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What most companies are doing (and why it's wrong)

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Most restaurant chains are over-reliant on counter service — customers line up, order under time pressure, and staff manually input orders into POS systems.

This traditional setup has three critical flaws:

• Order friction: customers rush and forget to add-on items
• Upsell failure: staff forget or feel awkward upselling
• Queue anxiety: long lines discourage incremental spending or add-ons

As a result, average ticket sizes stay lower than potential, peak-hour capacity is bottlenecked, and labor costs remain high.

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What it means for their business

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In the worst-case:

• Long lines = lost customers — studies show 70% of customers abandon a queue if they have to wait more than 6 minutes
• Low upsell penetration: Manual upsells happen on less than 10% of orders
• High dependency on human memory: Promotions and LTOs are inconsistently offered
• Labor overhead: Chains have to add more frontline staff to manage rush periods, eating into margins