Vic Pereira

Drive-Thru Lane – Additions That Can Boost Revenue and Efficiency

In its most traditional sense, a drive-thru needs three components, 1- a sign, 2- a way in which to communicate and 3- vehicle detection so you know someone is waiting to place an order. While these alone are far better than nothing, there are new and innovative ways to cater to the emerging clientele desperate for a convenient, time saving, accurate order-taking process at the drive-thru.

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Order Confirmation Screens Good or Bad idea?

First, let’s make sure we’re on the same page and describe what order confirmation screens (OCS) are as they pertain to quick service restaurants (QSRs). Whether you are at the counter or at the drive-thru some restaurants have forward-facing screens that display your order back to you as it is being entered into the point-of-sale system. This information typically includes the menu items and any additions or omissions to them. Also, there is a price associated with each and a total dollar amount for everything that has been ordered. Many view OCSs as a convenience for the person placing the order along with those taking the orders. However, is adding this kind of technology a 100% “no doubter?”

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Add a Drive-thru to Your Location to Boost Revenue

Nowadays, convenience is king and there are few innovations in the restaurant industry have proven as consistently valuable as the drive-thru. For quick service restaurants (QSRs), drive-thrus not only offer convenience for customers but it is an added revenue stream that concurrently increases overall business efficiency. If your restaurant has the space, checks the zoning “boxes” and has town approvals to make a drive-thru happen, it is the best investment you can make.

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The Digital Drive-Thru Revolution: Why Traditional Drive-thru Are Fading

Many of today’s drive-thrus are no longer just a backlit menu board with a speaker enclosure. As generations age up the expectation for technology to impact their experience has supplanted many of the “old school” ways of doing things – and rightfully so! From operational efficiency to real-time marketing, the shift to digital brings a bevy of benefits that help QSRs stay competitive in a fast-moving industry.

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Slightly Skewed Teams with Origin Displays for their Menu Board

Origin Display Group Inc., a leading supplier of indoor, outdoor, and digital menu boards is pleased to announce the work they have completed for Slightly Skewed, a first-of-its-kind grilled Asian food truck based out of Sacramento CA.

Slightly Skewed teamed up with Origin Displays after an exhaustive search for a magnetic menu strip provider. Slightly Skewed President, Alan Jong, had samples made by a number of companies and selected Origin Displays based on quality and responsiveness. “The materials are solid and the craftsmanship is exceptional.”  The various menu items have been placed in a frame that stylizes itself with the truck.

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Measuring Your Cost of Time When it Comes to Menu Boards

Earlier this year I was at a seminar where one of the speakers (whose name escapes me) outlined various steps on how you can determine who your best clients are.  Although I had more than one take-away from his presentation there was one that stood out.  Often time’s businesses think that their best clients are the ones that generate the greatest amount of revenue for the company.  In some cases this is true.  However what this speaker stressed is that beyond the revenue, beyond the costs of goods sold (COGS), and beyond the profitability, you must consider your (valuable) time.

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Industry News

Seeing as how it has been a while that we have passed along some good reads, we thought we’d take this week to do so.  As we wrap up the 3rd quarter of 2013 and stare the holiday season down, these articles, courtesy of QSR Magazine, take a look at some interesting ideas and concepts that are gathering steam out in the market.  We also revisit the “10 trends of 2013” to see how they currently match up to the beginning of the year.  Enjoy!

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Popingo’s Upgrades Digital Signage with Origin Displays

Origin Display Group Inc., a leading supplier of indoor, outdoor, and digital menu boards announced today that they have completed the design and integration of their Origin Elite menu board system, powered by SmarterSign, for Popingo’s Convenience Stores.

What will start as a new four screen set-up at a single location, it will conclude as a roll-out to their subsequent locations.  Origin Elite was selected by Slade Klack, Popingo’s Vice President of Operations, after he viewed demonstrations of three other companies.  With a digital system already in position Slade had clear objectives when searching for its replacement.

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What to Make of the Menu Board Industry?

You know that thing called the Internet?  Well, it isn’t a fad and it’s not going away.  In fact, some studies have shown that 27% of the world’s consumers do their shopping online with that number creeping to 55% during the holiday season.  It increases even more when you consider those who do competitive “browsing” online only to make a more traditional face-to-face or telephone transaction.

So why do I bring this up?  How does this relate to menu boards, drive-thrus and digital signage?  Quite simply it’s because people are using this avenue to learn, research and buy these types of products just as they would an airplane ticket, a pair of shoes, or a knife set.  Yet, when you compare one menu board company to another, to another, to another, you begin to see that there is not a lot of differentiation between them.  They have similar products at similar price points.

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4 Determinations to Make Before Ordering a Drive-thru Menu Board

Restaurant owners seem to have an increased interest in adding drive-thru menu boards to their locations. This should come as no surprise considering that those with drive-thrus see 60-70% of their total revenue pass through the lane. Because of this fact, people become easily enamored with the idea of what a drive-thru could do for their business. It isn’t until they pause to gather some information that most begin to realize that there is a lot more to consider than the sign itself.  In the past we have highlighted what a fully-functional drive-thru looks like which provided folks with a checklist of what is involved but does little to help them determine if A- it would be a good investment and B- what the entire scope of the project would look like as it pertains to their restaurant.  We’ll take a stab at that here.

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