SpotOn boosts restaurant operations with integrations and partnerships

3 ways the Toast-Uber alliance reveals a changing restaurant tech landscape. This expanded partnership is a direct hit at DoorDash’s dominance in the delivery marketplace http://ow.ly/lBl2106pTt2

Welcome to the latest edition of The Perfect Plate, your monthly guide to the restaurant industry.  In this Q2 & August 2025 update, we dive into key financial trends, market shifts, and company performance metrics shaping dining today. Central takeaway: perceived value matters. While Chili's saw a 23.7% same-store sales increase, sweetgreen declined -7.6% due to a “value gap.” Explore more insights, charts, and M&A highlights, including DoorDash’s $3.9B acquisition of Deliveroo in this month's report. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ewqseNKP ⁠ #PerfectPlate #Newsletter #HospitalityIndustry

📊 89% of UK restaurant operators say real-time visibility into daily operations is critical — but only 31% actually have it. That’s one of the standout findings from Crunchtime’s latest UK Restaurant Growth Insights Report 2025. It’s a massive visibility gap — and it’s holding back growth. Operators know that visibility into food costs, waste, and task completion drives profitability and consistency across sites. Yet most still struggle to get that insight in real time. Here’s the reality: 💡 Without visibility, scaling becomes guesswork. 💡 With visibility, every site can operate like your best site. If you’re planning to grow in 2025, this is your competitive edge — building operational control before adding more locations. Download the full report here: https://lnkd.in/epxD9aYd #RestaurantOperations #HospitalityUK #OpsExcellence #QSR

Sunday Raises $21 Million Series B To Power U.S. Growth And Transform Restaurant Payments: Sunday has raised $21 million in Series B funding to accelerate its U.S. expansion and further modernize the restaurant payment experience nationwide. The round included participation from DST Global Partners and follows a year of significant growth for the Atlanta-based company. The post Sunday Raises $21 Million Series B To Power U.S. Growth And Transform Restaurant Payments appeared first on Pulse 2.0.

McDonald’s and Cava’s CEOs are the latest in the restaurant business to sound the alarm of a K-shaped economy. “We continue to see a bifurcated consumer base with [quick-service restaurant] traffic from lower-income consumers declining nearly double digits in the third quarter, a trend that’s persisted for nearly two years,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday. Cava, a fast-casual chain that has historically attracted white-collar workers and suburbanites, is having similar issues attracting lower-income diners. CEO and co-founder Brett Schulman said younger customers are a particular challenge to reach because of the financial challenges they are facing. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eZ8V_kvr

Tough times aren’t new for the restaurant industry. The recent reports about fast casual chains seeing fewer younger guests hit a familiar note — when the economy tightens, operators have to get sharper, not just busier. Looking back, the ones who make it through these cycles tend to: - Stay obsessive about the numbers without losing focus on the guest. - Communicate daily with their teams about what’s actually driving costs. - Keep their systems simple enough that everyone can follow them. That’s what I love seeing from the MarginEdge community lately — operators using real-time data to steady the ship instead of reacting after the storm hits. The industry always finds a way, and the ones who come out stronger usually learn to run a little leaner and a lot smarter. https://lnkd.in/eq-NcvCy

Missed our Catermind session? Here’s a quick recap from Panel #2 where Ashley Campos, Kelly Grogan, Lance VanHemel, and Amanda Quinn shared their top takeaways from the Restaurant Catering Workshop in Austin ⚡️ This conversation went deep into smarter #delivery ops for #catering and what top operators are doing differently today. Whether you made it to Austin or not, this roundup gives you the real-world insights operators are using right now to win more catering business and deliver 5-star customer experiences. 👉 If you want to watch the full session, join our Catermind community. https://lnkd.in/dhD_agEE #Catermind #CateringGrowth #RestaurantInsights #Delivery #OnlineOrdering

“Delivery has turned America into a nation of order-inners.” — The Atlantic This article nails it — food delivery has reshaped how we eat, but it’s also reshaped what it means to own a restaurant. Many independents are losing control of their customer relationships and profits to third-party platforms. That’s exactly why Chop Chop exists. We built a model where restaurants keep the order, the payment, and the customer — while still offering fast, reliable delivery through local independent drivers. Transparency, fairness, and control shouldn’t be luxuries. They should be the standard. 📖 Worth a read: The Innovation That’s Killing Restaurant Culture — The Atlantic http://bit.ly/4oyvDiI #IndependentRestaurants #FoodDelivery #RestaurantTech #ChopChop #LocalBusiness

Two platforms, one goal: helping independent #restaurant operators run lean and grow profit. Buyers Edge Platform and the Chowly Platform are teaming up to give restaurants the tools for more orders, higher margins, and smarter growth. Read the full announcement: https://hubs.ly/Q03P8HHw0

Ever wondered how much business a restaurant really needs to do on UberEat to make it worthwhile? Uber charges merchants 30% per delivery. A steep price for access to its logistics network and customer base. At first glance, that 30% can wipe out most of a restaurant’s profit margin. A typical small restaurant might make ~15% profit per order, so after Uber Eats takes its cut, the same meal could actually run at a loss. But here’s where it gets interesting from a product and business model perspective. If the restaurant uses Uber Eats to drive incremental orders; filling downtime or using spare kitchen capacity, it can still be profitable. The fixed costs (rent, staff) are already paid, so each extra R70 from a R100 order helps cover overhead. However, if delivery replaces dine-in orders rather than adding to them, the economics flip. To maintain the same profit level, a restaurant would need to grow total order volume by about 40–50%, or increase menu prices to offset the commission. It’s a great reminder that platform economics work differently depending on your base capacity and cost structure. For some, Uber Eats is a growth channel. For others, it’s a margin killer.