NRA To Host First-Ever Restaurant Innovation Summit

The National Restaurant Association will host a two-day seminar this fall as a way to offer operators ideas to better engage guests through emerging technology.

“Restaurant Innovation Summit: Emerging Technology and the Customer Experience,” Oct. 23-24 in Denver, will feature sessions on mobile payment, enabling in-store customer interaction, maximizing out-of-store interaction, and leveraging big data. The event is expected to draw finance, marketing, operations, IT and treasury professionals from across the industry.

“Our goal is to ensure that restaurant operators at all levels and company sizes can share and will walk away with a competitive advantage,” said John Metz Jr., chairman of the NRA board’s Profitability and Entrepreneurship Committee. “The summit will help them understand the various technological options, costs, and applications as well as how best to collaborate throughout their companies. As a result, they will be able to use the technology more effectively.”

Data from the NRA’s 2013 Restaurant Industry Forecast showed that operators in every segment of the industry are looking to invest more time and resources into new, customer-facing technology—including more than half of restaurant owners who plan to invest more in technology in 2013.

Register here for the summit, which is scheduled in conjunction with two other NRA meetings: the Marketing Executives Group (Oct. 23-24) and Information Technology (Oct. 23-25) so attendees can easily participate in the technology summit.