Restaurants are buying more customer tech even as visits stay 7% below 2019

Chain restaurants have spent years putting in kiosks, expanding loyalty programs, and moving counter ordering to digital workflows. Visits still have not fully returned. Average chain restaurant occasions remain 7% below 2019, according to Restaurant Business editor-in-chief Jonathan Maze. Even so, the newest budgeting indicators suggest operators plan to keep buying guest-facing tech in 2026, with 60% prioritizing technology designed to improve customer experience, based on National Restaurant Association (NRA) survey data reported by Restaurant Business.

For enterprise operators, it is not a choice between technology and labor. Instead, softer traffic is meeting a stronger requirement to defend every dollar of spending, while hiring and scheduling continue to be difficult. That leaves a pointed operational test: which guest-facing tools remove friction for both employees and customers, and which ones merely shift the effort to a different place.

Customer experience tops 2026 tech budgets

Restaurant Business, citing the NRA’s State of the Restaurant Industry report, said 60% of operators intend to invest in technology that improves customer experience in 2026. The same report shows that priority across segments, at 62% for limited-service restaurants and 57% for full-service restaurants.

Several other technology buckets trail closely, which affects how rollouts get planned. Restaurant Business reported that 54% of operators expect to invest in front-of-house tech, 48% in back-of-house, and 44% in cybersecurity. In reality, many brands will need to fund, test, secure, and train on multiple platforms at once, often relying on the same already-stretched IT and operations enablement teams.

The pivot toward customer experience also looks tied to uncertain demand. NRA data reported by Restaurant Business found about 60% of operators saw traffic soften last year, and about 40% of consumers said they were using restaurants less.

Margins are the other pressure point. Restaurant Business reported that food and labor costs were both up about 35% since 2019, and cited the NRA report in noting profit margins of 2.8% last year for full-service restaurants and 4% for limited-service restaurants. With margins that tight, any new guest-facing system needs to be evaluated on throughput, labor minutes, check size, retention, or ideally more than one of those outcomes.

Diners are nearly evenly divided on whether technology improves hospitality

Operators see more upside than diners do in guest-facing technology. Restaurant Business reported that 65% of operators say technology improves the customer experience. Consumers are far less aligned: 41% said tech improves hospitality, 38% said it hurts, and 21% said it makes no difference, according to the same NRA data.

This is where many large-scale rollouts start to break down. A system may look “successful” against a narrow metric such as average check or attachments, yet still turn some guests away or push more emotional work onto the staff who remain. Maze’s column highlights the incentive issue: Restaurant Business said kiosks drive higher sales, but the industry lacks a dependable way to measure how many customers leave because of them.

Restaurant Business highlighted several well-known brands operating inside that tradeoff. McDonald’s started adding kiosks and digital menu boards in 2017 and has recently lowered prices on its Extra Value Meals out of concern about traffic among lower-income consumers, according to Maze. Starbucks, after spending heavily post-2020 on a more takeout-oriented café experience, is now spending to bring back elements that encourage customers to stay, including replacing seats and ending pickup-only units, according to Restaurant Business. The brand Maze singled out for sales and traffic growth was Chili’s, which the article linked to a more traditional dine-in model with human table service.

That is not a case for removing kiosks. It is a caution about where friction can show up, at the point a customer feels the restaurant was built for the screen rather than for them. Restaurant Business also reported that most consumers say they are comfortable with certain tools, including 74% comfortable using an app to order and pay and 68% comfortable with kiosks. Interest falls for newer AI-driven options, with 46% interested in ordering through an AI chatbot and 39% interested in ordering from an AI “persona” on video, per the same report.

Staffing pressures are steering tech toward predictability, not novelty

Bar & Restaurant’s coverage of high-volume staffing points to the same operational goal: cut down peak-hour disorder. Heidi Harman, a senior principal in retail and hospitality at workforce management vendor UKG, told Bar & Restaurant that high-volume restaurants still feel pressure from a tight labor market as they prepare for peak seasons. She said leaders are leaning more on data, with an emphasis on flexibility, speed, and engagement, including fair scheduling, clear communication, and timely pay.

For multi-unit operators, that connects directly to practical guest-facing tech decisions. Tools that steady staffing and reduce rework, such as improved forecasting inputs, consistent labor rules, and simpler guest decision paths, can pay off even if overall traffic does not grow.

Cody Wong, president of CW Strong and a Dave’s Hot Chicken franchisee, described a consistency-first approach: baking expectations, labor rules, and workflows into the system so managers spend less time correcting and more time coaching, according to Bar & Restaurant. Mitch Miller, a vice president at Ocean Prime and operating partner at Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, stressed preparing teams ahead of time and supporting new associates while holding service standards, Bar & Restaurant reported.

Shawn Tarter, founder and CEO of RealTime Reservation, described where software helps most during rushes: pushing guest choices earlier in the journey so staff are not answering the same questions mid-shift, and centralizing those choices so operators can see what is coming, according to Bar & Restaurant. That becomes a practical screen for the 2026 tech shopping list. Kiosks, table tablets, and AI voice ordering can accelerate ordering, but reservations, pre-ordering, and add-on selection can also smooth demand, which is another form of customer experience investment.

Procurement and rollout questions for 2026 refresh cycles

• What is the primary KPI for each guest-facing tool, and what counter-metric will safeguard hospitality? For kiosks or tablet ordering, pair check size or speed-of-service with an abandonment proxy such as walkouts, order restarts, or staff interventions logged per shift, a gap Restaurant Business says the industry still cannot reliably quantify.
• How will the tool alter staffing decisions, not only labor cost? If a system is intended to free labor, spell out whether it cuts cashier hours, shifts labor to runners or expediters, or instead moves the support load to managers, reflecting the process-friction focus Bar & Restaurant reported in high-volume operations.
• Does the vendor enable “move decisions earlier” workflows? For brands using reservations, waitlists, or paid add-ons, assess whether the tech pulls those choices into a single operational view that improves forecasting and reduces peak-period conflict, as described by RealTime Reservation’s CEO in Bar & Restaurant.
• Is cybersecurity funded as part of deployment rather than alongside it? With 44% of operators planning cybersecurity investments for 2026, per NRA data reported by Restaurant Business, new customer-facing endpoints should be defined with network segmentation, device management, and incident runbooks before pilots expand chainwide.