True tech deployment covers everything needed to make the system work in your restaurants, which is more than simply procuring a new app.
Every time a foodservice company buys a new system, a POS, an inventory tool, whatever, the feeling is the same: part excitement, part dread.
You hope it’ll make the work go more smoothly. But you’re already bracing for the usual rollout headaches: confusion, pushback, and the inevitable “why did we change this?” chorus.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a contract caterer serving thousands of meals a day or a 10-unit burger brand trying to grow. The fear is the same: Will this new system disrupt how we work, hurt the guest experience, or erode our margins?
It may sound like a tech problem, but it rarely is. “It’s a people problem,” says Tommy Giraux.
He would know. As Head of Systems at Honest Burgers, he rebuilt the restaurant chain’s entire tech stack from scratch, across 40+ sites and 850 staff. Along the way, he built a practical playbook any operator can use, no matter the size of the business.
When Tommy was a guest on our webinar, he walked us through his approach to rolling out new tools.
This article breaks down Tommy Giraux’s main lessons on how to implement restaurant tech the right way.
What Is Technology Deployment in Restaurants?
But first, let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing. Here’s a definition:
Technology deployment in restaurants means putting new systems, like POS, restaurant inventory software, or scheduling tools, into active use across your business. It’s more than installing software or hardware. True deployment covers everything needed to make the technology work in your real-world restaurant operations. This means integrating it with existing processes, ensuring your team can use it confidently, and setting up the support needed for smooth day-to-day use. The goal isn’t just to launch a tool, but to make sure it actually helps your staff work better, improves guest experiences, and supports your business as it grows.
7 Best Practices for Deploying Technology Successfully
Here are seven practical lessons Tommy Giraux learned from years of trial and error in tech rollouts. These lessons help him keep projects smooth and effective.
1. Establish Outcomes First: Start With “Why,” Not “What”
Most tech projects go wrong before they even begin. Teams start booking demos before they’ve defined the problem. “They chase something shiny instead of fixing something real,” confirms Tommy.
Tommy’s advice: slow down and start with “why.”
Ask yourself:
What’s not working today?
What outcome do we actually want?
Be specific. Your stock variance may keep creeping up. Reporting may take days when it should take hours. Whatever the issue is, name it. Then write it down.
At Honest Burgers, every new tool starts with a requirement checklist. It has non-negotiables on one side and nice-to-haves on the other. That document is the compass for every demo. It protects the team from distraction and vendor hype.
Tommy doesn’t build this checklist on his own. He brings every department into the conversation. IT plays a central role in hospitality tech projects. That’s only natural. “But I also involve finance, HR, ops, GMs and marketing.”
The goal for these talks isn’t simply to get input. Tommy aims for something far bigger: shared ownership.
When people help to identify the problem and define the desired outcome, they are much more likely to get behind the solution, too. “They become project champions who help shape and own the launch,” he says. “You’ll need those people when the actual rollout starts.”
2. Design For Scale Before You Need It
As you grow, the systems that once made life easier will eventually start to restrict you. So build your restaurant tech stack for the company you’re becoming, not the one you are now. Some technology investments may feel like overkill today, but they’ll save a lot of pain later.
Honest Burgers learned this the hard way.
Their all-in-one tool (POS, rostering, reservations, inventory) started to buckle. Tommy knew they needed something more flexible, but replacing the one system that literally runs everything isn’t something you squeeze in on a Tuesday.
Then COVID hit. Many operations froze, but Tommy used the pause to rebuild. “It was the perfect excuse to change systems,” he says.
Instead of buying another all-in-one, he switched to a best-of-breed stack. This means he chose best in class tools for specific jobs. One tool for accounting, one for scheduling, one for customer data, and so on. Each piece integrates with the others, but no single vendor controls the whole stack. That’s the first principle of a scalable tech architecture.
This made a big difference. Honest Burgers can now swap tools without tearing everything apart. “If we need to change something, we can, without it feeling like a major overhaul.” They’ve already replaced parts of the original tech stack as they’ve grown. Because “What worked four years ago didn’t work today.”
The key lesson is: Design for the business you’re becoming, not the one you are.
So, ask yourself:
Will this system still work if we double or triple our locations?
What if we expand into delivery or retail?
Are we confident enough in this stack to lock it into a franchise agreement?
What else might our future require?
Scalability is about handling more data, sure, but also about staying flexible as the business grows and the work gets more complex.
3. Map How Your Restaurant Data Flows
When you use many tools, the same information tends to end up in different places. At first, it seems harmless, but over time, no one knows which version to trust.
Skip this step, and you end up with duplicate records and competing truths
Many restaurants run into this issue, sometimes without even noticing.
POS says you sold 120 burgers → inventory says you used ingredients for 100
Invoices say prices changed last week → procurement has no idea
Supplier item master shows a pack size of 10 kg → ordering thinks it’s 5 kg → costings are wrong → margins slip.
Poor or inconsistent data creates real problems. Even small mistakes quickly snowball into big issues.
Tommy Giraux learned this early on. So he puts it simply: “Before designing your tech stack, define how data flows in your restaurants and back office.” Skip this step, and you inevitably end up with duplicate records and competing truths.
“You have to decide what the single source of truth is for people data, sales, menus, labour, payroll, loyalty, and so on.” Once each dataset has a home, every number that depends on it lines up. No one has to stay late merging five different Excel files. And reports actually become trustworthy, says Tommy.
The key lesson: treat your restaurant systems like a supply chain. Decide where each dataset starts, where it goes next, and who keeps it accurate.
Standardising your data won’t boost sales. But it will remove a lot of friction, because the numbers you use in operations, finance, supply chain, inventory, and reporting (finally) line up and will actually start to make sense.
4. Change Management Through Team Alignment
Picking the right systems is the easy part, says Tommy. The hard part is getting people to change how they work. Most rollouts don’t fail because a feature is missing. They fail because training is weak or adoption is poor. “The people side is where you win or lose.”
The hard part is getting people to change how they work.
Get buy-in
That’s why buy-in comes first for Tommy. “If the operations leaders don’t love the tool, we don’t move forward,” he says. “Their buy-in is the multiplier. Once they’re convinced, enthusiasm spreads fast.”
But that only happens when the ops team feels the tool solves their real problems. If it doesn’t, no feature list will save the rollout. Which brings us to the next point: be clear.
Be clear
Change makes people uneasy. They think: “Why are we switching again?” “Why do I have to learn something new?” “Can’t I just keep doing what I was doing?” This happens even when the change is clearly for the best.
Tommy handles this by being clear from the start:
Explain why the change is happening.
Tie it to why the company is doing it. Make it concrete: to improve, for example, speed, guest experience, or reduce admin.
Show how the new tools and processes make daily work easier.
Find internal champions
Internal champions are early adopters who like the tool, use it, and help others get comfortable with it.
They might be a chef, a general manager, or a senior staff member. Every implementation needs people who understand the system, see the benefits, and support the change. As Tommy puts it, “A message from a colleague lands better than one from HQ.”
Reluctancy from GMs is a cultural challenge, not a technical one.
Tommy Giraux Head of Restaurant Systems at Honest Burgers
Manage pushback
That said, some resistance is normal. “There will always be a few reluctant GMs who prefer Excel and insist it works fine,” Tommy adds. “But this is a cultural challenge, not a technical one.
His approach to handling pushback has two parts. First, involve people early, so the system fits how they work. Early engagement builds trust and makes adoption more likely.
But if 40 general managers are on board and one still refuses, the problem isn’t the system — it’s the outlier. At that point, leadership has to step in. If the majority is aligned and the tool meets the organisation’s needs, one holdout shouldn’t be able to slow everything down.
By handling resistance firmly, the organisation stays focused on the agreed-upon goals.
Pilot first
Before rolling a system out company-wide, Tommy always pilots it in one or two locations. Pilots are technically process work, not change management, but fixing the rough edges early makes the later change easier to absorb.
“We roll out to one or two locations, get feedback, fix issues, and iterate until it’s right,” Tommy says. “Only then do we scale.” The pilots act as small labs. “It’s a place to spot bugs, refine workflows, and tune the training before everyone starts using the new system.”
Define ownership
The last piece of the change-management puzzle is ownership. Without it, projects go nowhere because no one feels responsible. Every rollout needs clear answers to basic questions, like:
Who owns the data?
Who handles training?
Who manages the vendor?
Tommy settles these roles early so that when the system lands, everyone knows their part. Clear ownership removes ambiguity and ensures that ongoing work (training, data maintenance, vendor management) is consistent throughout the system’s lifecycle.
5. Always Be Training
Training determines whether people actually use the tool. “No matter how intuitive the new restaurant system is, training makes or breaks adoption,” Tommy begins.
Training never stops.
At Honest Burgers, this is not a one-off event. “Training staff on new systems or processes doesn’t stop at launch,” he says. “Systems change, features get added, and people forget or move on. If you don’t retrain, the value fades fast.”
So training is part of daily work at Honest Burgers. For this, Tommy built simple tools people can use during their shift:
30-second videos that show one action
Step-by-step micro-guides for quick checks
Pocket cards for the most common tasks
Before launch day, they run group sessions to build confidence and offer one-to-one coaching when needed. “People don’t easily ask questions in a room full of colleagues. That’s what personal coaching is for.”
Tommy’s key lesson is: Training and support create confidence. “When people feel supported, they’re not afraid to try things. They learn faster and, most importantly, use the tools correctly.”
As Tommy Giraux puts it, underestimating training needs is one of the most common pitfalls in restaurant technology implementation. “Launch-and-leave never works.”
6. Choose Technology Partners Over Vendors
Who you work with decides how smooth your technology deployment will be. The right tech vendor does more than sell software. They care about your long-term success and make sure the implementation and full integration actually work.
“Look past the transaction and build real, ongoing relationships with your technology partners,” Tommy says.
Availability matters most: “We need tech partners who answer the phone when things go wrong.” Experience matters too. A true partner has seen dozens of deployments. They know which legacy processes break first and can spot integration issues long before they become problems.
Partners help map the deployment process, set clear requirements, and provide the training and troubleshooting you need. They also stay proactive, checking whether the system works as promised and making adjustments to keep your business running smoothly.
At some point, you may need to decide whether to buy or build software to complete your tech stack. It’s a choice that shapes everything that comes after. Here too, the right partners can guide you through it. They can offer angles you may not have considered, and help you weigh the trade-offs.
The key lesson is that there’s a difference between a vendor and a partner. A vendor ships a product and walks away. A partner is there for the full lifecycle: planning, implementation, performance monitoring, and continuous improvement.
At Apicbase, that’s what we aim to be: a true technology partner for our customers. We focus on your real business needs, answer questions, and push back when needed. We help you build a tech stack that actually works, with solid data security, proper technology maintenance, and a support team of real people, not just AI chatbots.
7. Evaluating Deployment Results
What gets measured gets improved. It’s an old line, but it’s still true. Honest Burgers leans into this. They track not just adoption, but also the real impact each technology implementation has on daily business processes.
Identify areas for improvement, then tweak, retrain, or rethink the approach as needed.
After launch, Tommy Giraux runs a simple evaluation mapping process. This means he compares what’s happening on the ground to the original goals. Are service times actually faster? Has labour efficiency increased? Are staff spending less time on admin? Is the new system making life easier, or just adding work?
They connect their tools through APIs and use real-time dashboards to track everything. The dashboards surface key metrics, such as:
Service times from kiosk to handoff
Labour efficiency, hour by hour
Order bottlenecks at each station
Managers regularly review KPIs to measure performance and spot issues early. If something’s off, maybe a new tool is slowing down orders or confusing staff, it gets flagged and fixed. They identify areas for improvement, then tweak, retrain, or rethink the approach as needed.
This habit of measuring success and acting on the results turns continuous improvement into a daily practice. Over time, it becomes muscle memory. Instead of reacting to problems, staff anticipate them. That’s the mark of a data-driven company culture.
Conclusion: People, Clarity and Discipline Drive Tech Adoption
At scale, technology rollouts in restaurants aren’t about the software. The software is the easy part. The hard part is the people.
Software evolves. Integrations fail. Your tech stack will keep changing. That’s normal. What truly matters is having a solid foundation: a clear purpose, reliable data flows, trust from operations, reliable technology partners and effective training.
When these elements are in place, rollouts become routine. You can repeat the process confidently, knowing your teams will adopt and use the tools as intended, maximising the value of every restaurant system you deploy.
Discover the Apicbase Onboarding and and Support Process
The first weeks with new software can be intense — especially when you’re running multiple restaurant locations. It can feel overwhelming.
That’s why our Customer Success team guides you through every step. Our onboarding process helps your team start using Apicbase quickly, confidently, and without mistakes.
We share your goal: a smooth rollout that delivers real value from day one. With our enterprise support, you get the most out of Apicbase and maximise your ROI.
Geert Merckaert is the Content and Research Director at Apicbase and the producer of The Food Service Growth Show. He specialises in operational excellence, sustainability, and digital transformation in the restaurant and catering industry. Geert has a diverse background in content marketing, writing, and research, with previous roles in corporate finance at Bank van Breda, food marketing at VLAM, and the trade association Bakkers Vlaanderen. He holds degrees in Communications and Journalism from Plantijnhogeschool, as well as Art History from the Kunsthistorisch Instituut. During his studies, Geert spent nine years working weekends as a restaurant chef. He is dedicated to helping foodservice companies achieve sustainable growth through engaging and insightful content.
