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Tech Tracker: How digital tech is capitalizing on the hot restaurant reservations market
Tock and Google now offer experience reservations; Diibs launches as a platform for bidding on last-minute reservations
Hard-hit segment adapts with off-premises sales, virtual delivery-only brands, new technology and safety protocols
The COVID-19 pandemic turned 2020 into the annus horribilis for the casual-dining restaurant segment.
The hospitality amenities that make the segment special — welcoming dining rooms, attentive service and adult beverages at a convivial bar —were devastated by coronavirus restrictions that closed dining rooms, enforced social distancing and silenced cocktail shakers.
Casual-dining restaurants both large and small pivoted like prima ballerinas pirouetting en pointe. Innovation, by necessity, accelerated.
Casual-dining brands created off-premises channels from to-go, carryout and curbside to even drive-thru lanes. They fulfilled customers’ necessary grocery needs through supply chains that still had access to scarce flour, butter, eggs and ev...
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