Making Restaurants and Kitchens Safer, Smarter and Sustainable

Andy Dulka serves as Chief Information Officer at Restaurant Technologies. He is responsible for providing leadership for the continued development of an innovative, scalable, and secure technology environment for all of Restaurant Technologies. He is responsible for identifying and executing technology simplification, business enablement, and transformative efforts to achieve market and revenue growth. Bringing his passion and over 25 years of experience, Andy utilizes technology to enable business success, drive operational efficiency and develop high-performing teams.

With over 20 years of experience, what expertise do you bring to the table at Restaurant Technologies, and how is it helping your clients?

As CIO at Restaurant Technologies, I make sure that our innovative technologies go to market and deliver simple and digitally-engaging value for our customers. When I speak about customers, it diversifies from commercial to non-commercial kitchens, quick-service, full-service restaurant chains, independent restaurants, grocery delis, hotels, casinos, convenience stores, universities, and hospitals.

As a service company, we help those capacitive house kitchens automate and simplify work, specifically around cooking oil management and back-of-house hood and exhaust cleaning, which make kitchen operations smarter and safer. From a technology standpoint, we show care for our customers by ensuring that our systems operate effectively, offer tools and technologies to simplify their job and add value to their business. From technologies, the data spaces and tools we provide ensure that customers get prompt service. Drivers ensure on-time delivery of fresh cooking oil and embedded sensors that detect when and what the customer needs so that our team can directly reach out to them without any delays.

What are the significant challenges clients face in the smart hospitality space, and how is your company addressing those pain points?

The challenges that restaurant owners and managers face today are the lack of technologies and effective solutions needed to run their business. They need to solve issues like staffing, safety, and food quality, among other issues. Restaurant Technologies comes into play by making restaurant owners' lives simpler and bringing technology that makes their environment better.

“The future of the hospitality space stands on two major factors. One is the access to data and the speed to turn that data into actionable insights”.

We have been focused on making technological solutions on how drivers and frontline employees can effectively get the right information on the customer location, their service requirements, and on-time delivery of cooking oil. This has enabled us to help our customers get the delivery and our services on time and get the right resources to run their kitchens efficiently. Restaurant Technologies ensures that our customers can enjoy the full utilization of our services and can engage with us whenever necessary.  

Despite all the challenges in the space, how has technology played its part in helping these restaurants run?

The pandemic has taught us the concept of virtualization and working in a no-touch environment. This has accelerated the need for digitalization and the use of mobile services and capabilities that have reduced the time taken for interaction and made work easier from any location. This technological advancement has helped us provide services digitally without having direct contact with customers when it is not a value-added interaction.

How do you envision the future of the hospitality space?

The future of the hospitality space stands on two major factors. One is the access to data and the speed to turn that data into actionable insights. Hence we are working on providing franchise or restaurant owners with data points so they can quickly make decisions on food quality, staffing, or supply chain challenges they may experience.

Any advice for your fellow peers so they can improve in this space?

Over the last three years, the restaurant business space has seen a lot of transformation, and keeping up with the pace is critical. It is vital to capitalize on opportunities, know what the customers need in the present market, and anticipate their future needs. So, keeping up an agile approach and moving with the pace of the market  is mandatory to bring growth and success.