Pepper Lunch replaced human cashiers with kiosks, expecting customers to focus on the food. Instead, the word most associated with the brand shifted from food to friendliness, revealing what automation cost them.
years, everybody said the same thing about Pepper Lunch. Sizzle, hot, flavorful, authentic, shareable, customizable, right? It was all about the food. All anybody talked about at scale was our food and that experiential piece of our food. What's that say to you though? I'm curious. Like, you— That's all we focused on, and rightfully so. People are giving you money for food, you better get that right. But what happened, which was an absolute effing complete shock, we replaced a human Cashier order taker with a white box machine and a screen. And today, our word map doesn't have the word food, sizzle, hot plate on it. The number one word to describe Pepper Lunch today is friendliness. Nobody even talks about the food side of it.
