Feb 27, 2026

Vincent Nguyen

10 Restaurant Technologies To Modernize Your Team

Contents

How has technology changed restaurants?

Types of restaurant technologies

1. Point of Sale (POS) System

2. Online Ordering & Delivery Platforms

3. Kitchen Display Systems (KDS)

4. Inventory & Supply Chain Tech

5. Reputation Management & Analytics Tech

6. Reservation & Table Management Systems

7. Customer Relationship & Loyalty Tech

8. Self-Service & Front-of-House Automation

9. Payment & Fintech Solutions

10. Back-Office Restaurant Tech

Best practices when implementing restaurant technology

Technology is meant to extend our capabilities. With a well-chosen tech stack, restaurants can improve all aspects of their business.

Just a decade ago, restaurants operated primarily on paper tickets and manual processes. Who could have guessed that in just a few years, SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions would empower so many restaurants to transform their business?

It’s rare to find a business without some form of technology embedded into its process in 2026. And with the advent of AI, this trend surely will only accelerate.

If you’re a restaurateur looking to modernize your operations, I’ve got a list of technology recommendations for you.

In this article, you’ll find:

10 types of restaurant tech that all restaurants can benefit from
Software recommendations for each category
A practical guide on how to implement these technologies seamlessly into your operations

Let’s dive right in!

How has technology changed restaurants?

Here’s a quick Then vs Now table to show you how technology has significantly changed the way restaurants operate:

← Then	Now →
Paper tickets and handwritten orders sent to the kitchen	Digital orders are sent instantly through POS and Kitchen Display Systems (KDS)
Cash registers with basic sales tracking	Cloud-based POS systems with real-time reporting and analytics
Phone-only reservations	Online reservations via platforms like OpenTable and Resy
Walk-in and dine-in focused revenue	Multi-channel revenue: dine-in, delivery, curbside, and online ordering
Limited customer data collection	Detailed guest data, CRM systems, and loyalty tracking
Manual inventory counts	Automated inventory and supply chain management software
Cash and card payments only	Contactless, mobile wallets like Apple Pay, QR payments, and BNPL options
Word-of-mouth marketing	Digital marketing, online reviews, and reputation management on platforms like Momos or Yelp

Types of restaurant technologies

Generally, there are 10 major types of restaurant technologies covering the end-to-end restaurant operations:

Point of Sale Systems
Online Ordering and Delivery
Kitchen Display System
Inventory and Supply Chain Management
Reputation Management and Guest Experience Management
Reservation & Table Management Systems
Customer Relations & Loyalty Tech
Self-service and Front-of-House Tech
Payment & Fintech
Back-office Restaurant Tech

Let's explore!

1. Point of Sale (POS) System

A POS system is a combination of hardware and software that enables businesses to accept payments, track sales, manage inventory, and more from a single platform.

It's the central hub where a customer completes a purchase and your business processes the transaction.

Most modern POS systems include:

A touchscreen/device to ring up sales
Payment processing (via hardware like card readers, or through contactless payments like Tap to Pay on iPhone or Android)
POS software for managing inventory, sales, reporting, and customer data
Optional accessories like barcode scanners, receipt printers, and cash drawers

The two market-leading restaurant POS systems are Toast and Square:

Toast: the #1 POS built for restaurants. It’s an excellent all-around choice with strong tools for tableside ordering, kitchen displays, online ordering, and staff management. It’s especially good for medium to larger operations. They have the most comprehensive set of features you need at all stages of growing your restaurant. You can integrate Momos with Toast for automated post-order surveys.
Square: Very user-friendly and affordable, great for small restaurants, cafés, food trucks, and quick-service venues. You can start fast, accept many payment types, and scale with add-ons. Square caters to a wider range of industries compared to Toast.

2. Online Ordering & Delivery Platforms

Online ordering and delivery platforms expand your restaurant’s reach beyond the neighborhood.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, third-party restaurant delivery apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, Seamless, Postmates were already rising in popularity. During and after COVID, they all saw exponential growth. From 2019 to 2020, DoorDash’s revenue rose from $885 million to $2.88 billion (225.3% growth).

There are many restaurant delivery services to choose from. When choosing one, you should consider these factors:

Availability in your area: You should choose a popular delivery service in your region.
Fees and profit margins: One of the biggest drawbacks to third-party delivery apps is their tremendous fees and commissions. Some platforms can charge up to 30% of the total order. For restaurants with slim margins, these high fees can mean making no profit (or worse, losing money).
Guest relationships: When you use third-party delivery apps (like DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grab), they collect a lot of customer data, like name, email, and phone number. You (the restaurant) usually don’t get full access to that data. It’s important that you unify guest feedback from these platforms to surface insights.

Some of the major popular online ordering platforms include:

DoorDash
UberEats
Popmenu
Caviar
Grubhub
Postmates

3. Kitchen Display Systems (KDS)

A kitchen display system (KDS) replaces traditional order tickets in a restaurant's kitchen. Rather than writing the order on paper tickets, the KDS automatically displays the order on a screen in the kitchen after it has been entered into the POS system.

The KDS helps kitchen staff quickly identify upcoming orders and understand what’s coming down the line at a glance.

A typical flow in a KDS looks like this:

The order is placed in the POS or received automatically from online ordering.
The order instantly appears on the kitchen display screens.
Kitchen staff prepare the food based on the items and instructions shown.
The system tracks the order status from new to in progress to ready.
Staff mark the order as complete when finished.
The system records performance data for reporting and improvement.

Some of my recommended KDS:

Toast KDS: Great choice if you already use Toast Inc. POS. It offers real-time order syncing, clear station views, customizable layouts, and strong performance tracking.
Square KDS: Best for small cafés, food trucks, or low-volume restaurants using Square POS. It’s easy to set up, cloud-based, and cost-effective, though it lacks advanced routing for complex kitchens.
Fresh KDS: A standalone, lightweight KDS that integrates with multiple POS systems. It’s especially useful if you want a flexible display solution that works across platforms without expensive hardware.

4. Inventory & Supply Chain Tech

Restaurant inventory management software protects your margins by showing you what you have in stock, what you’re wasting, when you need to reorder, and even alerts you to pricing changes for goods.

Here are some good inventory & supply chain tech built for restaurants that I recommend:

MarketMan: Best overall restaurant inventory management software
Lightspeed Restaurant: Easiest to use POS-built inventory
xtraCHEF by Toast: Best for rebates
Crunchtime: Best for overall cost control
Yellow Dog: Best for catering businesses & pour-limited bars
MarginEdge: Best for smaller restaurants

5. Reputation Management & Analytics Tech

Good reputation management software enables restaurants to:

Track what people say about your brand across social media, review sites, press, and forums
Promote positive and credible information while counterbalancing negative content
Address criticism in a timely, transparent, and constructive manner
Align your service with that reputation, consistently

You can see how it involves both reactive (handling negative reviews) and proactive (publishing thought leadership, earning positive press, cultivating reviews).

For reputation management and guest experience management, Momos is a solid choice.

Momos is the AI-powered guest experience platform purpose-built for multi-location restaurants. The platform has empowered enterprises like Baskin-Robbins, Papa Murphy’s, and Potbelly to drive significantly more sales across their entire portfolio.

With Momos, you can:

Unify reviews across all locations and review platforms in one place.
Leverage AI to understand those reviews and see what guests think about your restaurant.
Respond to every single customer with deep personalization, all while maintaining a consistent brand voice.
Build dashboards to show guest experience and operational excellence insights
Send surveys for customers to leave 5-star reviews as effortlessly as possible. More reviews mean better SEO rankings, which ultimately drives more revenue.

Here are some of the use cases of Momos:

6. Reservation & Table Management Systems

Restaurant reservation systems help you manage bookings and maximize how efficiently you use your tables.

Some of the best restaurant booking apps are:

Resy: a household name among high-end and trendy restaurants. Its sleek design, real-time availability, and powerful data analytics make it a favored choice for restaurateurs.
OpenTable: OpenTable remains one of the most trusted and widely used reservation platforms globally. It also comes with marketing tools, loyalty programs, and in-depth customer data analytics.
Yelp Guest Manager: Yelp allows restaurants to manage reservations while offering marketing advantages through Yelp’s established network.

7. Customer Relationship & Loyalty Tech

Loyalty software helps you reward customers for coming back and turn them into regulars, who spend almost 70% more than new customers. This leads to compounding revenue growth wherever your business operates.

Some of the best restaurant CRM and loyalty platforms are:

Punchh: Designed specifically for restaurants, Punchh offers advanced loyalty programs, personalized marketing campaigns, and detailed customer insights to help drive repeat business.
Momos: well-known as a guest experience management platform, Momos allows your restaurant to run personalized marketing campaigns to grow repeat guest.
Thanx: Thanx focuses on data-driven guest engagement, combining loyalty programs, automated marketing, and performance analytics into one streamlined platform.
Paytronix: Widely used by restaurant chains, Paytronix provides customizable rewards programs, email and SMS marketing tools, and deep reporting to optimize customer retention. The Momos x Paytronix integration works by connecting your loyalty program directly into the Momos Unified Inbox, so your customer service team can handle loyalty actions without switching platforms.

8. Self-Service & Front-of-House Automation

Automation in front-of-house areas has to do with simplifying the ordering and checkout process.

Self-service kiosks: Many major chains, such as McDonald’s, Panera Bread, and Shake Shack, have installed self-service kiosks in their lobbies. Guests can place orders through a touchscreen, pay, and receive a printed receipt. When the order is ready, their number is called for pickup.
Tabletop devices: Many sit-down restaurants have added devices to their tables to streamline service. These allow guests to pay, request assistance, and even play games. Some also enable bill splitting, easing the workload for servers.
Running and bussing robots: Instead of traditional runners and bussers, robots can deliver food and drinks to tables and assist staff with clearing and cleanup.

9. Payment & Fintech Solutions

Having good payment processors makes it easier for your customers to pay however they prefer while keeping your transactions smooth and secure.

Here are some popular payment solutions you can use for your restaurant:

Credit and debit cards: Chip, swipe, or tap payments from major networks like Visa, Mastercard, American Express
Contactless payments: Tap-to-pay cards using NFC for faster checkout.
Mobile wallets: Phone or smartwatch payments through Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay.
QR code payments: Scan-to-pay at the table or counter.
Third-party wallets: Payments via PayPal, Venmo, or Cash App.
Online/app payments: Digital checkout for website or mobile orders, often powered by Stripe or Square.
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL): Installment payments through Afterpay or Affirm.
Cash: Physical currency for quick, fee-free transactions.

10. Back-Office Restaurant Tech

These technologies run the behind-the-scenes operations for you, from payroll to scheduling to financial reporting, so you can focus on growth.

Here are some of my recommendations:

Payroll systems: Gusto, ADP
Employee scheduling: 7shifts, Deputy
Accounting software: QuickBooks, Xero
HR management systems: BambooHR, Rippling
Time & attendance tracking: TSheets (by QuickBooks), Homebase
Financial reporting & analytics: LivePlan, Fathom
Vendor & invoice management: Bill.com, Zoho Books

Best practices when implementing restaurant technology

Start with your biggest bottleneck: Don’t buy tech because it’s trendy. Fix the one problem that’s costing you the most money first: slow ticket times, labor waste, low repeat customers, etc.
Choose restaurant-specific tools: You’d want software built for restaurants since the nuances of restaurant operations have been taken into consideration.
Prioritize integration: Make sure your POS, online ordering, KDS, loyalty, and accounting systems talk to each other. If you’re double-entering data, you’re wasting time and increasing errors.
Protect deliverability and data ownership: If you use third-party apps, ensure you still capture guest data. Your customer list is one of your most valuable assets.
Train your team properly: New tech fails when staff aren’t confident using it. Run hands-on training to ensure that tech is actually speeding them up.
Keep the guest experience first: Technology should reduce friction rather than adding confusion.
Don’t over-stack tools: Too many platforms create complexity and hidden costs. You want to start it lean, then expand intentionally.
Review ROI quarterly: Ask yourself: Is this tool saving you time, increasing revenue, or improving retention? You need to know if the tool is making an impact on the way you work or not.