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​​Aldelo’s team of software developers work year-round to continually provide innovative point-of-sale solutions and features that help restaurant owners optimize their businesses today and tomorrow.

Customers prefer using digital self-service restaurant solutions over legacy ordering and payments. Part of helping restaurant owners maximize their business potential in a contactless market is by providing them with innovative marketing solutions that increase their brand exposure in in-person and online environments. Customer-facing ordering and payment solutions from Aldelo Express Cloud POS and Masa+ online ordering do just that. Each solution is easily managed in the Aldelo Express cloud back-office, letting owners monitor their operation anytime, anywhere.

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​In 2018, the United States spent over $200 billion growing, processing, transporting, and disposing uneaten food. Millions of tons of food are wasted each year: tons are left unharvested on farms and even more are thrown into landfills. Unfortunately, due to food being left on plates and excess inventory, the restaurant industry generates 11.4 million tons of food waste each year, costing billions of dollars in potential profit for food service owners and operators.*

The good news is, owners can take steps to reduce food waste in their restaurants using preventative solutions such as donating excess items to nonprofits, selling unused items to their customers, or getting creative with excess ingredients. In fact, the restaurant industry has potential to garner $620 million in profit potential.

Aldelo Express offers cloud point-of-sale solutions and features that include natively integrated digital menus and a cloud back-office platform that equips restaurant owners to reduce food waste via inventory oversight, item sales reports, and operational analysis. In addition, Aldelo Express users customize an ecosystem of merchant- and customer-facing solutions to meet growing needs of their customers and their business both on and off restaurant premises.

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​The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way diners value restaurants. When customers were forced to stay home, many spent time trying new recipes for food, drinks, and desserts. Often, customers were simply trying to perfect their favorite dishes and comfort foods, but many were more ambitious, experimenting with international dishes and working with exotic ingredients. Successful or not, working in their own kitchens helped customers better appreciate restaurants for their consistent, delicious, and unique food options.

Customers returning to restaurants for in-person and remote dining bring new culinary expectations, looking to restaurants for high-quality comfort dishes, innovative classics, and globally inspired recipes they just can’t make at home. In addition, more customers expect diet-specific options and menu item accommodations. As a result, restaurant owners agree that keeping up with food trends and menu innovations should be a priority in a post-COVID era.

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​Aldelo Express just released the latest of many built-in security features for its cloud point-of-sale solutions. The new “facial AI” recognition login feature is the first of its kind made available for POS terminals in the restaurant industry. Restaurant managers implement the new biometric solution to secure point-of-sale, labor, and management functions. The new feature tightens previous security access functions, including employee PINs and unique QR code badges. The feature requires no new or special equipment, but utilizes cameras already built into the point-of-sale device.

Managers quickly set up face detection and face matching through a simple “face detection, face capture, and face match” process. Biometrics technology maps facial features and compares the data with known faces stored and secured on the Aldelo Cloud. Employees register their faces with no coverings or glasses. Once enrolled, the technology detects, captures, and matches users even while wearing a mask. Employee biometric data is never shared, and restaurants manage employee records in the back-office that can be easily deleted later on, with no recoverable trace of personal data.
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With the steady growth and usage of facial recognition technologies in banking, retail, health, and security industries, Aldelo’s facial AI technology increases POS security for all restaurant and food service users.

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​Of all the restaurant industry’s sectors, the coronavirus pandemic most severely impacted bars. In 2019, bars and taverns made $22 billion in overall annual sales. That number dropped 65% by the end of 2020. Because they are designed specifically for close, casual social gatherings, bars were quick to shut down and some of the last businesses to fully re-open. However, lockdown restrictions and pandemic-related mandates not only hurt bars in the short-term, it threatened their future as customers turned to crafting drinks, cocktails, and hosting happy hours from home.

Still, many bar owners are successfully trying to shadow what many restaurants are doing by offering contactless options for purchasing drink and food items that allow them to sustain their business. When permitted by their state legislation, bars offered take-out and delivery drinks, appetizers, dishes, and do-it-yourself cocktail kits. This also includes  at-home tutorials and live video classes for crafting cocktails by customers at home to promote their brand and business, creating a following that will benefit them as customers come back into bar environments. Bars also began selling branded t-shirts, stickers, drink containers, and other merchandise to off-set losses from food and drinks.

Even as customers make their way back into bars, many of these innovative products and solutions will remain in the bar industry, helping bar owners and operators establish new standards for how they serve and engage their customers.

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​Restaurants have always been a gathering place for local communities. While a contactless dining market has introduced numerous challenges for both restaurant owners and their customers, restaurants adopting flexible point-of-sale technologies are able to provide communities with creative events and interactive services in contactless, non-traditional settings.

In late 2021, most restaurants offered on-premises outdoor dining in patio, deck, parklet or sidewalk settings. Once pandemic restrictions are lifted, 90% of restaurant owners and 84% of adult consumers would prefer restaurants to continue offering outdoor dining on sidewalks, parking lots, or streets. * In addition to mainstream outdoor dining, curbside pickup, and delivery services, restaurants can use merchant- and customer-facing mobile POS solutions to promote their brand, expand their customer base, and engage customers with car-hop dining experiences.

Restaurants can host their own drive-in events - think of the movie American Graffiti - or partner with local businesses to enhance car-hop dining experiences with light shows, theatrical performances, movie showings, drive-by art shows, and drive-thru farmers markets. Creating a unique and fun atmosphere for the community brings people together while supporting local farmers, artisans, businesses, and community groups helps restaurants become a focal point for existing and new customers.

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​In 2016, self-service Kiosks and online ordering were uncommon in the restaurant industry. A few restaurants offered tableside tablets for self-service ordering and payments, while leading fast-food chains provided customer-facing Kiosks in lobbies to bust lines and streamline in-house dining services. Though many restaurants had their own website to display venue images, menus, and store information, few utilized online ordering solutions to expand their operation. Years later, accelerated by the contactless dining demands of a global pandemic, Kiosks and online ordering are everywhere, supporting contactless food and drink operations and helping restaurant owners provide competitive staff wages in a slim employee market.

From entering orders and delivering the guest check to processing physical payment tenders and printing a confirmation receipt, closing out a party’s bill in sit-down environments can take restaurant servers several minutes. If a customer’s card does not go through, the process is slowed even more, resulting in a lower table turn rate and less profit for the business.

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​Essential to running a profitable business is closely monitoring and managing employee hours and payroll. Labor is the most controllable expense a restaurant has, but as coronavirus concerns and economic uncertainty continue, many restaurants still struggle to retain regular employees. Without accurate oversight, mis-scheduling shifts, mis-communicating schedules, and a lack of control managing daily time cards can be detrimental to a restaurant’s bottom line, and can even risk the restaurant’s compliance with local, state, and federal labor laws.

The Aldelo Express Cloud POS solution suite includes full-featured point-of-sale solutions and built-in Labor Module functions developed specifically to help new and existing restaurant owners take control of their labor expenses. The Aldelo Express Labor Module provides several customizable time clock and payroll functions that help managers better manage, secure, and automate their payroll and timecard solutions for the business.

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​Of the many roles of restaurant owners, operators, and staff, their primary task is to put customers first with unique food and drinks, excellent customer services, and memorable guest experiences. So, when nation-wide lockdowns began in March 2020, preventing customers from patronizing businesses in-person, owners and operators were challenged to put customers first with innovative, contactless services that required minimal in-person interactions.

Nearly two years later, despite limited in-person dining services and struggling to fill staff positions due to a continued wage and labor crisis, owners have successfully kept their doors open and are thriving with contactless technologies and self-service digital ordering and payments. For many, customer-facing restaurant POS solutions are a lifeline for their business, enabling restaurant owners to satisfy customers by providing online ordering, mobile digital payment, and off-premises delivery services, and for customers it means continuing to be able to enjoy great food and drinks from their favorite restaurants.

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​As customers returning to restaurants prioritize loyalty programs and digital payments, many restaurants have adopted digital Loyalty, eGift Card, and related programs to complement recently-added online ordering and delivery services. In 2021, 86% of restaurant owners and operators reported using back-office data to leverage their loyalty programs and discount offers, and 50% of restaurants seeking new point-of-sale solutions prioritized native loyalty program capabilities. * Such programs are becoming so popular that one only has to look around their community to notice the growing trend.

One of the best ways restaurants can strategically compete in the growing loyalty market is to reward customer purchases and influence return visits with unique customer promotions. These help restaurants influence customer traffic and earn additional revenue that is often essential for sustaining the business during slower periods.

Here are some promotional strategies for food service businesses that utilize in-house Loyalty, Rewards, Coupons, and eGifts:

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​Running a restaurant business in 2021 clearly reinforced that flexibility is essential to success. Amidst the uncertainty of the economy, labor force, and the competitive online market, restaurant owners and operators had to be flexible with the resources they had to navigate a highly unpredictable environment. For many, point-of-sale technology empowered merchants to serve their customers in creative, new, and lucrative ways in-store, online, outdoors, and off-site.

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​​Aldelo, L.P. began in 1999 with a mission to provide restaurant owners a “Path to Simplicity” by offering all-inclusive point-of-sale solutions at an ultra-affordable cost. In the last twenty years, Aldelo has supported business owners with full-featured point-of-sale solutions for restaurants, bars, pizza places, food trucks, and more. Today, its in-house team of developers work year-round to provide customer-centric software solutions and features, utilizing the latest development tools while maintaining best practices and quality control disciplines.

Aldelo also works regularly with its network of local reseller partners to intimately understand the needs of restaurants in their communities and respond to consumer demands with cutting-edge POS features and technological developments. Through weekly sales training and product education seminars, Aldelo ensures its partners are knowledgeable and capable of supporting merchants in their respective areas throughout the life of their POS system.

Unlike some point-of-sale suppliers, Aldelo’s primary method of supporting restaurants is through technological development. Many POS suppliers are credit card processors first, providing point-of-sale resources for retail, restaurants, and hospitality to complement their payment processing services. These payment companies’ point-of-sale solutions typically come with recurring charges for licenses, modules, and services. Aldelo’s complete suite of cloud-based POS solutions, on the other hand, offers full-featured, multi-lingual, flexible software needed to run any-sized food service operations, including the native Masa+ Online Ordering and Payments solution at zero additional cost.

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​​For over twenty years Aldelo has developed customer-centric POS software and provided one-on-one customer support to its valued merchants within the restaurant industry. As food service trends and restaurant technology evolve, Aldelo’s full-time team of developers utilize the latest development tools while maintaining best practices and quality control disciplines to provide restaurant owners with the most relevant solutions. 

Aldelo Express merchants have access to native integrated app solutions such as modern Kitchen Display Systems (KDS), interactive and multimedia Rear Customer Displays, self-service Kiosks, tableside ordering, online ordering, mobile handheld devices, and POS tablet devices that includes the newly released “Facial AI” recognition for securely accessing the Aldelo Express and related functions.

​PRESS RELEASE
​December 21, 2021

​PLEASANTON, CA – December 21, 2021 - Aldelo, L.P., developer of the Aldelo Express Cloud POS restaurant technology platform that includes a native suite of merchant- and customer-facing iOS and Android point-of-sale solutions, announces the release of its “Facial AI” login feature. The first application of the technology for the restaurant industry, Aldelo’s facial recognition solution utilizes a standard tablet for securing access to Aldelo Express POS, timekeeping modules used for tracking employee time, manager functions, and cloud back-office.

Use of facial recognition technology has steadily grown in the mobility, security, health, banking, and retail industries. It is the most natural of all biometric measurements because we recognize ourselves not by looking at our fingerprints or irises, but by looking at our faces. Aldelo’s technology requires no physical interaction or specialized equipment for capturing and authenticating users.

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​​For over twenty years Aldelo has developed leading point-of-sale software solutions and provided customer-centric support to the restaurant industry. But in addition to providing the tools restaurants need to run a full-featured food service operation today and tomorrow, Aldelo offers ultra-competitive credit card payment processing rates. Aldelo Pay’s transparent rate and fee structure protects merchant profits by enabling establishments to accept a wide range of card and transaction types (in-store, online, card-not-present) without incurring exorbitant costs. With Aldelo Pay merchants eliminate hidden costs and high rates that are typically charged when accepting premium card types and conducting certain transactions.

Aldelo Pay continues Aldelo’s legacy and commitment to developing merchant-centric solutions and offering merchants a simple cost-effective path to acquiring a powerful restaurant cloud technology platform. By combining Aldelo Pay with Aldelo Express Cloud POS restaurants receive the entire Aldelo Express Cloud restaurant platform and iPad- and Android-based software solutions suite at no additional cost. This includes unlimited software licenses, 24/7 technical support, and automatic system upgrades for their restaurant, bar, pizza place, or food truck.

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​Contactless dining solutions and digital self-service customer solutions have quickly permeated the restaurant industry over the past two years. While these solutions have kept restaurants afloat during a tumultuous period, it has created a new sense of urgency as restaurants compete in a digitized customer market. Though this restaurant technology means businesses can reach more customers online, it also means restaurant owners face a saturated online market and must work creatively to compete for market awareness and customer loyalty.

Displaying unique QR codes in-store, online, and throughout the community helps promote the restaurant and provides a convenient method for launching digital ordering and payment services. QR codes are a bridge to the digital world offering restaurants a cost-effective means to attract new customers, drive sales, and encourage repeat visits. With 82% of customers carrying a smart device in their pocket, restaurants influence customer allegiance and increase repeat visits by promoting customer-centric QR code-based coupons, loyalty, rewards, and gift cards.

Here are ways restaurants can use QR codes to expand their customer base and increase traffic for their physical and online stores.

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Though customers continue to request takeout and delivery from their favorite restaurants, there is still nothing like the sit-down dining experience at brick-and-mortar establishments. For customers, dining out offers renewed excitement and a feeling that normalcy is returning. There is nothing quite like a sit-down dining experience, from being greeted and served a great meal to relaxing and enjoying time away from home … not to mention, no dishes to wash. 

Over the course of the pandemic, restaurants have expanded their dining rooms to sidewalks, patios, and parking spaces. With digital host reservation and wait list modules, restaurants can make a smooth and seamless first impression of the restaurant in any sit-down dining environment. Customers feel content as they notice the seamlessness with which they are served, leaving with an impression of high-quality in-house synchronicity made possible by digital table service POS solutions.

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​As customers return eager for sit-down dining experiences, it’s up to restaurants to ensure their services are as seamless and up-to-date as possible. Impress guests with digital, customer-centric solutions from Aldelo Express Cloud POS for table service.

Manage digital reservation and wait lists in the Hostess Seating Module, notifying guests when their table is ready with an SMS text message alert. Accept reservations days or months in advance, and recall customer profiles before they arrive to fulfill special requests for birthdays, anniversaries, or other special events. With a digital reservation and wait list solution, restaurants eliminate fixing or replacing physical pagers and greatly improve customer satisfaction with consistent reservation accuracy.

​From self-service kiosks to online ordering, customer-facing ordering and payment solutions are now a widespread part of the food service experience. In the last year, 80% of restaurant customers have placed an order using an online ordering service. ¹

Customers seek restaurants that offer ordering and payment options, and 60% of customers look up a restaurant’s menu online when deciding where to eat. ² This means online menus and ordering platforms are no longer an “added” feature limited to a few independent restaurants and major chains. To stay competitive in their market restaurants provide menus on their website and social media, or risk being left behind in the digitizing industry.

But in addition to enhancing a restaurant’s customer services, digital menus can benefit a restaurant’s bottom line.

​As the struggle to retain restaurant employees continues, owners and operators look for creative ways to recruit new employees. With national chains offering steep incentives it is becoming more difficult for independent restaurants to compete. With labor being a restaurant’s most manageable expense, the obvious reaction may be to decrease the number of employees or reduce hours of operation. But there is another way to increase a restaurant’s bottom line…
 
Modern, smart point-of-sale solutions provide restaurants, pizza places, bars, food trucks, and other operations with restaurant tools they need to maximize store and staff efficiencies. Rather than limit a restaurant to the availability or cost of its labor, selecting an appropriate POS solution will help owners and operators do more with less staff.

​Over the last two years, restaurants have learned to manage their business more effectively and resourcefully with less staff, less customers in the restaurant, and less revenue. Moving forward, new restaurants and chain locations are designing and configuring restaurant layouts around mobile and online operations. Restaurants are even transitioning to “ghost kitchen” operations that support exclusively off-premises delivery services, revolutionizing the food service landscape with a heightened emphasis on convenience rather than in-person dining experiences.

But not all restaurants can afford such drastic changes. Most owners and operators will continue adapting to digital solutions within their existing restaurant space, gradually managing their labor expenses, overhead costs, and monthly bills while they adapt to new challenges. Doing more with less is critically important to restaurant owners.

​Beginning in March 2020, contactless online ordering and off-premises dining became a lifeline for restaurants. While most restaurants in the industry needed time to implement new COVID “accommodations,” pizza restaurants were able to adapt more easily to the new market. Over-the-phone orders, online orders, takeout, curbside, and delivery have long supplied a good portion of the sector’s annual revenue, but often at an additional cost to merchants. Still, pizza sales have remained incredibly close to pre-pandemic levels, facing only a 0.22% total loss from 2019 to 2020, versus the 24% loss to the restaurant industry overall. *

As customers return to restaurants and sales gradually improve, Aldelo Express Cloud POS offers owners and operators a powerful restaurant technology platform with a full-featured point-of-sale and robust pizza module.

​Streetside food services have recently become more popular in urban and rural neighborhoods across the country. Customers enjoy trying creative homestyle and fusion food and drink options, and aspiring restaurateurs can more easily get their business “off the ground” with less expensive overhead and operational costs.
 
Historically, one phrase we have always heard related to the success of a restaurant is “location, location, location.” With social media, it is much easier to get the word out and gain a loyal following. Today, passionate chefs and business owners are leveraging mobile restaurant operations and social media to promote micro-brands that are taking the U.S. by storm. We see them everywhere from public/private spaces, sporting events, festivals, retail centers, and more. These on-the-go restaurant operations range from no-frills trailers to elaborate mobile units. Typical investments to launch a mobile restaurant operation are a fraction of brick-and-mortar establishments.