The Restaurant Operator’s Dilemma in 2022: Automation Vs. Hospitality

In 2022, the restaurant business finds itself at something of a crossroads—or, to put it in a more 21st-century way, the industry has reached a pivot point. Restaurants were already getting more high-tech before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but once it did, adoption of solutions including contactless ordering and payment methods became a matter of survival, in more ways than one.

Whether the Omicron variant proves to be the coronavirus’s last gasp (here’s hoping) or not, things will, at some point, return to something resembling normalcy. That doesn’t mean, however, that the restaurant industry’s pace of tech adoption is likely to slow down. Automation and artificial intelligence have opened up new horizons of efficiency for operators, who would be loath to give it all up.

After all, this is an industry that can use all the efficiency it can get, thanks to a labor crisis that doesn’t appear to be easing up. Last November alone, a record-high one million American hospitality…