Yum! Brand's Byte Platform Rewrites Playbook for Restaurant Technology At a time when restaurants are juggling an increasingly complex web of digital tools, Yum! Brands is betting that simplification—not more fragmentation—is the path forward. The company’s answer is Byte by Yum!, an AI-driven platform designed to unify everything from digital ordering and point-of-sale to kitchen operations, inventory, and labor management into a single ecosystem. […]

Always a Leader ~> #Yum! Brand's #Byte Platform Rewrites Playbook for #Restaurant #Tech | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/5Tkip

Shake Shack Unveils Project Catalyst, a Digital and AI Backbone for Long-Term Expansion Shake Shack will enter its next growth chapter with a clearer focus on what will power it. The brand on Wednesday unveiled “Project Catalyst,” a technology initiative that will modernize its digital and operational infrastructure as it works toward a long-term goal of 1,500 company-operated restaurants. The move signals a shift from simply building more […]

Is this the answer chime in ~> #ShakeShack Unveils Project #Catalyst, a Digital and #AI Backbone for Long-Term Expansion | #QSRmagazine zurl.co/rBhte

Restaurant Operators, and Everyone Else, Can't Hide from AI The artificial intelligence hype is here, and there is no escaping its spotlight, good or bad. Many companies are promising that their products use AI when in reality they don’t. Take Builder.ai, for example, which used 700 humans overseas and claimed it was “AI.” Not surprisingly, the company shut down. Over the next few years, […]

#Restaurant Ops, and Everyone Else, Can't Hide from #AI | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/TTuxk

The Multi-Year Journey of How Burger King Earned the Right to Grow Again Burger King president Tom Curtis was not dealing in hyperbole when he suggested the brand had “earned the right” to dial up its voice. He started fielding personal calls, texts, and posting video shorts around Burger King’s first Whopper upgrades in nearly a decade and ongoing efforts to place customers at the core of its […]

The Multi-Year Journey of How #BurgerKing Earned the Right to Grow Again | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/ixTdu

How to Create a Restaurant Website with Accessibility in Mind Opening up your QSR website to a wider audience is key to driving more orders, and understanding how to create a restaurant website with accessibility in mind is where it all begins. A whopping 25 percent of all U.S adults live with some form of disability. This is 66 million people, and 1 in 4 […]

More #Orders Please ~> How to Create a #Restaurant #Website w Accessibility in Mind | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/GkKuE

Restaurants Say Tech Innovation Isn't Taking Away Jobs The National Restaurant Association’s 2026 State of the Industry report calls for sector sales to hit $1.55 trillion as operators add north of 100,000 jobs. But, of course, there are layers to the growth as pressures mount and guest spending remains weary. For this piece, however, we’ll focus on the operational findings of the Association’s […]

Correct #AI frees up help to make more money outside your four walls! ~> #Restaurants Say #Tech Innovation Isn't Taking Away Jobs ~> #QSRMagazine zurl.co/Xuy5B

Why Delivery Tracking Should Be a Restaurant Decision, Not a Platform Mandate Delivery tracking has become table stakes. Ninety-seven percent of corporate catering buyers say they want tracking updates on every order. Ninety percent say they’re more likely to order from restaurants that offer it. These numbers reflect what anyone who has ever waited on a $500 lunch delivery already knows. When food is en route, people want to […]

Why #Delivery Tracking Should Be a #Restaurant Decision, Not a Platform Mandate | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/iM9SX

App-Only QSR Appetizer Offers | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/wXdg3

Meet The Creative Mind Powering McDonald’s Growth Tabassum Zalotrawala’s journey isn’t a left turn from art to operations—it’s a continuum. Her eye for design, space, narrative, and human emotion is the through-line that shaped her into the leader she is today. Each step of her career becomes a larger canvas: from Chipotle’s brand turnaround to  Panda’s innovation reset to McDonald’s largest era […]

Meet The Creative Mind Powering #McDonalds Growth | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/7bUWN

KFC is Starting to Grow a Hand-Crafted Drinks Brand Looking to grab a larger piece of the surging specialty beverage space, especially with Gen Z customers, KFC plans to launch its “Kwench by KFC” lineup of drinks across the U.K. and Ireland by summer 2026. The extension marks the first KFC global market to roll the offering across its locations. KFC ran a pilot […]

#KFC is Starting to Grow a #HandCrafted #Drinks Brand | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/pxMVA

Panera Pilots New Loyalty Program Built Around Transparency and Value Panera has been a pioneer in digital innovation, having launched its MyPanera loyalty program nationwide in 2010. Sixteen years later, the fast casual is ready for its latest evolution. Later this month, Panera—which currently uses a surprise-and-delight structure—will test a new points-based rewards program in which guests can earn 10 points for every dollar spent. […]

#Panera Pilots New #Loyalty Program Built Around Transparency and Value | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/bdkz9

How Restaurants, Especially Franchises, Should Look at Cyber Security  McDonald’s became an unintended case study over the summer on the security risks that restaurants face from its third-party venders. Some “white hat” hackers testing the McHire chatbot hiring screener, Olivia, were easily able to get into the system after finding basic security flaws. Among them: an administrator default password of 123456 that Paradox.ai, had left in […]

How #Restaurants, Especially Franchises, Should Look at #CyberSecurity | #QSRMagazine
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“It May Take a Couple of Rounds”: FAT Brands CEO Addresses Company's Debt Issues Following FAT Brands’ disclosure that lenders have demanded the immediate repayment of $1.26 billion in debt and a warning of possible bankruptcy, FAT Brands CEO Andy Wiederhorn offered additional context around the company’s capital structure and ongoing restructuring efforts at this year’s ICR Conference. The main takeaway—the process could take some time. “I wish I […]

“It May Take a Couple of Rounds”: #FATBrands CEO Addresses Company's Debt Issues | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/rO8DN

Leading Restaurant Employees—The Ones Who Come, the Ones Who Go “Great vision without great people is irrelevant,” author Jim Collins said. Every restaurant leader knows this to be true. Vision matters. Strategy matters. But without people—the right people—none of it comes to life. Leadership in this industry is, at its heart, about people. Guests may experience your brand, but it’s your team that makes it […]

Leading #Restaurant Employees—The Ones Who Come, the Ones Who Go | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/J0vHQ

KFC's 'Staggering' Global Growth Continues to Set the Pace Nivera Wallani, KFC Global’s chief development officer, celebrated 15 years with the brand in November, spending 11 of those on the Canadian business, including president and general manager, before being promoted to the worldwide function. It’s been an eventful decade-plus concerning development, to make an understatement only few retail companies in the world could relate […]

#KFC's 'Staggering' Global #Growth Continues to Set the Pace | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/kj0ES

The $4 Rule That’s Redefining Restaurant Delivery You probably opened your restaurant because you love food and hospitality—not because you wanted to calculate delivery fees. But as takeout and delivery continue to shape restaurant operations, both have emerged as major drivers of sales and brand loyalty. The challenge? Charge too little and you lose margin. Charge too much and you lose customers. […]

The $4 Rule That’s Redefining #Restaurant #Delivery | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/r78qy

How Automating Inventory is Reducing Waste, Boosting Profits, and Improving Staff Morale It’s 5:30 a.m. and the kitchen lights are coming on. The fryer starts warming up, coffee brews in the corner, and the prep station smells of hash browns and fresh buns, and the morning rush is getting ready to come in.  Meet Chris, the shift lead at a busy quick-service restaurant (QSR). His morning used […]

How Automating Inventory is Reducing Waste, Boosting Profits, and Improving Staff Morale | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/bixuL

What's Next for Restaurant Tech in 2026? Let's Ask the Experts As we do each year at QSR magazine, we tapped our 2025 Digital Disruptors to unroll some insight on what might be ahead in restaurant tech. Innovation is a notoriously fickle arena when it comes to predictions, but the conversation needs to start somewhere. This group is a great place to start. What we asked—“what […]

What's Next for #Restaurant #Tech in 2026? Let's Ask the Experts | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/DxxRs

QSR's Digital Disruptors for 2025 Meet the leaders reshaping how restaurants serve, connect, and compete in the digital age.

#QSR's #Digital Disruptors for 2025 | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/M4XgI

For Restaurants, AI is a Shift from Data-Centric Tools to Human-Centric Intelligence “AI is the single most powerful force of our time,” Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, said. Across conferences, boardrooms, and leadership meetings, conversations about artificial intelligence in the restaurant industry tend to sound the same. Leaders talk about data: dashboards, forecasts, efficiencies. And for good reason—insights matter. We’re doing this work, too. For decades, restaurant […]

For #Restaurants, #AI is a Shift from #Data Centric Tools to #Human Centric Intelligence | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/6h0QF

The Copycat Thinking That’s Sinking Restaurant Brands Survivorship bias sits at the center of a thousand bad decisions in this industry. It shows the winners. It hides the losers. And it convinces smart leaders that repeating what the giants do will magically produce the same results. Every time a founder says, “they do it so we should look too,” survivorship bias is […]

The #Copycat Thinking That’s Sinking #Restaurant Brands | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/2cYQT

Culver's 'Delicious Rewards' Arrive Right On Time Culver’s CEO Julie Fussner knows the brand’s long-awaited loyalty reveal is going to be greeted with an emphasis on the “long-awaited” part. But the notion Culver’s was late to the game is one that requires context. If you go back to the COVID stretch, and leading up, technology was simply not a space the 1984-brand […]

#Culvers #Loyalty ~> 'Delicious Rewards' Arrive Right On Time | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/4Fyk6

Restaurant Automation: Why Scaling is Still a Major Challenge AI-powered automation is driving efficiency across many industries, most notably in manufacturing and supply chain. And as these innovations change the shape and economics of labor and cost of goods sold, there are some industries that are years away from being able to take advantage. Despite the restaurant industry having no shortage of kitchen and […]

#Restaurant #Automation: Why Scaling is Still a Major Challenge | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/QGc9C

Wendy's to Close Hundreds of Restaurants as Part of Greater Turnaround Strategy The primary purpose of Wendy’s Project Fresh turnaround plan is to prioritize growth of AUVs and profitability. One way to achieve that? Removing restaurants that aren’t beneficial to the system. Starting later this year and into 2026, Wendy’s expects U.S. closures in the mid-single-digit percentage. Given the chain ended Q3 with 5,979 domestic stores, that […]

#Wendys to #Close Hundreds of #Restaurants as Part of Greater Turnaround Strategy | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/kVtew

Peter Perdue Named President of Popeyes, Nico Henrich COO of Burger King Josh Kobza, Chief Executive Officer of Restaurant Brands International, announced two leadership appointments.  Peter Perdue has been appointed President of Popeyes, U.S. and Canada, succeeding Jeff Klein who will be leaving the company. Perdue, a 12-year RBI veteran, most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of Burger King U.S. & Canada, where he was instrumental in […]

#PeterPerdue Named Pres of #Popeyes #NicoHenrich COO of #BurgerKing | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/MatrD

How Restaurants Can Put Service Back Into AI Innovation Over the last year, more than 500 Taco Bell restaurants began using voice AI in their drive-thrus. They quickly learned that not all AI is created equal. The feedback online was swift, and mostly negative. In one viral video, a customer ordered 18,000 water cups to skip the bot and get service from a human. […]

How #Restaurants Can Put #Service Back Into #AI Innovation | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/of4wF

Jack in the Box to Sell Del Taco to Franchisee for $115M Jack in the Box announced Thursday that it will sell Del Taco to franchisee Yadav Enterprises for $115 million. The burger giant will use money from the transaction to pay off debt. The move, which is expected to close by January 2026, will also allow Jack in the Box to focus on its core business. […]

#JackintheBox to Sell #DelTaco to Franchisee for $115M | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/QzS88

3 Marketing Strategies Restaurants Can Invest in During Lean Times Restaurants are no strangers to disruption—but today’s economic headwinds are testing even the most seasoned operators. With dining out now nearly four times more expensive than cooking at home, consumers are cutting back and choosing more carefully. Recent data shows that 55 percent of U.S. adults are spending less on dining out (Numerator), and over […]

3 #Marketing Strategies #Restaurants Can Invest in During Lean Times | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/usVnZ

How Key Automations Are Improving Drive-Thru Outcomes Sponsored by QSR Automations Explore how automation and smart kitchen technologies are redefining speed, accuracy, and the guest experience in the quick-service restaurant industry. From household names like KFC and Habit Burger to fast-growing newcomers, discover how top brands are using integrated tech to streamline operations and strengthen customer loyalty. Download the report to learn […]

How Key Automations Are Improving #DriveThru Outcomes | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/6W8Co

This Restaurant Metric Predicts Growth Better Than Sales Data Every restaurant executive knows the fundamental truth: happy guests come back more often.  But in an industry obsessed with lagging indicators (i.e. same-store sales and transaction counts), too many operators are flying blind when it comes to the metric that actually drives those numbers—guest experience. At Tattle, we’ve analyzed transaction data from tens of thousands […]

This #Restaurant Metric Predicts Growth Better Than Sales #Data | #QSRMagazine zurl.co/DK5fU