The National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show is excited to announce the 14 Startup Alley exhibitors that will be in attendance at the 2019 Show, to be held May 18-21 in Chicago at McCormick Place. These ground-breaking companies will display their high-tech ideas for enhancing restaurant operations and increasing revenue, in addition to giving buyers a sneak peek at the future of foodservice.

Restaurateurs, restaurant guests, and investors all agree—technology that improves the dining experience remains at the forefront of the foodservice industry. Since 2015, the National Restaurant Association Show has showcased the best restaurant technology startups in Startup Alley, recognizing the critical role played by new, innovative players in the arena.

“Innovation in the foodservice industry seems to be growing exponentially. I’m impressed year after year by the ideas and creativity of our Startup Alley exhibitors,” said Mary Pat Heftman, President, Restaurant Show Group. “Many of the products that started in the Show’s Startup Alley went on to find great success in the marketplace. If restaurant operators want to see what’s next in foodservice, they must visit Startup Alley.”

Visiting the companies featured in Startup Alley, located at the TECH Pavilion, during the show will allow restaurant operations to discover new ways to unlock huge potential and get a sneak peek at the foodservice industry of the future.

 The 14 startups include:

Genio:

Genio is a productivity app that makes employee scheduling, communication, attendance, location and task management a breeze. Their app is geared toward companies where employees typically work in shifts such as baristas, bartenders, servers and chefs. Genio helps hospitality companies that want to improve their employee experience, productivity, costs savings, and internal communication. Learn more.

Say2eat:

Say2eat helps multi-unit restaurant chains engage, transact and re-target digital diners to scale. Say2eat is a one stop shop - ensuring that consumers are never more than 30 seconds away from their next order. Their product increases online sales, restores lost revenue and abandoned carts, deliver ownership of all customer data to the restaurant brand and much more. Learn more.

Galley Solutions: 

Galley takes an entirely different approach to building kitchen software. They focus on the core data of a food operation: recipes and ingredients, then build beautiful and easy-to-use tools to empower chefs, not accountants, to provide and maintain the data that matters most. Their features include inventory management, production efficiency, errors and omissions, menu optimization, waste migration and system-generated suggestions based on par levels, historical consumption patterns, sales forecasts, and on-hand inventory levels. Learn more.

Hospitality Playbooks:

Hospitality Playbooks offers a system and a framework to help restaurant owners and managers develop their team to deliver consistent dining experiences. They provide tools, training, and support to help managers hire, train, and retain restaurant team talent. Their tools are designed to help improve the hiring and retention rates, manager training and coaching skills, team performance and guest experience. Learn more.

Jetson:

Jetson solves the inherent design problems of current voice assistants when it comes to conversational commerce. They offer a more intelligent “multi-step” voice AI that can search and transact complex menus through full conversation. With their platform, customers can order anything by simply speaking to a mobile device, kiosk, or smart speaker / IoT device. Learn more.

Locl:

Locl was built so businesses get the most from maps platforms, especially those who rely on foot-traffic, such as restaurants and bars. Maps performance metrics closely correlate to actual revenue. Locl’s hospitality clients get aggregated data and insights on their customers in an easy-to-understand way.  Learn more.

AmbiFi, Inc.

Build procedures as you go, with AmbiFi’s mobile app and authoring capabilities. Never has it been easier to build and distribute knowledge. Take pictures and record videos to enhance the experience, making knowledge transfers and many hours dedicated to training a thing of the past. AmbiFi also allows on-the-job performance support where employees can receive instant help for preparing menu items. Learn more.

Tablee Co:

Tablee provides hardware and software combination solution to the hospitality space, primarily restaurants, bars, hotels and country clubs. Their services include a small on-table device that guests can use to request service. Tablee provides Smart Watches to servers to receive guest request notifications. Tablee’s managers and site owners will also receive access to Tablee’s Management Center, where they can re-assign specific tables to servers remotely and instantly, while also tracking and trending data real-time and over time to optimize site performance. Learn more.

PathSpot Technologies, Inc.:

PathSpot helps restauranteurs protect their business and customers from foodborne illness through their hand scanner that instantly detects invisible signs of bacteria and viruses including Norovirus, E.coli, Listeria, Hepatitis A, and Salmonella. The PathSpot hand scanner gives food-handling team members real-time feedback on the effectiveness of handwashing. It also collects data that businesses can use to measure and improve handwashing compliance. Learn more.

Synk Delivery:

Synk is a highly efficient software tool that networks local consumers for inexpensive and predictable delivery. It is highly automated and uses Stripe for payments, automated phone call reminders to restaurants, automatic text and e-mail status messages throughout the delivery process, a rewards program, a promotions program, data tracking algorithms, and the latest in e-commerce security features. 

Learn more.

theBulletin.io:

theBulletin.io is a TV-based community billboard platform that 'uberizes' televisions in restaurants and bars. It allows restaurant operations to offer a variety of marketing initiatives on their televisions, including running their menu boards, promotions, accept advertising from other local businesses and more. The technology weaves neighborhood televisions into a network that can be used by local businesses as a communication tool. Since it's primarily driven by location, it helps in targeting local residents in a way that's more precise than social media, and lot cheaper than conventional billboards. Learn more.

Baller LLC:

Baller LLC is in the engagement industry as a web based platform designed to improve employee retention by building esteem, engagement, productivity, and customer service. Their tool provides awards and incentives strictly funded for by the restaurant or business entity. Their platform improves the individuals personal financial opportunity while reducing the industries turnover. Learn more.

Easilys:

Easilys is a one-stop solution dedicated to multi-site contract catering businesses. They support all types of sites including central kitchens, educational, medical-social, corporate catering, retail solutions and more in their aim to optimize procurement at a central level as well as daily operations at a site level. Easilys also offers an asset management solution as well as a connected scale to measure food waste. Learn more.

LISNR®:

LISNR® has a goal of leveraging sound as a conduit for wide-scale connectivity everywhere. As the leading, global provider of data-over-audio (DoA) solutions, LISNR®’s proprietary technology is used across the connected world and powered over 100 million devices in 2018. Their technology has best-in-class performance metrics in reliability and data. Learn more.

Octothorpe Plus LLC:

With Octothorpe Plus LLC’s mobile app plugin, customers can take restaurant branded selfies and share them on social media for an instant reward. When customers post selfies with a company’s product, this is the social proof or recommendation that other prospects crave. These customers become influencers in their network, recommending the restaurant showcased on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. Learn more.