A food kiosk (also known as a food stall) is an external booth that you can add-onto your existing food service setup to add more functionality or space for your restaurant, food service truck, drive through, or business location to serve customers.
In our post-pandemic world, as more and more people adjust to a world after the Covid lockdown, restaurants are pressed to get ahead of the curve on recent changes.
In some places, a quick rebound may lead to fast post-crisis growth. But in others, it’s possible that it may take more time for the economy to recover.
This means that food service businesses need every advantage they can get.
Evolving needs and habits of fast-food and restaurant consumers demand more streamlined food service processes, and restaurants have everything to gain from being not only creative, but also proactive in making sure that they deliver top-notch service.
But it’s also in their best interest to do this without breaking the bank on major renovations or construction projects.
Food kiosks offer restaurants a unique opportunity to jump ahead of the curve without spending huge amounts of money. They offer a ton of benefits.
And in this post, you’re going to learn 5 ways in which food kiosks may be able to help your restaurant or food service business to gain a distinct advantage in the coming year, as the public re-adjusts to life as normal in the wake of the Covid epidemic and lockdowns.
1. Speed Up Operations
There are a number of ways in which a food kiosk can help to speed up the day-to-day running of a restaurant, fast food, or food service business.
To start with, setting up a food kiosk for sale booth outside of your main facility can facilitate the taking of to-go orders, distributing to-go orders, arranging a seating queue, and/or tracking reservations.
If your restaurant business only has a single window or foyer from which to facilitate all of these functions, long lines can form and operations can simply take longer than usual.
Adding another point of contact for customers, in the form of a food kiosk, can really help you to speed up the process.
Speaking of an additional point of customer contact, let’s also talk about that for a minute.
2. Provide An Additional Point Of Customer Contact
If you run a food service business, you may find that it would be beneficial for your business to establish an additional point of contact, to make customer volume and wait times more manageable
Here’s an example of how a food kiosk could be beneficial in a case like this.
Let’s say that your fast food business is located in a shopping-center.
But let’s say that your building only has one drive-through window, and a very small customer foyer or dining area.
Maybe you continually run into problems where people waiting for their food in the foyer often get mixed up with people who are coming through to pick up to-go orders.
These same customers (the ones picking up to-go orders) may also have to fight busy mealtime traffic at your single drive-through window to facilitate a transaction they’ve already mostly completed ahead of time.
Well, some restaurants could utilize a food kiosk to help manage these wait times, by setting it outside, putting a ‘to-go order pick-up’ sign above it, and then using it as a point of contact for customers who are simply trying to grab their to-go orders.
An attendant in the kiosk can ring them up, use a radio to call for their order, and basically facilitate the completion of the transaction, allowing them to bypass the normal lines and wait-times.
3. Streamline Digital Orders And Deliveries
According to experts, increased digital offerings will help restaurants experience better business acceleration in a post-Covid world. But this means streamlining digital processes, and combining them with better delivery systems.
In fact, small food service businesses can maximize the potential of bouncing back from pandemic losses by enhancing delivery capabilities.
Did you know that food delivery apps doubled their business during the pandemic?
This trend can also help your business.
Streamlining orders, deliveries, and take-out processes can also be aided with the use of a food kiosk… and finding a food kiosk for sale is as easy as visiting the Guardian Booth website.
For example:
If your restaurant does a lot of delivery orders, you could set up a kiosk to help you manage your delivery order queue instead of backing-up traffic inside your waiting area or foyer.
Third party delivery drivers (like Uber Eats drivers) can use this as a location to pick up to-go orders.
This speeds up your delivery order and fulfillment process, because it empowers you to get orders into driver hands at a faster rate, while also minimizing confusion.
This results in happier customers, less-stressed drivers, better service, and an overall more streamlined system for pushing orders out while minimizing chaos and the potential for drivers to have to ‘wait in line’ when they finally come through to pick up the order.
4. Take Your Takeout Capacity To Another Level
Another important part of helping your food service business to bounce back from the losses incurred as a result of the pandemic lockdowns is to be innovative in shifting with new customer behaviors.
And guess what? More than ever, customers are loving takeout!
Maybe your restaurant wants to expand outward, and set up a food kiosk in the street in front of your business.
This could help you to take orders and fulfill them all from outside of your actual dining area, without requiring passing guests to actually come into the restaurant.
This could drastically increase your walk-by business, especially if your location gets a lot of foot traffic already.
