Get Ready For Digital Pricing with Carl Orsbourn

Exactly. Hey, welcome to the Restaurants the Restaurant Coach podcast. It is the cure for the common restaurant. I am joined today by my good friend Carl Osborne, who, if you don't know, he's been on the podcast before. He is the author, along with Marilyn Sandler of Delivering the Digital Restaurant. Carl and I've been, I've been following you on social media. You've just been like whirlwind traveling lately. How's it been?

What, what time zone am I in? Donald? I, I don't know whether to say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, but it's good to see you again, let's put it that way.

Good to see you. It's good to see you, my friend. I want to get Carl on the podcast today because, you know, of course, if you don't know, there is an event coming up. I have my annual event every October. It's called the Restaurant Success Summit. For three days here in Scottsdale, Arizona, I bring together some world class industry experts to talk about some really dynamic topics. And of course I wanted to bring Carl down because we're going to talk about Delivering the digital Restaurant. He's got a couple really hot new topics and we're going to talk about this in a second. They're going to segue into. If you haven't read his first book yet, please go out and get the first book, Delivering Digital Restaurant. Highly recommend it. A fantastic book. It's probably, it's on my list of the top reads for 2022. You gotta grab a copy because you want to get ready for round number two. And what is the second book going to be called?

Well, it's called the same name, Delivering the Digital Restaurant, but we're calling it the Path to Digital Maturity. Donald. Yeah, well, look, we're in a different era now, right? We're in this kind of post pandemic era and we're trying to help restaurants think about, okay, now it's no longer spray and pray to survive. It's actually how you diligently strategize a path forward into a future where you can embrace digitization but in a methodical manner. And so we'll cover some of that.

Oh, very, very cool. And then you're also, you just took a operating, you're a chief operating officer at a new company out there called Juicer.

Yeah, Juicer. It's Juicer Pricing dot com. We're helping restaurants with dynamic pricing. In fact, quite honestly, we're helping restaurants with pricing because I don't know about you, Donald, but I think restaurants Generally really struggle with pricing. It's a very big time.

It's one of the biggest things I deal with all the time is that they just price, you know.

Yeah. It's. And it's tough. And guess what, with all this inflation happening, both on cost of product as well as on labor, it's even more difficult right now. And so I've teamed up with an excellent co founding group from the travel sector, quite honestly, the. The former CEO of Jetsetter, former CMO of Kayak, and our CEO has built and sold businesses in the e commerce space of travel. And we've really built this algorithm to really apply pricing artificial intelligence for all intents and purposes, to help restaurants think about when to price different items in different ways. And obviously I'll be talking a little bit more about this to the folks that attend your summit.

Yeah. So just real quickly, let's kind of just. And I don't want you to give away too much, you know, I want to. You gotta come to the summit to get the really good stuff. But just on, just on the real kind of high level, how does this dynamic pricing thing work with a restaurant?

Yeah. So I want to be completely transparent. This is early days for a lot.

Yeah, yeah. This is, this is, this is like cutting edge stuff, man. I'm telling you. This is like really cool because I saw, I actually saw your guys's booth when I was at the Western Food Expo. I was speaking there and I saw the booth for Juicer. I was like, oh my God, that's Carl's new place. You know, the new company he's working with and stuff like that. No one he's leading the team on. And I was just like, I was just, I was taking some of the information in and it looks really, really, really cool.

Yeah. So what we're doing is first of all taking a year's worth of POS data from the restaurant, understanding every transactional level, item, detail associated to when certain items are bought and when certain items are perhaps not purchased as often. That allows us to build a forecast.

Right.

That forecast is then utilized in a way to then make recommendations on prices of different products at different times. And that allows the algorithm to learn which products are elastic, which means respond more to price changes and which are inelastic. You might have seen this week, Donald Costco have said they're never changing the price of their hot dog. Why? Because it's a traffic draw. Right. Same kind of thing happens across many other types of products. But you'd be really surprised. I think to know that many products that we sell, the customer is not as aware of that price as perhaps you might think they are. And you know, I was at a conference recently and I asked, this isn't statistic statistically relevant, but I was asking 10 or 15 people around me, what's the price of a grande latte at Starbucks, right? Probably one of the most purchased food items across the country today. And the answers that I got were anywhere from 450 to 650. And so right there tells you that people have a two dollar swing in their minds as to what they might pay. Now what we're trying to do, we're trying to say, well, at the moment, dynamic pricing is happening. The doordashes, the uber eats of this world, they do it, indeed doing it, you can pay an extra $3 and get your food delivered in 20 minutes as opposed to 40 minutes if you want to. They are also using their driver availability to change the price of the delivery itself. Right? So if they don't have many drivers, they will either extend out the time or they might increase the price. So all of that is showing that, you know, the, the aggregators, the marketplaces are using it today, but the restaurant isn't sharing in any of that, any of that prize. I put an article out in June of this year because I Write for Nations RestaurantNews.com as well, Donald, and it was about throttling. And in that space we were trying to say there are a lot of restaurants that now are starting to succeed with either third party market optimization or having their own first party ordering channel. And now they're getting too many digital orders. So what they're doing, they're shutting their orders off. They're saying, no, I can't, they're closing their virtual doors. And you, you would never do that in a brick and mortar setting. You would never shut your virtual, your actual doors. You'll invite the customer in, you'd give them a menu, wait, wait by the bar perhaps, right, and have a drink, and then we'll, we'll come and get you when your table's ready. In a virtual setting, restaurants are throttling themselves and therefore are closing out the opportunity to gain those new customers. Now if I was to say we could avoid throttling by perhaps increasing the price of most of your main entrees by 50 cents, only a small amount, that can reduce the level of demand you get into your restaurant and therefore allows you to keep your digital doors open. It also allows you to maintain consistency in terms of your customers eyes and potentially acquire new customers. Similarly, on the flip side, you know, happy hours are probably the most obvious form of dynamic pricing that exists today. So how can you actually customize prices to be reduced at times to either grow traffic volume or perhaps more pertinently, certainly if the restaurant isn't going to market it, you could actually use it to grow the trade value. So maybe you reduce the price of the side so that way you grow your trade value in such a way that actually you're getting more from those customers that are coming in at different times of day where the technology allows. How about incentivizing your customers to order ahead an hour or two and actually say if you order ahead an hour or two to let me know when you want your food, I might give you a discount. So all of these different things are how dynamic pricing is going to be able to help. And ultimately that means better margin in the lowest margin channel for restaurants.

Yeah, this stuff is like super exciting to me. I think it's going to be like the new wave of the future. And like you said, every other industry in the world does it already. You know, I noticed like on Uber, like I'm at the airport, it depends on like, you know, I'll go in and look like I'm getting it, I'm getting off the plane, I'll look at like, you know, what the Uber is going to cost. I'll get a certain price and then an hour later after I get my bag, I go back and the price has changed, you know, all the time. I should have grabbed it then, you.

Know, and that, and that journey starts earlier, right? The flight that, the, the guy that you sat next to on the flight probably paid a different price to you. And the hotel you stay at tonight, you're probably paying a different price to the person next door to you. So it is happening all over and it's already happening in restaurants. You know, there was a donut chain that was doing something in link to gas prices. You've got cinemas now choosing to change the price of their tickets depending on the time of day as well. So I think customers are coming increasingly used to the idea that they might pay a different price. The difference is it doesn't need to be abusive, right? It doesn't need to be abusive and also it needs to be something that helps them feel that as a result they're getting a better experience. Because, you know, I talk about throttling earlier. The reason restaurants do that is they're concerned about reducing the quality output of what's being created in their kitchen, both for their on premise guests as well as for their off premise guests. And so with that in mind, it's actually about making sure we can address probably the biggest challenge in off premise right now. You know, everything I wrote about in the book on speed, speed, accuracy and quality is because consistency drops during those busier times. And so if this can help improve consistency of a premise, that's a good thing for everyone.

That's perfect. No, that's perfect. Perfect. Yeah. I'm really excited about having you come down to the summit and talk about this at a deeper level for people because, you know, and like you said, the big chains have been doing it for years. I mean, you just said like Starbucks. I mean, you don't pay the same price for, you know, a, you know, avente latte in LA that you do in Phoenix, Arizona. I mean, this price is totally different. And also too, like even in Phoenix, the price is a little bit different depending on where I'm at in Phoenix even.

Sure. And what we're going to be doing is overlaying weather data. Right. So how, how does, how does a latte change when it's super cold outside relative to when it's super hot? Should it be at a different price? Depends on where you are.

Right.

Of course, if you're up in Toronto, Canada, it might be a very different answer to that to where you are in Arizona. And so all of those different data feeds play into it similarly, understanding the competitor pricing, the competitor density, understanding how many people are servicing lattes in your particular region, for example. And what we're doing at Juice of Pricing is building a database of every competitor price across the United States. So that way that also feeds into the algorithm so that we know what your competitors are doing and when they change their price too.

So cool that that is going to be so, so amazing. I can't, I'm looking so forward to just sitting down. I know I have a couple people that are going to probably like, you know, want to bend your ear and grab you and talk about this in a little more detail. And then that also leads me into that next kind of topic that you mentioned earlier. Digital maturity. What really is digital maturity?

Yeah, it's a great question. You know, you and I go to these conferences and I know you in particular keep a fine eye out for the independent operators. And when you think of the independent operator, we have a forward in the book here from an independent operator. Their mindset is. Okay, I get it. You know, they've gone, they've moved on from where we were, perhaps pre pandemic. And now they're saying, okay, I see that this is important, but they come into one of these big conference halls, Donald, they see hundreds of exhibits in front of them and they say, where the heck do I start? Where on earth do I do it? And there are now hundreds of different solutions. I call this term the sassification of our industry. The software, service and sassification of our industry has now enabled the independent restaurateur to compete with the very biggest of chains that five, six years ago were plowing millions of dollars into the technology that today you can get for a monthly fee.

Yeah.

And so digital maturity is about how do you know when to embrace another bit of technology? How do you know when to actually build your tech stack in an appropriate way to where you are, where your customers are, to where your team are, and to the capacity you have to truly utilize the technology that you've got in front of you. There are so many restaurants right now that have access to technology that they're probably only using 30% of its features and functions. And that's a travesty because that technology, that functionality, can really help them grow to another level. In this new book that we're going to release out later this year under the same name, Delivering the Digital Restaurant, but the path to digital maturity, it's going to be a playbook. It's a third of the size of the original, so it's very easy to read and get through in a weekend. It's just going to break down. What do you want to focus on first? And how do you really want to think through the journey of evolution in becoming a digital restaurant? And as I, as I mentioned that I. And I'll do this at the workshop and I'll ask everyone, how many of you believe you're a digital restaurant today?

Right.

And when I ask that question in front of conferences and I ask people to raise their hands, the there's probably about 50% of hands never go up. I ask, were you a digital restaurant five years ago, three years ago? Now, are you going to be one in two years? And half the hands never go up. And I'm going to, is it my accent? Do they not understand?

You're fine, your accent's fine. Yeah.

And of course, when I speak to the people after they go, well, what is a digital restaurant, Carl? I mean, you didn't explain that. I said, exactly, ah, exactly.

That's it.

And the point is, is that a digital restaurant in my mind is Being wherever your customers are. And Donald, they're on this thing. They're on that five, six hours a day, right? When you're posting your feeds on Instagram and Facebook, you're pushing those kind of things out there because that is where customers, even restaurateurs are. And so this is where for us, I think we need to think about how this journey is evolving. Because the customer today is not just a customer that has food delivered. They're not just a customer that goes through the drive through. They choose the channel that is right for them based on where they are through the course of their week. And the more we get to a place where we evolve as a digital restaurant to be wherever our customers want them to be, that's largely through the digital interfaces that they engage with, the more we are going to be better positioned to service them.

That's gonna be so cool. Yep, that is so right. So looking at in the future and looking at you go to all these conferences too, what do you think? Are some really cool like tech companies up and coming besides Juicer? I mean, I think Juicer is definitely on my, my watch list.

That's a great question. So one of the banes of many companies right now is the challenge to integrate. So there's so many different bits of technology, but whether they integrate with the core POS in some way is a real challenge. So there are platforms like Cube Beyond POS that are doing great things and being able to make that a lot easier. Of course, Toast do some great things as well in helping a lot of the independent operators with numerous bits of functionality. But those that are trying to help restaurants manage their data better, of course we're helping from a pricing perspective at Juicer Pricing, but those that are helping the restaurant utilize their data really effectively, I think are the ones that I particularly am drawn to. So there are companies like Biki, companies like Aben that are helping from a data platform, really help customer data be better managed so that you can target lapsed customers in a way that you'd never be able to do before. Then you've got companies like Crunchtime and Galley that are helping restaurants take a better handle on their cost of product data so that you move away from just theoretical cost of product to actual cost of product and really understand how those movements, again with the inflationary environment we're in, are affecting your bottom line. And then you've got companies like seven shifts that are helping restaurants with using their labor force in a more optimized manner. So you're scheduling people to exactly when the forecast says you need them. So those companies that are helping restaurants use data more effectively and applying algorithms to help them generate an informed forecast, I think those are really exciting. Of course, everyone probably asks this question when you ask them, oh, it's the drone companies and all these kind of folks and drones and robotics are coming. But the, anything around automation which is helping the restaurant do things simply and that can obviously be in data. Those, that's where automation right now is having most presence. And you know that we actually, I'm sure you know of our podcast on or the, the Monday Minute that my co author, I love that thing put out. We had this, this subject last week where we said where is automation the most important right now? And I think that is something which a lot of restaurants that are looking to invest in this are asking themselves because it's not always robotic arms and autonomous vehicles. It's things like, it's things like smart cookers. And you know the example we said in the Monday Minute Pod podcast was Starbucks, right? I don't know whether you saw that one, Donald, but they introduced something, wait for it, an ice machine. An ice machine which is now taking the time it takes to make a Frappuccino from a minute and 30 seconds to 30 seconds. Those 60 seconds add up. They add up in terms of the time and labor you have. But it also improves the customer's ability to get that Frappuccino. So this is where automation is going to be heading. I think companies that are helping automation in that sense are certainly on the right path.

Very, very cool. Yeah. And the Monday Minute. Where can people find the Monday Minute app?

Well, it's available on all main podcast platforms. If folks want to register on our platform, it's learn.delivery website www.learn.delivery and if they, if they haven't read our main book here, happy to get a copy out. If, if they want to get a discount. Because embracing first party ordering is what we're all about, right, Donald? Use, use the coupon code rest25 and you'll get 25% off.

Oh, that's a great deal. Rest 25, get a deal, get a coupon. And actually I'm going to be, I'm going to be getting some books from Carl. I'll be buying some books and giving them out as some prizes at the Restaurant Success Summit in October. So Restaurant Success Summit, if you haven't heard, October 24th, 25th, 26th, three days here in Scottsdale, Arizona. It goes, we go from 9am to 5pm it's going to be at a private residence. This year I'm not doing at a hotel because I keep the. I keep the event really intimate and small, and I cap it at 50 people that way. Like, you know, in between sessions, you know, you see Carl walking around. You want to grab him real quick and bend his ear and ask him a couple questions. He's available for you. So many times we go to these big conferences, and, you know, the speakers get up and talk, and then they basically take off and they disappear, and you don't really ever see them again. The. The Restaurant Success summit is more of a. It's more of an intimate kind of idea that I wanted people to be able to. To talk and have, you know, have a good time. And then, like, you know, Monday night, after the. The day of sessions, we're gonna have a. A pizza pool party at the. At the. At the location. You went mute again, by the way, Carl. There you go. And then on Tuesday, we're doing it.

I'm just. I'm just letting you have your moment.

Then Tuesday night, we're doing tacos and tequilas. I know Carl wants tacos and tequila.

So I definitely do. Are you cooking?

I'm cooking. I am actually cooking on Tuesday.

There you go. Even better.

Yeah, it's gonna be good. It's gonna be fun. So you can always head over to restaurantsuccessummit.com, grab a ticket if you'd like to. We'd love to have you there. Love to see you there. Tickets are selling out pretty fast. This event does sell out, so it will be sold out by the time the event runs around, which I'm always happy about. And in that Monday minute, like you said, Carl said, you can you pick up on any of your places? I listen to it. I like Spotify, so I listen to it on Spotify myself, but that's nice.

Yeah, I think. I think everyone has their chosen platform typically, don't they? I mean, there's a lot of folks that. In fact, I tell you one thing that surprised me, Donald. I love the Belgians right now. I heard that the Monday minute is the 17th most popular business management podcast in Belgium. I've never talked about food tech in Belgium at all once, I don't think. But thank you, Belgium. I appreciate it.

You want to know what's funny is the Restaurant Coach podcast is really big in Germany.

Oh, really?

And I don't know. I don't know any German. I never talk, but I'm like. I'm like I'm like the David Hasselhoff in Germany. I'm telling you, it's horrible. Yeah, yeah. But we actually. And actually at the restaurant success summit, there's people come from all over the world. I actually have some people coming from England. I've got a couple people coming. Already told me they're coming from Australia. I mean, it's gonna be a fun event. So it's gonna be a great time.

You've got a great bunch of people coming. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of friends of mine from the industry as well. And so I think you have created a great group of people. And then, you know, I'll be there just to make up the numbers. But the other group that you've got is certainly worthwhile.

Yeah. So if you don't know who's coming to the event for the restaurants of it, of course I'm speaking. I've also got Bruce Irving from Smart Pizza Marketing is going to be there. Carl's going to be there. It's kind of like my digital maverick. I got a great culinary leader, Chef James Avery. He is a chef owner of a couple great restaurants in New Jersey. He also. A lot of people don't know. He also was the. He was the blue chef for Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen for, like, four Seasons. So he's got a lot of tenure, a lot of great experience, and he's going to really kind of open the doors up for some people. Talking about getting life work, balance back that we talk about a lot of. I got Yagal Adado from San Diego. Great leadership speaker is going to be there. Bo Bryant, he's a really good friend of mine. He lives here in Scottsdale. He's going to be speaking, of course. And then I've got. I got Nico coming in. He's going to talk a little bit about meal kits. He has a really great meal kit company that he launched with his restaurant, California Grill. And then also we got Zach Oats from Ovations.

And he has the best hair in the industry.

Even better than yours, dude. His hair is like. I only aspire to have hair as good as him. And then you. You would be my next person. I'd want to have hair like, oh, well, I. I don't know how you do it, man. I don't know how you get up there like that.

Well, maybe we should. Maybe we should put a session together, Zach and I, doing our hair.

And.

And that might be useful. You never know. That might be actually bonus concept.

There you go. So hey, I know you've been traveling a lot lately. What was the best meal you've had lately?

Well, I don't know if you know this, but my wife Alicia and I, we got married in Amalfi. She wanted to get married to an Italian man. So we negotiated and decided to get married in Italy instead. And we just celebrated our 10 year anniversary and we were back in Amalfi a couple of weeks ago and you know, going back to all the old haunts that we celebrated with our wedding party back then. But in our little mini moon, we stayed in this monastero Santa Rosa, which is in between Amalfi and Positano. It's 18 rooms, it's got this beautiful infinity pool that pulls out, that goes over the, over the cliff. And the restaurant there is just immense. It's like a culinary delight. And the team are just fantastic and the cocktails are great. I have a more fondness for Aperol spritz than I ever have had before. And to be honest, I won't even tell you about the food because it's the occasion. And I think when we think about our favorite restaurant experiences, it's not always just about the food. It's about the setting, it's about the ambience and it just reminds me as to why that is such a special thing. So a lot of fond memories about Monastery Santa Rosa and checking that place out a few weeks ago.

Oh, very, very cool. What, what's your kind of go to like food in Italy? Do you like the pastas or what kind of pasta do you like or do you like, you know, what's your thing?

I mean, I do, I don't, I don't really have a particular type of pasta that I like, I like always this, the squid ink tagliatelle is a favorite. Yeah. But quite honestly, I mean something as simple as a Caprese salad, when you get to enjoy the, the richness of a tomato that's come from the Italian soil of, you know, somewhere in Pompeii, somewhere with all that beautiful volcanic soil, it's, it's just another level. And so it not about a dish, it's about the ingredients that service that dish. And a Caprese salad with beautiful basil and mozzarella, that's, that's a game changer for me. So it's a strange one because if you read the words of most of the dishes I like, it's like eh, but actually, until you actually sample the Italian fare itself, it's, it in many ways sometimes puts A. A bit of a negative experience for me on many of the Italian restaurants I experience over here. Much like when I go to a Mexican restaurant in England. Quite honestly, you know, the. The Mexican food here in Southern California is amazing. But go, go and have a Mexican dish over in London. That's not always as good.

That was good. I have to say, some of the best dim sum I've ever had, though, was in London.

Ah, there you go. Well, it's. It's such a diverse kind of city, so maybe I'm doing London a disservice, but go, go a little outside.

I never forget. It was in Leicester Square. Yeah.

Do you remember the night?

I can't remember the name. I just remember it was like, on the corner. It was like the best dim sum they had. The really cool traditional cart came around. It was the first time I tried. I. I was probably like. I was young. I was in the military back then. I was probably 19. And it was the first time I tried, like, chicken feet. It was amazing. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. No, I think that's why travel is so appealing for me, because you get to sample just the different types of food and the way in which people interpret food in different locations. You know, my. My favorite ever din was probably now 12 years ago in Thailand off the coast of Phuket. I asked a taxi driver to take me to somewhere I'd never forget. And he took Alicia and I to this area where we took a dragon boat out to a floating pontoon about, I don't know, probably half a mile off the coast, this floating pontoon. And we get on, there's a bunch of tables there, and I think this is kind of interesting. And they hand us a net. And in the middle of the pontoon is this kind of area where they've gone and brought all the fish from earlier in the day. And you fish, the actual fish that you'd like to actually scoop it up, and they go and then cook it for you. And the sun was setting over the. The kind of hills of Phuket, and my goodness, was that an amazing setting.

Oh, that sounds amazing. What would you say? I mean, so you, you know, traveling to Europe and, you know, and you and I spoke this last March at the Hospitality Innovation Planet in Madrid. We're very, very fortunate to be a, you know, to be able to speak there. What would you say is the biggest difference between dining in Europe and dining United States?

Portion size. Portion size. Portion size and speed of service. You know, you. You go out for a meal in many of Like Italy's, the Francis, the Greeces. And you'll, you'll be in a place there where it's all about just enjoying the evening, the occasion. And I think part of that is driven a little bit about how the labor force is compensated in Europe relative to the US because of course, you're driven more by table turns here, certainly your server is more driven by table turns and being able to get people in and out as quickly as possible. So in that sense, you could argue the American model is certainly more commercialized. But then you could also say, and I think I mentioned this to you in Madrid, that before the pandemic, at least the US restaurant industry was second only to Japan in restaurants per capita. So what does that mean is that it was incredibly competitively intensive for American restaurants to succeed. And so over time, people have increased portion sizes as a way of being able to compete against each other, but at the same time dwindling their own margins. And when you look at the food waste epidemic that we have in the US, what is it, 50% or so being thrown away? Yeah, it tells me that actually what can we do to be able to accommodate portion sizes into a suitable, suitable size relative to the value that people are willing to pay? And I think maybe what we're seeing through the inflation right now is that that is going to be accommodated. Portion sizes might come down a bit to be able to accommodate the cost that people having to pay.

They need to, actually. I mean, they totally need to. I think we've gotten out of control. Bigger is not always better. You know, in the US we always say bigger's better.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's an interesting one. And I think both, both markets have amazing restaurants. I hope, I hope quite sincerely that the independent restaurants continues to thrive in the U.S. i think they're under a lot of pressure right now from a lot of different forces, whether they be various different legal things or the kind of labor challenges that are existing. For me, the independent restaurants give us the best memories of eating out. I think a lot of the big chains help us with the convenience of life, but the independence really are the lifeblood of our industry. And so that is why we wrote the book, quite honestly, to help them look upon digitization, to help them look upon this new channel of off premise to be more positive about the future that's to come. Because we're building the muscles right now. We're building the muscles and the muscle memory to enable us to be more agile as we then break forward into even further Innovation in the years ahead.

So you mentioned that before the pandemic, United States was like, was second as.

Far as second only to Japan to own restaurants per capita.

Where are we now?

I don't know. I haven't seen this, I haven't seen the data since. I mean we lost what, a hundred thousand restaurants?

Yeah, we lost quite a few.

So it might be a little lower down the list, but it tells you how intense the competition is.

And what's, what's your go to fast food place your for convenience? What's your fast food Chick Fil A? Yeah, I'll tell you, I was gonna say Chick Fil A too.

Yeah, I just. And look, I, I love it because I enjoy the food. But again, from a digital interface they've really created a frictionless, a frictionless way to be able to engage with their first party platform, you know. And I think one of the slides I'll put up at your workshop gives a representation of what Chick Fil A's business is between third party and first party orders. And the surprising thing is not just Chick Fil A, but the Chipotle's and this and the Paneras of this world is there's a decent proportion between third party first party customers and there's a smallest proportion, you know, I'm talking 5, 10% of customers choose to use both. And so I, I share that as a message to everyone to say you need to embrace both third party channels as well as your own ordering channel. But I love the Chick Fil A first party ordering channel because you can pay through it, you can order, you can use it for dining orders, you can use it for delivery. And similarly you've got that kind of loyalty component as well. And so when you have that trifecta of items, I think it really helps you be able to really capture the customer's attention to always use that as the means to order going forward.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, you got to take advantage of every, every revenue stream you can take advantage of. You need to take advantage of. Yeah, you can't like shut them all. So again, if you want to grab tickets, meet Carl in person, get a copy of the book, you can always go to his website is delivering the digital restaurant dot com. Use the coupon code. What was the Coupon code again?

Rest 25R25. You get 25% discount. And from that you can also get a paperback. If you prefer paperbacks or if you'd like to hear my dulcet tones, read the book to you. We'll send you an audiobook token as well?

I do. I actually, I have. I have your book. I have the hardcover, I have the Kindle and I also have the audio available. You do a great job. I wish I had. I'm gonna be honest with you. I have not narrated my own books, you know, because I don't have that really cool accent like you do.

I work on it every day, Donald. Every day. Just practice. It's practice.

You wake up in the morning and you don't have it and you just. You talk like an American or what?

Maybe. Maybe I'm a trained actor. That's what I'm like, a Daniel Day Lewis. I'm working towards a big part where I have to have an English accent.

You're not really from England, maybe?

Exactly. I have. A lot of people think I'm from Australia, which is. It always gives me.

Let's not even go there. Delivering the digital restaurant dot com. Please check it out. Check out Carl's books. Hop on any of your podcast platforms. Check out the Monday Minute. Him and emeritus do a great job of that. It's a. It's easy. You know what I love about his podcast? It's so easy to consume. It's super fast, super easy to digest and, you know, just. It's easy and that makes it convenient for everybody.

Thanks. Thanks for that, Donald. I mean, we. We really try to make it into a place where it's five. Five items, five headlines of just things that are happening in our space. Restaurants, tech, off premise. And we don't sell anything. You know, we're not selling anything. We're not getting these little sponsored messages that come up. It's all about helping the industry because, my goodness, do we need it. We need some help.

We definitely need some help. If you want to grab tickets to the Restaurant Success Summit, head over to restaurantsuccess summit. Pretty straightforward dot com. And we will see you in Scottsdale October 24th. 25th. 26th. Three days. Bring a notebook. You're going to have lots of great information, lots of takeaways. Usually everyone fills up a huge notebook and stuff like that. It'll be all kinds of great bonus and stuff like that. It's going to be amazing. Just head over restaurantsuccesssummit.com, grab a ticket. And I want to say thanks, Carl, for taking time today to talk a little bit, a little tease out about dynamic pricing. That's exciting. And also digital maturity, which is the new book. Talk about that step by step formula, how to make sure your restaurant is following the path to digital maturity. Thank you.

Thanks.