Today on Restaurant Tech Trends I sit down with Kevin Nemeth, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at Church’s Texas Chicken, the San Antonio original turning 75 next year and now running more than 1,400 restaurants across 25 countries. Kevin came into the restaurant space from L’Oreal, TD Bank, and HSN, walked into Popeyes in early 2020 with a digital team of three, and left with digital at nearly 20% of sales and five million rewards members.
WATCH AND LEARN
Why Church’s splits 50/50 first party vs third party when most of the industry sits at 90/10
The T-Mobile Tuesday blowup that still shapes how he plans every promotion five years later
How Church’s tested AI internally and where it’s adding the most value for the brand today
Where he’s building instead of buying and how he sees that trend evolving over the coming years
His litmus test for whether tech enables hospitality or just hands your work to the guest, and why the kiosk on the counter fails it
Shout outs to Qu and Olo for the tech stack love along the way.
PLUS the rapid fire round, where Kevin names the most UNDERRATED tech in restaurants and finishes with “five years from now, the drive-thru is ___”
Give it a watch and let me know what you think