Stacked, The Hospitality Tech Podcast

This week Fletch sits down with Chris Petryna, Group Head of IT at Karali Group, the business behind Côte, The Real Greek, Crosstown Doughnuts and the UK franchise for Marugame Udon.Chris is a hospitality lifer. Three decades in, he started out busing tables, ran restaurants in Canada and Australia, worked his way up to area manager at Côte and then made the jump into IT. That operator background shapes everything about how he runs tech today.Plus: security threats getting smarter, palm payments, what the next wave of SaaS looks like, and exactly what Chris wants to hear if you’re a supplier pitching him.Key takeawaysKeep contracts short. Karali rarely signs beyond a year. The market is moving too fast to lock into three-year deals, however good the discount.Build vs buy is tempting but risky. They’ve scoped MVPs in-house but haven’t pulled the trigger. The worry is maintenance and 24/7 support when you’re not a team of developers. Chris would rather have three people at a lean startup responsible than one of himself.New AI-native suppliers are undercutting hard. That’s attractive, but nobody wants to be first. Show proven examples and it works in the ecosystem.No-code layers free up teams. Moving e-commerce to Shopify and adding a no-code layer over the main sites removed around 100 hours a week of developer time. More importantly, it means speed.Switching core stack needs real friction. Four brands on four POS systems isn’t ideal, but it isn’t worth a couple of hundred thousand in hardware to change. That only happens when integrations stop working.Listen to the floor. One GM has built his own voice-driven workflow on his laptop. That’s where the truth comes from.Security threats are daily and more convincing. The urgent ones are the ones to watch.Scale is leverage on integrations. Partners will build for 100 sites in a way they won’t for eight.Supplier rhythm matters. Key suppliers get a weekly call, even if it’s five minutes. Others get monthly. Senior people must be reachable same-day when it counts.AI Joe. The voice AI call answering drove more reservations and took hours of calls out of restaurants. A staggered rollout became an unplanned A/B test.How to pitch him. “We do what you’ve got with three extra features” won’t move him. “We do the same thing at half the price” will get attention. His new guest Wi-Fi supplier took about a year from first meeting to switch.Chapters0:00 Intro0:44 Karali Group and its brands1:41 30 years in hospitality: from busing tables to IT5:07 The biggest change in hospitality tech5:53 Why one-year contracts are the norm now7:10 Build vs buy in the age of Claude9:50 The change that took out ~100 dev hours a week14:22 Four brands, four POS: is switching worth it?16:06 Hearing from the floor and the GM using voice AI19:58 AI and the rise of security threats21:35 Integrations and the “house-buying chain” of partners23:22 How Chris manages supplier relationships25:44 Proudest project: AI Joe, voice call answering28:40 The future of SaaS: will operators build?30:13 The next wave, and frictionless payments32:43 Running very different brands under one group33:47 Growth plans and the Haywards Heath opening35:56 How suppliers should approach ChrisPull quotes for clips“Rare is the contract we sign that’s beyond one year at the moment.” (6:11)“I’d rather three of them responsible for that 24/7 than one of me.” (29:17)“Having a 0.1% effect on something as a group is immense.” (3:25)“Is it worth dropping a couple hundred k in hardware to change them? No.” (15:39)“If you can really do the same thing at about half the price, let’s talk.” (36:59)Connect with Chris: LinkedIn. Bring him something genuinely different.Check operator scores on any tech supplier at wearestacked.io

This week Chris sits down with Martin, founder of Feedelity, in London for Hospitality Tech Expo.Before starting Feedelity, Martin worked in private equity and then at Hawaiian Poké Bowl, one of the fastest-growing chains in the Benelux with 50 sites. There he saw two people trying to handle around 2,000 guest messages a week across Google, Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat, TripAdvisor, email, contact forms and surveys. They were copying and pasting complaints into ChatGPT to reply. So he built something better.Chris and Martin talk about how Feedelity pulls every feedback channel into one AI-powered inbox and categorises each message down to the dish. They cover how the data revealed that service and friendliness come up in reviews more often than the food itself. They also get into the “Wheel of Fortune” feature that gives the silent, happy majority a reason to leave a review.In this episode:How a 50-site chain was drowning in 2,000 guest messages a weekGoing live in two minutes, with no credit card and 30 days of feedback analysed straight awayWhy measuring feedback beats reading every reviewReal stories: two sites ignoring the music policy, and a supplier issue that made the corn too saltyAI replies that learn your brand’s tone of voiceThe Wheel of Fortune, which gets 8 to 12 times more five-star reviewsWhy asking for feedback isn’t annoying your guestsWhy the problem is even bigger in the UK than in BelgiumMartin’s one piece of advice: every piece of external feedback should trigger an internal actionChapters:00:00 Intro01:09 Martin’s background: private equity to Hawaiian Poké Bowl02:17 The problem: 2,000 messages a week, two people04:18 From late nights to quitting the day job06:07 What Feedelity actually does07:23 Using competitor data to price with confidence08:01 Why service trumps food10:04 Measuring vs reading: the music policy story11:43 AI replies in your own tone of voice13:45 Why simple is the hardest thing to build15:09 The Wheel of Fortune18:08 Why asking for feedback isn’t annoying19:04 Replying to reviews: 23% more repeat delivery orders19:29 Red flags: catching the serious stuff fast21:03 Results: 4.8 on Google and the salty corn22:39 UK vs Belgium24:45 Martin’s one piece of advice26:44 How to get in touchConnect with Martin: LinkedIn, or book a call via the Feedelity website.🎧 New episodes every week from The Stacked Podcast. Subscribe so you don’t miss one.wearestacked.io

Guests don't just book a room anymore. They book the spa, the dinner, the round of golf, the whole weekend. Most hotel tech still hasn't caught up.This week Chris Fletcher is joined by Louise Ryan (CMO) and Joe Watkins (Head of Data and AI) from Journey, the Cheltenham-based hotel tech company helping luxury hotels drive total revenue per guest.They cover why hotels need to think more like retailers, why RevPAR is giving way to TRevPAR, and how one hotel partner moved from 50/50 OTA-to-direct to 80/20 direct. They also discuss where AI is creating real commercial value right now and why trust is still the biggest barrier to adoption.Chapters00:00 Intro01:30 Meet Louise and Joe02:08 What Journey does02:33 From digital agency to all-in-one booking engine04:06 The pressure on luxury hotels right now05:08 Thinking like a retailer: monetising every square inch07:35 Where guest data actually lives (and who just resigned with it)08:42 Hotels as multiple businesses under one roof09:22 From RevPAR to TRevPAR11:44 380 nights at The Other House and still not understood12:37 The Cotswolds spa booking that went wrong14:24 Taking back control from the OTAs16:05 Personalisation and the data flywheel17:26 AI chatbots and the adoption problem19:27 Convincing luxury operators to change20:30 Why experiences are still so hard to book online21:41 One basket, one transaction22:32 Where AI is showing real ROI today24:52 MCPs and booking hotel experiences through AI assistants25:30 Is trust the barrier to AI adoption?27:00 Grantley Hall: building an events programme from guest data28:08 Best-in-breed vs all-in-one29:28 Data consolidation and the future of hotel tech31:29 What's next for luxury hotels32:53 Where to find JourneyKey takeawaysSome properties pay 23–25% commission to OTAs. Driving direct saves margin and gives hotels ownership of their guest data.Around 66% of accommodation is booked online globally, compared with just over 30% of experiences. That gap is a revenue opportunity.The quickest AI win is often learning from the questions guests ask, like "can I charge my EV?", that your site never answered.Guests now search for an experience first, then a destination, then a flight, then a hotel.Find JourneyWebsite: journey.travelLouise Ryan and Joe Watkins are both on LinkedIn.The Stacked PodcastWhere hospitality meets technology. New episodes every week.wearestacked.io

Camino did something most operators would never dream of: it changed nearly every platform in its stack in a single year, while doubling its estate. The result? Staff turnover has never been lower.This week, Chris Fletcher sits down with Tyrone Delaney, Finance Director at Camino, the Basque-inspired restaurant and bar group behind Camino and Pinchito, and Jackson Versatano, Senior Director UK & Europe at Lightspeed.Tyrone explains how an acquisition became the moment to overhaul the whole stack, and why he wonders why they didn't do it sooner. Automated sales syncing into Xero removed manual weekly business sheets that used to take around 20% of the finance team's time. Card tipping added roughly 10% to tronc pots across every site, meaning better pay and people staying longer. The group also uses Tenzo to plot dishes by profitability and popularity, which turned their executive head chef into a tech enthusiast.Jackson explains why "we have an integration" isn't the same as a good integration. He covers how Lightspeed decides what to build itself and what to leave to best-in-class partners, and where AI is taking multi-site reporting. Tyrone also shares a very sensible take on using Claude: how do you mandate something when you don't yet know where its ceiling is?In this episode:00:00 Intro01:06 Meet Tyrone and Jackson01:23 Camino, Pinchito and authentic Basque cuisine02:17 A finance director who ends up owning payroll, people and tech04:25 The state of hospitality: tough, but resilient and optimistic06:54 Giving operators the freedom to choose their tools07:42 Tracking campaign ROI and menu engineering with Tenzo10:38 Integration vs good integration11:04 Why an acquisition was the moment to switch everything12:28 Fear of change, and the lowest staff turnover yet14:24 Adoption, training and the Sunday app15:51 The biggest ROI: 20% of finance time back and 10% more in the tronc17:56 AI in Lightspeed and asking questions of your data20:00 Using Claude, and how to mandate something you're still learning21:35 Operators building their own tools22:27 What's next for Camino23:09 Industry outlook and alternative funding with Shuffle24:36 Lightspeed's roadmap: Tempo, Tasks and AI25:18 Where to find Tyrone and Jackson🎧 New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.wearestacked.io

What does loyalty really mean when you've got 80 shops, a lean team and customers who visit day in, day out?Chris Fletcher sits down with Katie Grundy, CRM & Loyalty Manager at itsu, to unpack how the brand rebuilt its loyalty programme into itsu rewards, and why its app customers now visit three times more often than non-members.Katie joined hospitality from L'Oréal and explains why loyalty feels more human in a shop than in e-commerce. She talks through the 2025 review that led to a more generous rewards structure. She shares the free gyoza campaign that sent itsu to number one in the App Store's Food & Drink chart. She also covers how the brand works with Pepper to push its own roadmap, rather than waiting for the tech to lead.In this episode:🍣 Transactional vs emotional loyalty, and why itsu aims for the second📱 How a simple rename ("itsu rewards") and tagline gave shop teams something to sell🥟 The no-catch free gyoza download campaign that drove queues and chart-topping downloads📊 Personalisation, customer personas and the city vs suburb customer🔁 Balancing rewards for super-regulars and occasional visitors🤝 Why operators should bring suppliers into their roadmap early🤖 How AI and MCP are changing day-to-day CRM work for lean teamsChapters0:00 Highlights1:14 Meet Katie Grundy2:35 From L'Oréal to hospitality4:33 What loyalty means at itsu6:17 How itsu rewards works7:46 The free gyoza campaign that hit No.110:23 Why itsu revamped its rewards12:41 Naming the app and giving shop teams a tool14:08 Personalisation and data16:22 Building customer personas17:16 Rewarding regulars vs less frequent guests19:32 Working with tech partners22:30 Operator-led roadmaps23:15 The future of loyalty24:49 AI in CRM26:07 Wrap-upLinks🍣 itsu: https://www.itsu.com🎧 More from Stacked: https://wearestacked.io🔔 Subscribe for new episodes every week#hospitalitytech #loyalty #CRM #restaurants #QSR #itsu #StackedPodcast

The Stacked Podcast — where hospitality meets technology. Powered by Lightspeed. Tonkotsu has gone from six sites to nineteen, with a twentieth opening in Bath, opposite the Roman Baths. Mike, the brand's finance director, has been there since 2017 — and along the way he picked up the systems too, because in a business this size somebody has to. Chris sits down with him for an unusually honest conversation about what changing technology actually looks like when there's no CTO, no big central team, and no appetite for being sold a dream. Mike talks through the POS move to Lightspeed — one site, then four, then all of them — and what having live sales on every phone changed for his area managers and GMs. He explains how weekly stocktakes went from counting for counting's sake to a variance managed inside the week, how wastage got below 0.9%, and why his team still builds the rotas themselves rather than buying a platform that can't match what they've got. There's a straight answer on AI too. Mike's seen invoice automation get rebranded as AI, likes what it might do for rotas, and has one warning worth the price of admission: be careful that AI doesn't become the accountant everyone used to blame for running the business off a spreadsheet. Plus: the £1m electricity quote, the NI threshold, 20% EBITDA a decade ago versus fighting to stay flat, vibe-coded tools built by operators, and why if someone actually phones your restaurant you probably want to speak to them. IN THIS EPISODE (01:49) Six sites to nineteen, and Bath makes twenty(02:39) The Tonkotsu story: Ken, Emma and the first ramen in Soho(04:11) The systems they've never needed to replace(05:13) AI, or automation with better branding?(06:28) What Covid actually fixed(08:33) Utilities, Ukraine and a £1m electricity quote(10:12) Live sales on every phone(11:23) The weekly estimate that checks the monthly accounts(12:32) Stock: from month-end surprises to managed variance(14:14) Wastage below 0.9% — and ops fixing a blip in-week(15:50) From reporting last week to forecasting next week(17:04) Build it yourself: the rota tool that out-featured the vendors(19:36) And when to buy instead: handing ordering over(21:09) The POS journey: one site, then four, then all of them(26:14) Rolling out nineteen sites without drama(27:39) When to pilot — and when not to touch anything(28:47) Delivery after the peak(29:44) AI: self-building rotas and the accountant problem(32:02) Advice to a finance director about to change systems(34:31) The AI wave in guest comms — and why phone orders are different(36:27) Bath, opposite the Roman Baths POWERED BY LIGHTSPEED This episode is powered by Lightspeed, the platform behind the POS rollout Mike talks through. https://www.lightspeedhq.com/uk/ ABOUT THE SHOW The Stacked Podcast sits down with the operators, founders and tech leaders shaping how hospitality actually runs — restaurants, cloud kitchens, hotels, pubs and everything in between. No hype. No sales pitch. Just honest conversations about what's working, what isn't, and what's coming next. New episodes every week. Follow so you don't miss one. https://wearestacked.io

Chris is joined by Ally Fraser, SVP and GM for EMEA at Fourth, a business that has been building back of house systems for hospitality for over 25 years. Ally spent 15 years on the frontline before joining Fourth, where she started out implementing purchase to pay and inventory at operators like YO! Sushi and now runs the region.The conversation lands on one uncomfortable number. Research Fourth ran with Peter Martin and the team at Peach found an average 11% margin gap between the top performing and bottom performing site inside the same brand. Same brand. Same systems. Same menu. Ally's argument is that the gap is behavioural, not technical, and that adoption data is the thing that closes it.They also get into the UK legislation squeeze, including operators seeing sick pay costs rise 40 to 50% off the back of the day one change, why forecasting took hospitality 20 years longer than it took the supermarkets, how automated scheduling actually works, and why nobody wants a machine placing their food order just yet.Chapters01:10 Intro and Ally's route from frontline to Fourth02:54 Fifteen years, six roles, one company03:34 What Fourth actually does, and why the demand forecast sits at the centre04:55 Why hospitality trailed retail on forecasting by two decades06:21 QSR forecasting at SKU level in 15 minute increments07:36 The UK legislation squeeze: day one sick pay, VAT, the Fair Work Agency09:09 Why compliance failure gets blamed on the tech supplier11:38 Where AI actually shows up in the product12:50 How automated scheduling works, step by step14:20 The bit nobody talks about: humans have to trust the schedule15:26 Sweat your tech, before you sign another contract17:15 What best in class operators do differently18:04 Adoption by sector: QSR strong, pubs and casual dining around half, hotels lowest20:24 Benchmarking every click, and what good actually looks like21:47 The 11% margin gap between top and bottom site in the same brand23:12 Vibe coded dashboards, and why operators should not become developers26:08 Suggested ordering, safety stock, and keeping a human in the loop28:08 Quickfire: competitive socialising, the reMarkable, and the one thing she'd fix overnightKey takeaways1. The gap is inside the brand, not between brands. An 11% average margin gap between best and worst site in the same estate means the playbook already exists somewhere in the business. It just isn't travelling.2. Adoption is measurable now. Fourth is capturing every click and benchmarking behaviours. If shift swaps at one site run at 20 a week and another runs at five, that variance can be correlated to site performance and flagged before it shows up in the P&L, not after.3. Legislation is the cost story of 2026. Day one sick pay has pushed some operators' sick pay costs up 40 to 50%. Ally's view is that operators should not have to become legislation experts. That is the supplier's job.4. Rollout of automation stalls on trust, not capability. Fourth could auto send the order. Operators don't want it sent. Same with the schedule that says a 10 to 3 rather than a 10 to 4. The tech is ahead of the confidence.5. Adoption maturity varies by sector. QSR is strongest because the model is repeatable. Pubs and casual dining are sitting around half of what they could be using. Hotels and complex operations are furthest back.6. The best operators resource adoption properly. Change managers, productivity managers, whatever the title. Someone owns it, gathers feedback and iterates.

Brava Hospitality just hit 103 sites, posted its record sales week, and acquired Riding House Café. Underneath it sits a loyalty and subscription engine most operators are still arguing about internally.David Broom, CIO at Brava Hospitality (Prezzo Italian, Jamie's Italian UK, Pronto Pasta), joins Chris Fletcher to open the numbers up.What we cover:• Over 500,000 app members in 14 months, growing 5,000 to 10,000 a week• 8 to 10% of weekly revenue now driven by a loyalty offer, and still climbing• Why app customers convert on a shallower discount than any other channel, and what that does to margin• The kids subscription at £1.99 a month, 7,500 subscribers, and why it drives three to four times the visit frequency• Order and pay stuck at 5% of covers, and why David is relaxed about it• Running all of this on an ageing till estate without saying no to marketing once• Gifting subscriptions, Father's Day prepaid pints, and treating hospitality like proper commerce• Ship a good first version, operationalise it, then build it bigReach out to David on LinkedIn if you want to dig into how they did it.The Stacked Podcast. Operator first, vendor agnostic, no commissions.

This week Chris sits down with Ruth Carpenter, Sales and Marketing Director at Black Rock Restaurants, the Brighton based collection behind Burnt Orange, The Salt Room, Coal Shed, Tutto and new pub concept The Crazy Goose. Ruth rejoins the show (she was number 32 in the harem, now back at 210) fresh from three and a half years at Pizza Pilgrims, where she helped grow the business from 16 to 31 sites.They get into what it actually takes to market six premium brands at once, why the Pizza Pilgrims one big campaign model does not translate, and how Ruth has gone properly old school by building a network of the 100 most loyal customers per site and getting under the skin of what they want.The tech chat is a good one. Ruth talks through inheriting the stack, why Airship does the CRM job, and how bringing in EDGEY took cost per customer from £55 down to £11 in three months, all trackable and wired into SevenRooms so there is no arguing about ROI at board level. Plus why she picked Glu for gifting and loyalty, and the recurring theme of the episode: you are buying into people, not just tech.Elsewhere they cover the £2 million Salt Room refurb (driven by data showing the audience had aged with the brand), making premium dining accessible without a race to the bottom on price, merging sales and marketing into one team, and a proper honest take on AI. ChatGPT as the hardest working colleague on the team, but everything gets a human lens on top, and stay curious.Closes on the best sign off this podcast has ever had. Chill out, follow the plan, stay true to who you are.TopicsMarketing six premium brands with a small teamThe 100 loyal customers strategy and guest segmentationPaid social done right and proving ROI (£55 to £11)The tech stack: Airship, EDGEY, GlewMerging sales and marketingThe Salt Room £2m refurb and repositioning for a younger audienceAccessibility versus priceUsing AI without losing the human lensGuestRuth Carpenter, Sales and Marketing Director, Black Rock Restaurants. Say hi on LinkedIn (Ruth Carpenter) and check out Black Rock Restaurants.

Your team doesn't think about ops, people and culture as separate problems. They just want to know when they're working and where to find stuff. So why do most hospitality businesses still run their workforce across six or seven different apps?This week Chris sits down with Gregers Knudsen, founder of Monotree, the employee "front door" app that pulls comms, learning and operations into one place for multi-site hospitality. Gregers came up through Planday and built Monotree off the back of watching businesses with 1,000+ employees run their entire company on Facebook groups and WhatsApp.They get into why that's a problem, how you actually move a workforce off WhatsApp, and what changes when your engagement data finally lives in one place. Plus the open API, customers building reports straight into Claude, and a smart idea on capturing what people know before they walk out the door for good.Honest, operator-first chat about the bit of the stack everyone has and almost nobody has properly fixed.A few lines that stuck:"Good tech is just when you don't really think about it.""We want to be the heavy use guys.""If your providers don't have an open API, switch them now. Your data is your precious thing."Find Gregers and Monotree at monree.com, on LinkedIn, or just at dinner. He eats out a lot.This episode is supported by Lightspeed. EPOS and payments built to keep service flowing when the patio's packed and the game's on every screen.