Behind Company Lines Interviews Tim McLaughlin, GoTab Founder & CEO

Our CEO and Co-Founder recently talked with the Behind Company Lines Podcast where he talked about our design philosophy around restaurant and kitchen operations; i.e., as one part factory and another part artist’s studio. Because personal service is wonderful when it’s available, but disappointing when it’s not. Most of us go out with hopes that we’ll be taken care of, but it’s important that operators give guests the ability to take care of themselves if no server is available. 

‍How integral is each step to what the guest is going to experience over all?

At GoTab we spend a ton of time thinking about how to shave off 15 seconds. For example, communicating on the floor of a restaurant to a manager that a guest is unhappy take anywhere from 15-30 seconds. If you add that up over an entire dinner service, that can add up to 20-30 minutes. You compound those numbers day-after day, month-after-month and it creates a lot of losses, and dissatisfaction. Time studies in a factory are a great example of how to think about it. There’s a lot of opportunity in restaurants to improve those things.

‍What are some of the common bad experiences that guests have and why do they persist?

GoTab was doing QR ordering to table in 2018, which was virtually first to market here in N. America. We originally started in 2016 trying to solve the payment problem because it’s the most thankless process in the dining experience. It’s really a major pain point in most dining experiences. But changing habits wasn’t doable in 2016. When we added QR ordering, everyone thought we were crazy. We had a hard time convincing people that ordering on their phone was a good thing. So we focused on the places we could “scratch an itch”. Like large patios, and outdoor dining locations where people have to come into the venue to get another drink. Our argument back then was staff can’t be everywhere at one time. Inevitably, something happens and now your guest’s night is impacted because they can’t get any service. 

We found prior to COVID, that QR ordering broke down massively in the kitchen and the bar. The reason it broke down, and frankly nobody had figured this out, is that the operation in a full service kitchen and even a bar are not designed for high volume. In the old model, you can restrict the flow of orders to the kitchen by virtue of just having a few registers or a handful of servers. The good news with GoTab is that you can create more sales. But the other side of that is that you then have to fulfill those sales and most restaurants weren’t built to handle that.

‍A new kitchen operating model

We recognized the fulfillment problem before most others and built an entirely new kitchen operational model, a KDS. It originally came out of QSR, where they were trying to move very quickly and therefore they weren’t adopted in nicer restaurants. If you talked to many chefs three years ago, they didn’t want screens in the kitchen. We ended up redoing all of that. We ended up building screens that design when and where things go dynamically, that handle surges in orders, and set expectations about pacing. All those systems came out during COVID and it was very critical because there were limited employees and massive surges of ordering volume. So we ended up building the KDS; i.e., our system  that drives what you make, when you make it, how long it’s going to take, tells the guest the status of what you’re making, all from the kitchen based on real-time feedback.

‍How does that improve higher-end experiences with adopting technology and implementing those systems?

There are a ton of gains, and still objections, in the higher end restaurants. They still like printed tickets. But think about it: there’s no factory anywhere that runs on paper. It doesn’t sound sexy or nostalgic to talk about computer screens guiding your chef. They are artisans when they’re creating recipes. But when a cook is executing a recipe, you want them to follow the exact recipe and steps that the chef designed.

Using our KDS, we’ve been able to cut food running labor requirements in half. That’s a big savings. Not only that, it’s a better experience because if two people are sitting at the same table, and the restaurant is using batching capabilities, even though they order at different times, both guests can get beers at the same time.

‍How do you go about thinking about all the abstract data around ordering and kitchen operations, not to mention getting the restaurants to think about it?

Coming from a web and commerce design online system, there’s a lot of analytics that goes into that. Restaurants generally do not think about that data. They find it a curious idea. However, there’s so much more basic stuff they need to focus on with current problems like a labor shortage. There is a ton of opportunity in harvesting the data GoTab has. But that’s a longer term thing that we’re hoping to help operators take advantage of.

Right now, we’re working on our first fine dining groups. It’s historically more nostalgic. They have the money and time to have good servers and good staff. But all these kitchen efficiencies are benefiting them. What fine dining restaurateur wouldn’t say, “I want a more predictable output with more efficiency in my kitchen”? For example, we just rolled out a functionality around an ability to course small plates table-side through our Handheld POS. The average POS isn’t designed for small plate coursing. Operators are really excited about the efficiencies they gain, from reducing the time to enter the courses from 3 minutes to 10 seconds, to avoiding the eventual errors that happen. We’re also getting huge uptick in eatertainment venues where there’s multiple activations within a location.

Thanks to Julian Torres over at Behind Company Lines for a great conversation. You can get the full audio at https://www.hireotter.com/behindcompanylines/episode-189-tim-mclaughlin-founder-ceo-at-gotab. 

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