How to use restaurant automation to increase profits

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Restaurant automation advancements have made waves in the food service world. And while robots replacing people in both the kitchen and dining room has made eye-catching labor shortage headlines, the automation revolution began years ago and is already embedded across most areas of restaurant operations. In fact, 91% of restaurateurs are interested in automating more aspects of their business.

Some restaurants, especially those in the fast food space, are gearing more toward replacing human labor with artificial intelligence, robotic kitchens, ordering kiosks, and other high-tech tools. Look to McDonald’s, for example, opening a fully-automated restaurant in Texas, and White Castle expanding its robot chef. Domino’s tested automated robot delivery cars and is looking to drones for fully automated delivery services.

At its core, restaurant automation simply takes on repetitive tasks that otherwise place a burden on your staff. Mobile apps can automate online ordering, food delivery processing, and waitlist management, improving the customer experience and allowing staff to focus more on providing the human touch that makes the restaurant industry so special.

Because your restaurant will likely require on-site personnel to properly operate, let’s look at the role automation can play in every aspect of your front-of-house, back-of-house, and overall dining experience, and how investing in automation can improve your bottom line.

3 different models of restaurant automation

Automated food service exists in just about every restaurant environment, albeit on a broad spectrum. Here are a few examples of the possible levels of automation systems.

Minimal automation

Restaurants that use a pen and paper to take reservations and manage waitlists, take inventory manually, and use a traditional cash register instead of an integrated POS system have minimal automation. These restaurants may be set in their ways from decades of operations, or otherwise averse to the upfront costs or monthly fees that come with automation platforms. Unfortunately, they’re likely paying far more in labor costs by not investing in restaurant automation.

Hybrid automation

Restaurants that use a full front-of-house system to manage reservations and waitlists, inventory and table management, staffing, order management, and other aspects of the customer experience utilize hybrid automation. These restaurants use automation to streamline their operations, increasing efficiency among staff and enhancing guest experience.

While automation here isn’t necessarily replacing core tasks like food preparation, it is taking care of many administrative and otherwise time-consuming pain points. And though this model may not always reduce headcount, it will reduce labor costs by minimizing the hours required to make your operation run.

High automation

Restaurants that replace core aspects of their operation with mobile apps, kiosks, artificial intelligence, and robots have high automation. Front-of-house restaurant automation here has a visible impact on the guest experience, such as having customers order via mobile app or from a kiosk with contactless cards instead of with a person.

Benefits of restaurant automation

Labor costs and shortages have the biggest impacts on any restaurant’s income statement and can make all the difference when it comes to profitability. The pandemic also forced the entire food service industry to reexamine itself. Automation became essential to not just minimize contact between staff and customers but to bring labor costs to a point where restaurants could stay afloat financially.

Minimum wage increases, health care, overtime pay, and other costs mount up quickly when managing a large team, and reducing these costs while maintaining productivity will directly boost the bottom line. Looking beyond the financials, automation plays a critical role in reducing workplace stress and turnover, allowing staff to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on enjoyable parts of their jobs.

Restaurant automation reduces human error as well. For example, a server entering an order into the point of sale system, which automatically shows up on a kitchen display, eliminates the risk of that order being incorrectly communicated between the front and back of the house.

Front-of-house automation

Restaurant technology is rapidly evolving, and we’re here to both stay on the forefront of the tech wave and keep you up to date with trends. So, here’s how restaurant automation is changing front-of-house operations.

Waitlist management

Keeping potential diners happy while waiting is critical if you want your tables full throughout the night. Yelp Guest Manager provides accurate wait times to help guests avoid getting stuck in a waiting room. Yelp Guest Manager quotes wait times with up to 96% accuracy.*

Customers can then seat themselves via a self-service kiosk like Yelp Kiosk, which can be especially helpful if your FOH is short-staffed or extremely busy.

Kiosk interacts with customers that have booked online, keeping them engaged with accurate wait times and texting them when tables are ready, resulting in less waitlist abandonment. Once diners make it to your restaurant, they can check in using the Kiosk software on a tablet in whichever language they speak, freeing up your maître d’ in the process.

Reservations and table management

Front-of-house systems don’t just save time in taking reservations and managing waitlists, but also allow you to optimize your performance, analytics, and even your floor plan based on insights derived by those systems. Yelp Guest Manager does all of that and integrates with POS systems, providing a complete restaurant tech solution.

Yelp Guest Manager serves the food industry by connecting restaurants with 92 million unique mobile users per month. By providing a one-click method for users to make a reservation, the mobile app makes it easy for diners to reserve last-minute bookings. Real-time, two-way conversations are available via the Yelp app so customers can speak to a real person, too, leading to increased customer satisfaction.

Online ordering systems

Online ordering for delivery and takeout got kicked into high gear during the pandemic, but it’s grown into an enormous industry. Restaurants looking to boost sales should look to online ordering if they have enough capacity in their BOH.

There are two ways to go about this in an automated fashion: Customers either order directly through your own website or app or via a third-party delivery app. Because third-party app providers can take a significant cut, make sure your operational costs can handle that cut and still turn a profit. Customer orders that can be made easily can motivate new diners to try your restaurant.

Back-of-house automation

Several restaurants have made headlines for embracing these new technologies and replacing human labor in the kitchen with hi-tech robots. CaliBurger, a California-based fast-casual burger chain, uses Flippy, a robotic arm created by Miso Robotics that flips burgers to perfection. It brought in waves of new customers interested in seeing a robot make their burger.

Zume Pizza, a chain based near San Francisco, used robots to prepare and bake their pizzas. Other back-of-house automations in the pizza world include Picnic, an automatic pizza maker that can churn out pizzas with up to three toppings.

BOH restaurant automation isn’t all about robots in the kitchen, though—some automation comes from good old-fashioned software and hardware solutions. Restaurant POS systems like Lightspeed create automated reports helping restaurant owners spend less time worrying about inventory management. Lightspeed integrates with Yelp Guest Manager, too, giving users a full span of control from FOH to BOH with insights into diner’s spending habits and much more.

Kitchen display systems (KDS) have also made a buzz in BOH systems in recent years. The ordering process sends orders directly from a tableside tablet to the kitchen, reducing the time needed for servers to run orders to the kitchen as well as reducing the odds of any communication errors.

Look also to improved inventory management systems, which can predict what goods will be needed when, keep better track of inventory, and generally make life less of a pain in the neck for the intrepid soul in charge of your inventory.

In many cases, human labor is still needed to supplement various aspects of these machines, as well as assist when demand outpaces their ability to produce.

Hidden costs of automated food service

While many businesses will benefit from restaurant automation, it’s important to keep sight of the importance of a human touch. In a fast-casual setting, having someone on hand to process order modifications that aren’t programmed into a kiosk can be critical in converting a first-time visitor into a repeat customer. In full service, where the human touch is a more important element of the guest experience, replacing a server with a mobile app may not sit well with your customer base.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to automated food service. Consider your business model, labor costs, customer needs, and your budget when deciding on which aspect of your business to automate.

Restaurant automation doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive

Automation in the food service industry can take many forms, some far simpler and more economical than others. Before thinking about a robot flipping burgers or a robotic arm behind the bar, however, consider automation that helps relieve stress and increase efficiency for your staff. Yelp for Restaurants is a full front-of-house platform that automates a wide range of tasks, from reservations and waitlists to inventory and table management.

Yelp for Restaurants frees up time for hosts and servers to focus on guest-facing responsibilities and allows restaurant operators to concentrate on boosting their bottom line rather than on repetitive tasks. Self-service touchscreen kiosks, POS system integration, and an intuitive customer-facing mobile app are just a few tools that will help streamline operations. Combine that with huge amounts of data, modern table-side ordering and payment, and a fully customizable floor plan, and you’ve got a tool built for the future.

Ready to begin automating your food service operations? Get started today.