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Inside Baseball: Are We Funding the Wrong Layer in ResTech?
Friends of Branded!
Happy Saturday and I hope you had a great week.
On Thursday night this week, I had the privilege of making another visit to Professor Stephen Zagor’s class, Food Entrepreneurship, up at Columbia Business School.
It’s a weekly class from 6pm to 9:15pm and on days where speakers are invited to participate, there’s an “early” slot starting at 6:15pm and a “late” one starting at 7:45pm. I was once afforded the “early” spot, but a tardy arrival on my part has (appropriately) relegated me to being the second speaker on these visits and I’ve embraced fully the role of being the closing act (as opposed to the opening one…IYKYK). 😊
It’s been about 10 months since I last gave a talk at the professor’s class and as I started preparing my remarks, a few themes stuck out to me, and nothing more so than how fast things are changing in the ResTech landscape.
There was a time, not that long ago, when restaurant tech investors underwrote vision.
How big is the total addressable market (“TAM”)? Does the company represent a category creation? Is the company contributing to the digitization of our analog industry? Investment decks showed hockey stick revenue growth but made no reference to labor.
I felt the need to bring our USA gold medalists into this week’s edition
Those days weren’t so long ago, but those days are also now over.
Welcome to 2026 where we now underwrite math. Channeling my inner Bill Maher, let’s play a game of “New Rules” and the most important one isn’t “how big can this get?” It’s now “how fast can you prove ROI?”
Branded prides itself on being an operator-centric investment platform and the tech companies we get behind need to demonstrate the value they bring first and foremost to operators. “Operator-centric” sounds like a nice thing to say or place to be, right? Kind of like being pro-sunny days, pro-puppies or rooting for the home team, right?
Well, it might sound nice, but it’s also completely in our self-interest. Tech companies of course need capital, but they also need sales and it’s the operators that pay for the technology. So as ResTech investors, who better to focus on than the operators when it comes to vetting the value-add of ResTech companies. Besides and maybe most importantly, if the operators don’t win, who are all these tech companies planning to serve? Who is Sysco going to sell food to? Who is Pepsi going to sell beverages to? Who is Middleby going to build kitchen equipment for?
You think all these businesses that sell into the restaurant industry can win if operators don’t? Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
No, restaurants need to win b/c the large ecosystem that’s been created to support the restaurant industry depends on it!
“How fast can you prove ROI” isn’t a new concept and to the contrary, readers of the H^2 know that the restaurant industry is among the most JIT (Just-in-Time) industries anywhere. Like so many other parts of our lives, our need for instant gratification or at least to see results is shortening (just like our attention spans).
In the ResTech space, if you can’t demonstrate measurable financial impact in 30 – 60 days, you’re no longer considered a growth company, you’re now a science project. Restaurants don’t have the luxury or patience as they operate at 3% – 8% net margins. If a B2B SaaS company’s product costs $500 per month, that’s not software, that’s margin.
Science project? Who’s with me on this ‘80s flick?
In 2021, investors chased logos (how many brands was a ResTech company delivering services to and how many units), but in 2026, they’re now chasing contribution margin impact. We’re underwriting to things like the reduction in labor %, reduction in food waste, increased throughput, improved order accuracy, measurable marketing incrementally, and channel-level profitability visibility.
If you’re a ResTech company and you’re unable to point to the P&L line that your ResTech company will move, you don’t have a product, you have a pitch deck.
Asking about or being told about the moat around ResTech companies is no longer of great interest UNLESS the word “distribution” is included in answer to the question. Distribution is the new moat, and it’s led to investors asking about integrations (and specifically integrations with POS companies). Other forms of this theme of distribution being the “New Moat” is whether the ResTech company rides the payment rails? Does it have access to franchise systems?
The key question that needs to be answered here is this: are you embedded where operators already live. Yes, the best products should win, but the best distribution products will dominate (and for avoidance of doubt, there’s a fundamental difference between these two camps).
While Branded has been talking about the importance of data for our industry for some time, the criticality of the “data layer” isn’t theoretical anymore. Investors want to know who owns the transaction data. Who controls the identity? Who has permissioned access? What happens if integrations get revoked. Branded Hospitality believes that if you don’t control your data, you don’t control your destiny.
Are you building on someone else’s rails without leverage. If so, that’s not scale, that dependency.
Readers of the H^2 know what Branded holds to be true, that friction kills deals. Gone are the days of 9-month integrations, customer builds, expensive onboarding, and “enterprise transformation” projects. Today, operators want plug-and-play, low training burdens, minimal disruption, and fast activations.
Friends, restaurant operators are exhausted and do you know how you combat fatigue? The answer is with simplification (or the “KISS” theory, Keep-it Simple-Schatzy). 😊
The days of growth-at-all costs are gone. The 2021 playbook for ResTech companies included, but wasn’t limited to subsidizing adoption, burning capital, growing logos, and figuring out margins later. The 2026 playbook is about efficient growth, sticky revenues, clear pricing logic, sustainable and ideally growing margins and customer retention rooted in ROI. Investors are underwriting durability, not vibes.
How far can we push the boundaries of what restaurants are? Well, here’s one thing for certain, they’re no longer JUST hospitality businesses. Restaurants need to be data platforms, distribution nodes, operational engines, and margin management systems (and be hospitable each and every step of the way).
The ResTech companies that win understand that they’re not selling software, they’re selling financial performance and that’s a different conversation.
So, the 2026 ResTech checklist requires the following questions to be answered: what P&L line do you move? How quickly? What’s your distribution leverage? Who owns the data? What happens in a downturn? Are you additive or simplifying?
And here’s the unspoken question: do you understand restaurant math? B/c if you don’t understand the math, you don’t understand restaurant tech.
Final thought, restaurants are tight margin business. ResTech founders that ignore that fact build beautiful products that don’t survive procurement. Investors in 2026 aren’t underwriting dreams, we’re underwriting ROI, distribution, data control, margin impact and durability.
Hospitality may be emotional, but capital is not. And in this market, sorry, not sorry, math wins.
It takes a village.
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Mike Kurtz, Founder of Mike’s Hot Honey, joins the conversation to share insider insights on building a successful hospitality brand from the ground up. From strategic restaurant partnerships to CPG-driven expansion into grocery stores, Mike breaks down how Mike’s Hot Honey became one of the fastest-growing food brands in the U.S.
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This week’s Shoutout goes to the good people at FSR magazine and QSR magazine and specifically our friend Mr. Danny Klein and the Women in Restaurant Leadership (WiRL) Together Summit 2026, which concluded yesterday down in Charleston, South Carolina.
This annual event brought together hundreds of women from across the restaurant and hospitality sectors for leadership development and networking. WiRL is a unique event b/c it’s one of the few national platforms exclusively dedicated to elevating women within the restaurant and hospitality sectors.
Specifically, this “Together Summit” is designed as an authentic and safe environment rather than a traditional sales-focused conference. It encourages raw, and candid conversations about industry-specific issues like the gender gap in leadership, where women hold only 38% of executive roles despite making up 63% of the entry-level positions.
The summit provides actionable tools to help women move from entry-level and mid-management into C-suite roles, and addresses topics like Financial Acumen, The Path to CEO, and overcoming Imposter Phenomenon.
Beyond individual career growth, the summit aims to "change the industry for the better" by promoting inclusive leadership models and diverse problem-solving approaches that benefit entire organizations.
And now a shoutout within a shoutout, which goes to the collaboration between WiRL and GLEAM with a structured mentorship program. The WiRL X GLEAM Mentor Program, a six-month structured partnership, kicked off at the summit, and pairs emerging leaders with seasoned executives for one-on-one strategic support.
Branded was proud to have two members of our team, Julie Zucker and Drewe Raimi, attend the event, and our “Queen Z” (Julie) was part of a panel, Habits, Boundaries, & Self-Talk: Leading When You’re at Capacity, that included some rockstar friends of Branded, Tawanda Starms, Chief People & Culture Officer at Din Tai Fung North America, Catarina Bill, Chief Mission Officer at Southern Smoke Foundation, Jenn Johnston, Chief Marketing Officer at FAT Brands, Jennifer Dodd, CEO at Main Squeeze Juice Co., and Alexis Parra, Co-Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at Nékter Juice Bar.
To everyone who rallied down to Charleston for this event, to the event sponsors and to our friends at WTWH Media, congratulations on another fantastic event!
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🍴 Max & Helen’s in LA serves up a masterclass in flavor and it’s now the hottest table in town.
✈️ From Norway to Estonia to Los Angeles, here is a round up of the best travel destinations for 2026. Start planning your wanderlust now.
🥛 Everyone’s buzzing about colostrum supplements, but Bloomberg investigates whether the trendy health shot actually delivers. Spoiler: evidence is thin.
⏱️ Ever wonder why restaurants refuse to seat your party until everyone shows up? One host spills the real reason.
📦 Amazon has officially overtaken Walmart as the largest U.S. company by revenue, signaling the full arrival of retail’s tech-driven era.
🍹 We dare you to disagree: the Long Island Iced Tea is the world’s greatest cocktail.
The reservation wars and the battle for control is only getting hotter! Let’s be crystal clear, the reservation war isn’t about booking tables, it’s about owning the guest and it’s about control.
This week it was announced that Amex is folding Tock into Resy. It was only a minute ago that DoorDash acquired SevenRooms and Uber and OpenTable Announced Strategic Global Partnership.
Why all this action? Great question!
B/c reservations represent high-intent behavior. When someone books a table, they’re signaling intent, frequency, spend, and occasion. All this creates a potential loyalty opportunity. That’s not just a booking, that’s data gravity.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth, if the platform controls discovery, reservation, payment, and loyalty, then the restaurant may control the food, but not the relationship.
Friends, operators, we’ve seen this movie before. The real war isn’t between Resy vs OpenTable, it’s Brand vs Platform vs Infrastructure.
B/c whoever controls the rails between the guest and the table controls the leverage (and leverage compounds).
In a 5% margin business, you don’t win by being romantic, you win by controlling the layer that can’t be unplugged. The table is just the entry point. The guest graph is the prize.
The reservation war won’t be won by whoever books the most tables, it will be won by whoever owns the relationship between the guest and the seats.
When you have companies like American Express, DoorDash and Uber battling for reservation supremacy, Branded Hospitality needs to compete in the reservation game from a different angle and that’s exactly what we’re doing with our partners at Tablz.
Tablz isn’t a reservation widget, it’s a brand-owned, first-party engagement layer. With Tablz, restaurants own the data (not the platforms). Guests are connected directly to your brand (not to a marketplace). Loyalty, CRM, and promotion live inside the restaurant’s ecosystem. Insights flow to the operator (not the aggregators).
You know how Branded is playing in the reservation wars? Quite simply, we’re not, we’re playing from a completely different value proposition.
Branded believes Tablz matters b/c it shifts power back to the operators. Platforms like OpenTable and Resy have traditionally captured the relationship. Respect.
Tablz transfers that relationship to the restaurant brand and that’s a key strategic edge for operators.
Reservation platforms accumulate guest data off brands. Tablz lets restaurants own it, meaning, better personalization, segmentation, and lifetime value. Instead of paying take-rates or being subject to platform rules, restaurants can drive reservations directly, with lower friction and clearer economics.
For restaurant operators, menus, loyalty integration, special offers, and messaging stay inside the brand’s identity, as opposed to being templated by a marketplace.
Platforms will of course continue to aggregate demand, and they’ll continue to build APIs and network effects. But brands that own the data, own the relationship, and own the economics, they’re the ones that end up with the leverage.
Tablz doesn’t just help restaurants take bookings. It repositions restaurants from being fulfillment nodes in someone else’s ecosystem to owning their guest graph and monetizing it. In the reservation wars, that’s not just a feature. That’s strategy!
To learn more about Tablz and opportunities to engage as an operator or an investor, please click here (or contact me directly).
You can also click here to share The Deal Room with your network!
How’s The Weather?
Despite how hard I try not to use the weather as a conversation starter, when New York gets over four feet of snow in thirtyish days, it is kind of unavoidable.
Snow that impacts work schedules.
Snow that delays meetings.
Snow that changes travel.
Snow that leads to a lot of “sorry again for the delayed response, the kids were home… again.”
So yes. We are talking about the weather.
I spent the last two days at the Women In Restaurant Leadership Conference in Charleston. Thankfully snow did not impact my travel. There I go with the snow again. But wait for it.
While waiting in line for a Pop Up Dry Bar hair refresh (which YES is absolutely a thing at a women’s conference and wow was I here for it AND can we please normalize this everywhere) a friend commented on a photo I had posted the day before. My kids were standing proudly on top of a mountain of snow.
This turned back to me (clearly) as I then shared I was on shoveling duty.
While my sons (almost five and recently ten) were building snow forts and snowmen, I was digging out nearly three feet of snow from the end of our driveway thanks to the snow plow pile up. And then something happened.
My nine year old neighbor, a young girl, saw me and came right over to help. No hesitation. No asking. She just grabbed a shovel. A neighborhood teen, also a girl, joined in.
I turned toward my boys who were happily playing and my first instinct was to say, “Are you really going to let all the girls shovel while you play?”
And then I stopped myself. Instead I said, “Boys, look at us strong women working hard and shoveling.”
I did not ask them to jump in. I let them play. I let them watch.
Not because I do not believe in teaching responsibility. I absolutely do. But in that moment, the phrase actions speak louder than words ran through my head. They were watching. Even if they were playing, they were watching.
Fast forward to Charleston.
As I was recounting this story at the conference, it hit me. This was my POV this week. Because the biggest takeaway from Women In Restaurant Leadership was exactly that.
Do as I do. Not just what I say.
Don’t just scroll—click! Congratulate everyone on making the B List and send some LinkedIn love their way.
The Insiders
@hospitality.hangout Welcome to our newest The Flavor Safari: The #NYC #Deli Crawl. From Barney Greengrass, to the smoked fish counters at Zabar's, to the past... See more
That’s it for today!
See you next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.
It takes a village!
Jimmy Frischling
Branded Hospitality
235 Park Ave South, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10003
Branded Hospitality is a foodservice growth platform with three integrated business lines—Ventures, Solutions, and Media. We invest in innovative tech and emerging brands, provide expert advisory and capital strategies, and amplify visibility through podcasts, newsletters, social, and events—creating a powerful flywheel that drives growth, brand strength, and lasting success.
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