing on online takeout and delivery is key. But growing onlineorder volume isnt always easy. Many restaurants struggle with high third-party app fees, low website traffic, and clunky ordering experiences that drive customers away.
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