National Restaurant Show 2026: Will I See You at the Big Sign?

The Future of Tech is Agentic: How Toast IQ Already Saved Us $4,000 in Labor

PRODUCTS DISCUSSED: * Toast IQ - learn more [https://pos.toasttab.com/products/toast-iq] * Toast IQ Grow - learn more [https://pos.toasttab.com/products/toast-iq-grow?srsltid=AfmBOoq3mwKprBFjFCJv_OIULZf1CvRd0-ZLODh7ywrfHT5PxbYKkA4n] * Toast Seamless Checkout - learn more [https://pos.toasttab.com/products/toast-tables?srsltid=AfmBOopsUokqJhwAGdEaNkJOMdAi4nWnunLM6dV-5dAGVUFHw_xLGX7h] * Toast Finance - learn more [https://pos.toasttab.com/products/toast-finance?srsltid=AfmBOorjvL7qpLK3F5X38QX1r3fqK2-nccbDbQIM1WSvDTTqsZ-dQDOo] When I talk to product innovators and executive leadership to break down the latest technology innovations, I always have a specific mission: extract real-world operational ROI. We spent time at the National Restaurant Show [https://restauranttechnology.substack.com/p/big-takeaways-from-the-2026-national] capturing explainer videos and other interesting stories on the floor with the exact people building these sorts of tools. What we learned from Toast at the Show marks a fundamental shift for independent restaurants. If you want ROI, here’s a story for you. Toast IQ: The $4,000 Labor Saving Use Case Historically, my restaurant Cali BBQ in San Diego opened at 10:00 AM for NFL Sundays, but recently shifted to 11:00 AM. We were actively debating whether we should switch back to 10:00 AM to capture early breakfast traffic. In the past that would have been an easy yes. Open an hour early, just in case. Why not? The answer was right in front of us, we just didn’t know how to look for it. We learned an important and valuable lesson when we looked at the actual data provided by Toast. Massive data analysis and lots of time used to be required to project labor costs versus historical sales. Instead of building manual spreadsheets, we opened Toast IQ and asked it to analyze the move. * The Speed: In less than a minute, the AI parsed our historical multi-location Sunday data. * The Decision: It mapped out historical labor costs against projected morning revenue gaps and clearly advised us not to open the extra hour early. * The ROI: By trusting that data-driven insight, we kept our doors closed until 11:00 AM and saved $4,000 in unnecessary labor costs right out of the gate. One of the greatest pain points for modern restaurant owners is that we are absolutely drowning in data, but we don’t have the time to act like data scientists. We’re busy. No wants to spend hours drilling down into fragmented analytics dashboards just to figure out a basic operational scheduling shift. Toast IQ solves this by putting a conversational, natural-language AI assistant directly inside the Toast Web dashboard. Instead of digging through legacy reports, you just ask it a question in plain text. Toast also spotlighted Toast IQ Actions. The AI can now execute changes directly from the chat interface. You can update menu pricing, add immediate upsell prompts (which drive checks 35% higher on average), or toggle item availability via text. To support diverse back-of-house teams, it natively understands and replies in multiple languages, including Spanish, Chinese, and Korean. We are moving past the era of the passive point-of-sale system that simply collects data and forces you to analyze it. The future is Agentic — with tech infrastructure that actively runs your marketing, automatically prompts your high-margin menu upsells, forecasts your cash flow, and handles administrative execution. Toast IQ Grow: Automating Your Marketing Burden Marketing is usually the very first thing independent owners drop when the kitchen gets slammed. Toast used the show floor to highlight Toast IQ Grow for operators who are simply too busy running a restaurant to act as full-time digital marketer. This is an all-in-one growth suite that pairs Toast’s core marketing ecosystem (Email, SMS, loyalty, gift cards) with their brand-new AI Marketing Agent (Beta) and a dedicated human Marketing Success Manager for a flat monthly rate. Powerful software + smart AI + human oversight. That’s a powerful equation. We watched a tech demo with Jake from the Toast team showing how an empty content calendar can be completely populated in minutes. You simply type a goal into the chat. Something like: “Drive more weekday traffic; plan one email and one Instagram post per week to push traffic Tuesday through Thursday.” Because the marketing tool is natively connected to your POS, the AI automatically cross-references your guest base, your highest-margin menu items, and your slow windows to generate high-retention campaigns. The Numbers: * Emails sent using the AI Marketing Agent are driving 7%+ more sales attributed directly to link clicks compared to campaigns created by humans alone. * On average, restaurants utilizing the combined human-and-AI managed service see an 8% increase in total sales compared to cohort venues, with top-performing operators hitting 40%+ revenue growth. Seamless Checkout: Erasing End-of-Meal Friction The “dropped check dance” at the end of a full-service meal is painful for guests and a massive margin-killer for table turns. Everyone hates waiting 15 minutes to catch a server’s eye just to pay a bill. We looked at a handheld terminal demo with Alexandra from the Toast team to break down their new Seamless Checkout feature, which completely eliminates this bottleneck: * A guest inputs and saves their credit card on file when booking a table via Toast Tables or Resy. * The server runs service completely as normal via their handheld terminal. * When the guests are ready to split, the server brings up the reservation on the Toast handheld, verifies the card is on file, and confirms the charge. * The guest signs, tips right on the screen, and walks out. Guests still retain the complete flexibility to split the bill or change to a physical card if they want, but for regulars and business diners, it creates an ultra-premium, frictionless exit that turns tables faster and keeps a busy service lane moving. Toast Finance: Proactive Cash Flow Management Waiting until the 20th of the next month for an accountant to hand you a statement to see if you actually made money is a stressful way to live. We synced up with Michel Rbeiz, Senior Vice President and General Manager of FinTech at Toast, to talk about how they are tackling cash flow anxiety. Michel walked us through the Toast Finance interface, which aims to make manual book reconciliation obsolete. * Unified Financial Picture: The platform continuously pulls together all internal Toast processing accounts and external connected commercial bank accounts into a single dashboard updated in real time. * Self-Reconciling Books: Built with AI to automatically categorize sales and expenses on the fly, offering proactive cash flow forecasting. * Rapid Access to Capital: If the system detects a tight cash window or an immediate expansion opportunity, the dashboard displays pre-approved Toast Capitalbalances. The live demo showed pre-approvals (up to $200,000) accessible within 1 to 2 business days without traditional banking red tape. Takeaway Walking away from the show, one truth stands out above all else: The era of the passive, data-collecting point-of-sale system is dead. The future belongs to platforms that don’t just show you a spreadsheet of your operational mistakes, but actively execute marketing campaigns, automatically prompt high-margin menu pairings, forecast your cash flow hurdles, and give you immediate conversational answers to save you thousands of dollars in labor on a Sunday morning. Your tech infrastructure has to work just as hard as you do. It’s time to stop chasing the artificial intelligence hype and start implementing tools that help you Make Busy Happen. Are You Built For Busy? Do you want to try out Toast? Send me a DM and click this link [https://toast.partner-experience.com/r/R-6PXU-NGUQ] so I can help get you set-up with the right people. Note: Shawn Walchef is a compensated spokesperson for Toast. Savings claim self-reported by customer, based on executing on Toast IQ’s suggestions resulting in labor and food waste savings over an 18-week period. Individual results will vary. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com [https://restauranttechnology.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Welcome to the World Cup of the Restaurant Industry: Live in Chicago 2026

Tips for Surviving The Restaurant Show I caught up with our good friend Michael Ungaro from San Pedro Fish Marke [https://www.youtube.com/@sanPedroFish]t (Kings of Fish Media) right as the Show opened to get his top tips for navigating the weekend: * Get your badge early: Do not wait in the brutal lines at the convention center. Try to print your badge at your hotel lobby or get to McCormick Place incredibly early before the crowds hit. * Wear comfortable shoes: You are walking 12 football fields across three different halls—Lakeside, South Hall, and North Hall. Treat this like an athletic event. * The Uber Trick: When the show floor closes, don’t even try to call a rideshare to the main entrance. You’ll be stuck waiting for hours. Walk a few blocks away from the main hub first, then call your ride. * Document the journey: Take photos of the people you meet and grab their digital business cards. The relationships you build in these hallways can become lifelong friendships. The energy right now at McCormick Place for the 2026 National Restaurant Show is completely off the charts. If you are in the restaurant business, hospitality, or digital media, like me, this isn’t just another industry trade show. This is our World Cup. To give you an idea of the sheer scale of what’s happening in Chicago this week, we are talking about 53,000+ hospitality leaders, 2,200 vendors, and 12 football fields of pure innovation spanning three massive halls. It is impossible to overstate how massive this event is. A huge shoutout to the National Restaurant Association Show team for partnering with Cali BBQ Media to help us bring this raw, unfiltered look to our community. We have two full media teams on the ground, and we are tracking down stories across every aisle. While we are exploring the entire floor and capturing everything from new industry trends to deep tech, we have a few key anchor partnerships we are shouting out today. The Toast Booth #7012: We hit the ground running this morning and made a big stop to visit our close partners at Toast [https://toast.partner-experience.com/r/R-6PXU-NGUQ]. They are the technology backbone of our actual restaurants at Cali BBQ, and they are the title sponsors of our Restaurant Influencers podcast series. We checked out their latest tech innovations and talked with their team about how operators can use technology to build more profitable, efficient businesses. The F3 Tech Booth #5870: Our friends at F3 Technologies [https://f3tech.com] have generously opened up their booth space to serve as one of our live content and podcast studios for the weekend. We are recording episodes right from the floor. If you are walking the halls, keep your eyes open—we might just pull you into the booth to share your story with the world. As we always say: Be the show, not the commercial. Magic Happens in the Hallways One of the greatest lessons I’ve ever learned as a restaurant owner is that you have to get out of your four walls. Growth happens when you put yourself in rooms like this, because you never know who you are going to meet. Right as the doors opened, we ran into Damien and Dan, two operators who traveled all the way from British Columbia, Canada. They told us they watch our content and came to the show for the very first time to find a next-gen POS system and check out new equipment. They bought a bar and nightclub a year and a half ago and are gearing up to launch their full restaurant concept. Naturally, we told them to head straight to the Toast booth and tell them Shawn sent them! [https://toast.partner-experience.com/r/R-6PXU-NGUQ] That is the exact ROI of this show: connecting people, sharing resources, and lifting up the community. Meet Up With Us: 4:30 PM @ The Sign We don’t want to just connect with you through a screen, we want to meet you in real life. Every single day of the Restaurant Show, we are hosting a casual gathering for our community of restaurateurs, tech founders, creators, and storytellers. * When: 4:30 PM Daily * Where: Right by the big National Restaurant Association sign in the North Hall Come hang out, talk shop, network, and be part of the Rising Tides [https://betheshow.media/rising-tides/] community. Because a rising tide lifts all ships. Make sure to subscribe to our Restaurant Technology Substack [https://restauranttechnology.substack.com] and follow along on social media @shawnpwalchef [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.instagram.com/shawnpwalchef/&ved=2ahUKEwitjdCQkL6UAxV4FTQIHbk-F6EQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2KAogtqF92RpGo4kKP64C0] and @calibbqmedia [https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.instagram.com/calibbqmedia/&ved=2ahUKEwj42c-fkL6UAxXkyOYEHXUFE2cQFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2sPa8v36VT6pE8OPVRlw2s] so you don’t miss a single update, video drop, or interview from the floor. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com [https://restauranttechnology.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

National Restaurant Show 2026: Will I See You at the Big Sign?

The National Restaurant Show is our industry’s World Cup. But you don’t win the World Cup by sitting in the nosebleeds. To win in the restaurant industry in 2026, you need to be on the pitch with the builders, the dreamers, and the leaders who are drawing up the winning plays for the next decade. You need to be where the momentum is. That is why, every single day of the show at 4:30 PM, we are gathering the community at the big NRA sign across from Starbucks in the North Hall. This is a daily community meet-up for the people who want to be in the center of the action. If you want to know what’s actually happening in this industry, you need to be at this sign. * Come meet us. * Take a selfie. * Exchange social contacts. * Share your story. Because the truth is, nobody rises alone. *** National Restaurant Association Show 2026 May 16–19, 2026 McCormick Place, Chicago, IL www.nationalrestaurantshow.com [https://www.nationalrestaurantshow.com] *** The First Pilgrimage to Chicago It wasn’t always this way. Five years ago, I left my restaurant in San Diego to attend the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago for the first time. I didn’t have a plan, but I brought the essentials: * My family, The Walchef Wolfpack [https://www.instagram.com/walchefwolfpack/]. * Cameras. * Curiosity. I had little idea what to expect. At the time, Cali BBQ Media [http://betheshow.media] was just taking off, having formed from inside my restaurant Cali BBQ [http://calibbq.media]. We had recently launched Restaurant Influencers [https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/series/restaurant-influencers-interviews] with Entrepreneur Media [https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/series/restaurant-influencers-interviews] because the team at Toast believed in the vision enough to sponsor our video podcast series before most people even understood what we were building. I was a newcomer looking for a map. I started texting everyone I knew from Clubhouse, where we were hosting a weekly live meet-up at the time: “Troy Hooper, where do I go?” “Who do I need to meet?” “How do I make the most of this thing?” I asked Carl Orsbourn who the best storytellers in Chicago were, and he connected me to the legendary Geoff Alexander from Wow Bao. We even ended up hosting a Rising Tides restaurant influencer meetup at Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ with Duce Raymond, where we made lots of amazing content and ate lots of amazing barbecue. And suddenly, something happened. The Restaurant Show stopped feeling like a trade show. It started feeling like the center of the restaurant universe. Every year since that first trip, the friendships I’ve formed have deepened. The conversations have sharpened. The opportunities have multiplied. But more than anything, my belief in this industry has grown. This Show changes people. It isn’t because of the shiny booths or the late-night parties. It’s because when you put operators, creators, technologists, dreamers, and builders into one city together, momentum becomes contagious. How to Change Your Trajectory If you want to change the trajectory of your business, you can’t just watch from the sidelines. You need to make the pilgrimage. * Shake hands. * Film the content. * Ask the “dumb” questions. * Walk until your feet hurt. * Take meetings you’re not ready for. * Introduce yourself before you think you deserve to. That is exactly how growth happens. For the fifth straight year, we’ll be documenting every moment of the show with Cali BBQ Media. We are here to tell the stories of the people who make this industry great. Join The Rising Tides We are back in Chicago because we believe in the power of “Rising Tides.” We believe that when one of us wins, we all win. WHERE: The big National Restaurant Show sign (North Hall, across from Starbucks) WHEN: Every day @ 4:30 PM [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7460308805147340800/] WHY: To connect, share, and draw up winning plays together. I’ll see you at the sign. #2026RestaurantShow [http://bit.ly/4lyiupM] WATCH: Rising Tides Live - What To Know About National Restaurant Show This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com [https://restauranttechnology.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Live from Food On Demand Conference - Dallas

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com [https://restauranttechnology.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Do You Want To Build The Amazon of Restaurants?

The restaurants who are stuck in the past are DOA. If you aren’t building your business like Amazon did — leveraging technology, storytelling, and logistics — you’re going to struggle to survive in 2026 and beyond. I’ve been in this game for 18 years at my family owned restaurant Cali BBQ [http://calibbq.media] in San Diego. I’ve survived the Great Recession of 2008 and a global pandemic in 2020 by making every mistake possible. Mistakes are what lead to growth. The secret to modernizing your restaurant isn’t just better food; it’s becoming a Digital Hospitality company [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shawnpwalchef_what-does-digital-hospitality-mean-to-you-ugcPost-7305342954108243968-JPh9/]. Here is your 5-step playbook to becoming the “Amazon of Restaurants” in your market. 1. Become a Media Company First Amazon isn’t just a retailer. It’s also content ecosystem. To win today, you must be a media company, a technology company, and a restaurant. This is driven by our signature Four P’s content strategy [https://content.calibbq.media/the-four-ps-of-content-creation-plan-produce-publish-promote-stover-harger-iii-cali-bbq-media-dh051/]: PLAN * Choose one idea that feels natural to share this week. * Decide your message: “What do I want people to know, feel, or do?” * Pick a time when you can capture it without interrupting operations. PRODUCE * Use your phone — prioritize good lighting and clear audio. * Keep it short and engaging; aim for 15–60 seconds if it’s video. * Record extra angles or clips for variety. PUBLISH * Post in vertical format for better mobile engagement. * Add a short, personal caption that tells the story. * Include hashtags relevant to your restaurant, location, and audience. PROMOTE * Share the content on multiple platforms. * Encourage your team to share it from their own profiles. * Reply to comments and messages to start conversations. Stop making commercials. People want stories. Use your smartphone to capture the daily life of your restaurant and publish it on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and everywhere else you can. 2. Own Your Digital Real Estate In the old days, it was about your physical “location, location, location”. In 2026, it’s digital location. You must own your website, your email list, and your data. Stop relying on third parties to hold your customer relationships hostage. Build a deep CRM so you can reward your loyalists who want to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays with you. If you don’t own the data, you don’t own the customer. JOIN THE MOVEMENT: If this insight helps you, share this article with one other restaurant owner. A rising tide lifts all ships. 3. Deploy Strategic AI and Automation Digital hospitality is our deep thesis. Technology makes us more profitable, more scalable, and more impactful. At Cali BBQ, we use Palona AI and my automated voice clone Shawn AI to answer our phones and take orders. On our busiest day of the year—Father’s Day—Palona AI handled 156 calls that would have otherwise gone to a busy staff member. The result? An [https://www.adweek.com/media/calibbq-18-sales-lift-ai-agents-for-fathers-day/]18% sales lift [https://www.adweek.com/media/calibbq-18-sales-lift-ai-agents-for-fathers-day/] because we never missed a guest. [https://www.adweek.com/media/calibbq-18-sales-lift-ai-agents-for-fathers-day/] We integrate these tools directly through Toast [https://toast.partner-experience.com/r/R-6PXU-NGUQ] to keep our tech stack seamless. 4. Create Multiple Revenue Streams Look at Amazon Prime and Thursday Night Football. They’ve created a system where you can watch a game and buy a product with one click. Your restaurant should be no different. Think beyond the four walls of your brick-and-mortar. We are moving toward a world of TikTok Shop live streams and point-of-sale integrations where customers can buy your BBQ or Consumer Packaged Goods (like bottled sauces or canned drinks) while they watch your content. 5. Master Frictionless Online Ordering Digital hospitality is making it as easy as possible for someone to buy from you. Whether it’s takeout, in-store, catering, or gift cards, your website—like ours at calibbq.media [http://calibbq.media]—must be frictionless. We partnered with Toast to solve our online ordering problems during the pandemic, and it changed everything. When you make it easy to buy 45 racks of ribs for a tailgate, that is true hospitality. Think bigger. We have to leverage technology to connect with more people and run more profitable businesses. Don’t be afraid to look stupid while you’re learning—get it wrong so you can eventually get it right. Stay Curious, Get Involved, Ask For Help @Shawnpwalchef [http://instagram.com/shawnpwalchef] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit restauranttechnology.substack.com [https://restauranttechnology.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]