The Awakening

Friends of Branded!

Happy Saturday and I hope you had a great week.

When I started working in the restaurant industry back in the late 1980s, it seemed like everyone was paying with cash. Well, it wasn’t “everyone,” but it was about 85% of our guests.

Today, roughly 14% to 16% of restaurant transactions in the US are paid with cash, leaving cashless, contactless and card payments as the dominant form of payments.

This Top of the Fold could easily be about the economic benefits of a system that was once all about cash (and the statute of limitations on any less than great behavior by my bosses from the 1980s would make this something safe for me to write about), but that’s a story for another time (or never). 😊

No, the transition from cash to cashless is part of the great data awakening in the hospitality industry, and specifically, the closing of the gap between two of the industry’s verticals: hotels and restaurants.

Of course, hotels and restaurants are close allies, but that doesn’t mean we don’t compete! For decades, the hospitality world had a clear data hierarchy. Hotels knew everything about the guest and restaurants knew almost nothing.

When you check into a hotel, you hand over a full scouting report that includes your name, e-mail, credit card, preferences, loyalty ID, and in Schatzy’s case, even his pillow type. On my own profile, when I’m traveling for business, I always request a room as close to the elevators as possible (the conference hotels are LARGE and while I know it’s important for me to get my steps in, I can do that walking the conference floor as opposed to walking to my hotel room from the elevators).

In order to harness and utilize this data, hotels built massive CRM systems b/c they had the one thing restaurants didn’t, guest identity.

Meanwhile, restaurants were playing a completely different game. Our guests were often walk-ins (OpenTable didn’t launch until 1998 and Resy launched in 2014), and they paid with cash. Sure, we might have scribbled down a name in a reservation book, but there was nothing institutional or systemized about our collecting data on our guests. Operators knew their regulars by name, but the industry itself largely didn’t know its guests.

But something big has changed over the past few years and it’s closing the data gap between hotels and restaurants. Restaurants have quietly entered the guest data economy, and this can be largely attributed to the digital ordering effect. Think about how guests now interact with restaurants: mobile ordering, QR code menus, reservations, loyalty apps, digital payments and of course, delivery platforms. All these interactions require one thing, identity.

As a result, restaurants suddenly know who the guests are, what they order, when they order, how often they return and what they spend. Winner, winner, (Big) Chicken dinner! For the first time in history, restaurants can build guest profiles at scale.

But it’s not just restaurants that have changed, guest behavior has changed as well. A decade ago, if you asked a guest for any personal information and you might be asked, “Why do you need my information?”

Today the mindset has materially changed, and guests are more interested and even motivated to share their information. The guests see what’s happening when it comes to the sharing of information. That’s right, today guests are willing to share their data b/c they get (or at least expect to get) something valuable in return. Guests are being trained to share their data b/c it will (or may) result in faster service, loyalty rewards, personalized offers, favorite items remembered, and special recognition. In other words, data sharing is now the price of better hospitality (and guests feel that’s a good or at least a fair deal).

Research consistently shows that consumers will share data when there is value for doing so. This is referred to as the “value exchange” and 80% of consumers will share personal data for loyalty points and 70% of them will share data for discounts. Restaurant guests are increasingly seeing this as good service (as opposed to surveillance).

Social media platforms have made the act of sharing personal information something we’re all more comfortable with. For whatever it’s worth, it’s also revolutionized the CIA’s operations by providing a goldmine of information on people-of-interest by allowing analysts to track and map relationships from the data that’s being shared with these platforms. Data sharing is good for the CIA and it’s good for restaurants (who had the pairing of the CIA and the restaurant industry on their bingo card this week?). 😊

So where does that leave us when it comes to hotels versus restaurants in the battle of who knows the guest better (a competition I find incredibly interesting as it requires both hospitality verticals to lean into tech more)?

Let’s break this down b/c here’s where this battle is heating up!

For years, hotels have known their guests deeply but infrequently. Restaurants, on the other hand, have known their guests frequently but historically, very shallowly. The “frequency factor” is changing the game and is shifting the knowledge of the guest pendulum in favor of restaurants.  Think about it, a hotel guest may visit 1 - 3 times a year, while a restaurant guest might visit 50 - 200 times a year. Once restaurants start connecting those transactions to real guest identities, they accumulate something incredibly powerful, behavioral data at scale (and that’s the holy grail).

When it comes to operators fighting to win the guests, the new battlefield is guest identity. This shift explains something that’s been happening quietly across restaurant technology. The industry isn’t just fighting POS wars anymore, it’s fighting guest identity wars.

Look at the ResTech landscape. We’ve got reservation platforms (hello Tablz), loyalty companies (cheers Incentivio), card-linked offer networks (I see you LuckyDiem), customer data platforms (the OG, Fishbowl), and payment networks (rookie of the year, Tabbed).

What do these platforms all have in common? They’re all chasing the same thing, the guest graph, b/c they know whoever owns the relationship with the diner will win. Owning the guest identity creates the opportunity to better control marketing, loyalty, personalization, and demand generation (in other words, the economics of hospitality).

Hospitality used to be built around locations, but now it’s being rebuilt around guests. Operators are moving from “How do we fill seats?” to “How do we build relationships?” Restaurants that know their guests can drive repeat visits, increase check size, reduce marketing waste, and create VIP experiences.

The restaurant industry is finally discovering something the hotel industry has known for decades, the guest relationship is one of the most valuable assets on the balance sheet. Restaurant are moving from a world of anonymous transactions to one of known guests, and that shift may be one of the biggest economic unlocks the industry has ever seen. In hospitality, recognition isn’t just good service, it’s good business.

The digital transformation that’s underway is turning anonymous diners into known guests. Once restaurants connect identity to frequent visits, they unlock something incredibly powerful, behavioral data at scale. The next battle in restaurant technology is about who owns the guest relationship, b/c in the future of hospitality, the brands that know their guests best won’t just deliver better service, they’ll own the economics of the industry.

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For decades, the restaurant phone has been the most overlooked piece of technology in hospitality.

Think about it. Restaurants invested billions in POS systems, millions in reservation platforms, and entire tech stacks around loyalty, marketing, delivery, and payments.

But the phone? It’s still sitting on the host stand like it’s 1985 (and part of Bowling For Soup's official music video). 😊

And that’s been a big problem b/c every time a guest calls a restaurant, something valuable is happening (it’s called intent). They want to book a table, plan a party, ask about the menu, or confirm hours. But historically those interactions disappeared into thin air. No data captured, no guest profile created, and no marketing opportunity logged.

In other words, the phone has been one of the biggest data leaks in the restaurant industry.

Until now.

This week Slang AI and our partners at Fishbowl announced a strategic partnership and while that may sound like just another tech integration, it actually signals something bigger.

It connects two things that restaurants historically have kept separate, guest conversations and guest identity (yes, the Top of the Fold theme continues here in The Deal Room). 😊

You can read about the partnership here: Slang AI and Fishbowl Partner to Power Personalized Guest Experiences

Here’s what this partnership means. When a guest calls a restaurant and interacts with Slang AI, the conversation doesn’t just end with the reservation or answer. Now it can feed directly into Fishbowl’s CRM system. This means the restaurant can suddenly know who the guest is, when they called, what they wanted, whether they booked, and how they engage with the brand.

The phone call becomes a data event. The restaurant tech stack has been evolving rapidly over the past decade. Reservations capture identity, loyalty captures repeat behavior, POS captures transactions, marketing platforms capture engagement.

But the phone? It remained the industry's analog hole. Missed calls meant missed reservations, staff scribbled notes, and guest interactions vanished the moment the call ended.

Slang AI changes that by answering calls automatically and capturing the conversation.

Fishbowl changes that by attaching the interaction to a guest profile.

Put them together and something powerful happens, the restaurant’s guest graph gets bigger and smarter.

Hospitality is moving into an era where the most valuable asset isn’t the kitchen, it’s the guest relationship. Now every interaction, reservation, order, payment, loyalty signup, or even a phone call, can attach to a single guest identity. And that changes everything.

Picture the near future, when a guest calls the restaurant and the AI answers. The system recognizes the guest from previous visits. Their reservation is booked and their profile updates automatically. The restaurant knows their favorite table, their preferred wine, their visit frequency, and their lifetime value. When they walk through the door, the host already knows who they are, not b/c someone memorized them, but b/c the technology did.

That’s not automation replacing hospitality. That’s technology supercharging hospitality.

For years restaurants were operating in a world of anonymous diners. That world is disappearing. Integrations like Slang AI and Fishbowl show how quickly the industry is moving toward something new, the connected guest. B/c in the future of hospitality, the brands that know their guests best won’t just deliver better service. They’ll win the business.

To learn more about Fishbowl and opportunities to engage as an operator or an investor, please click here (or contact me directly).

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