The Unique Foundation of NigelPatrick shares how Nigel was founded through a unique partnership: a 40-year restaurant operator teamed up with a POS provider to tackle the practical, day-to-day issues restaurants face directly. This pairing set the foundation for Nigel’s mission to redefine POS systems from a technical standpoint and as a collaborative tool that genuinely serves restaurant operators and staff.
Replacing Legacy Systems with Operational Value
Nigel’s approach is not to push restaurants into using all of its technology but to offer flexibility and adaptability. Unlike many POS providers that require users to adopt an entire tech stack, Nigel allows restaurants to control their own setup. By focusing on an open API architecture, Nigel’s POS is designed to integrate smoothly with other tools, making it easy for restaurants to adjust as the market changes without being locked into outdated systems or expensive upgrades.
Meeting Future Needs through Continuous Innovation
Patrick highlights how Nigel’s ongoing development is fueled by the real-life operational needs of its restaurant partners. He explains that Nigel continuously integrates feedback from the field to innovate and stay ahead of changing customer demands, ensuring that the technology evolves alongside the restaurant industry.
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In this episode of Data Delicacies, Arun Kumar welcomes Patrick Bobrukiewicz to discuss innovations in restaurant point-of-sale (POS) technology. Patrick shares how Nigel was born from a partnership between an experienced restaurant operator and a POS technology provider. Together, they aim to meet the evolving needs of restaurants by addressing operational challenges and enhancing the customer experience. Patrick discusses how they approached upgrading legacy POS systems to provide more value, better sales tools, and improved features for staff, driven by insights into what truly benefits restaurant operations.
Patrick: “(They) said, hey you guys have been in the point of sale business. We've been in the restaurant business. What if we just put our midwestern roots together and we just go after just taking care of restaurant operators again? And we just, you know, blue jeans and midwestern style. And you know what if we just service the restaurant industry like the service industry that it really is right. And I know this is really crazy to think about for a technology company because normally they would be in there and they'd be after one of a few plays right a day to play or hardware play, or something along those lines. Maybe a card processing fee play or something else that was driving it. And really we were like, Hey, let's just let's do something that we would want to do for ourselves. And we reported that opportunity. So when you say, like, what? What do you look at? Doing different? It's really, let's just take care of restaurant operators. Like. We have wanted to be taken care of by our tech partners for the longest time. That's really what drove a lot of the why behind what we wanted to do.”
Patrick: “We're not necessarily trying to say that you have to be using all of our software, all of our full tech stack, all of our full. And we see a lot of groups who do that with their point of sale system where they're trying to say, you have to use our back office or our payment processing, or our something whatever. With Nigel, we want you to control your own technology stack. Right? So what we want to do is offer a really really great point of sale system that lets you build that tech stack and be nimble as the market changes, because no, there's no way that my crystal ball is that much sharper than anyone else's right. So what we can offer is a better way to make you more nimble in the in the the equation. As we're going through this that way, you know you're not finding yourself stuck on some older legacy, hardware or something down the lines, or
pain through the nose. To get all of these new systems integrated. The open Api architecture comes in to help you. There.”
Patrick:“I think the automation of the segments for a lot of businesses inside of their tools to understand those guests that either they thought they were going to start to make some traction with, and then they didn't come back for that 3rd visit, or for the ones where they did come back for the 3rd visit. They were there with you for a little while, and then all of a sudden they tapered off.
It's easy to go make those segments for the 1st time. It's hard to tell you that you needed to make the segment to track it for the 1st time. That's where the AI models can start to really help you learn things and alert you about data anomalies inside of your data set as opposed to you, having to go look for and search for. I think that's going to be probably the biggest thing that happens to us in the restaurant industry in the next 3 years is when we have AI and and Bots starting to suggest the things that we should be looking at as opposed to us, configuring the things we want to look at.”
Episode Links
ABOUT PATRICK BOBRUKIEWICZ
As Vice President of Business Development at Nigel, Patrick is a strategic leader, exceptional at driving results, achieving profitable growth, and delivering industry-leading technology solutions. He has broad experience in both the restaurant and IT industries ranging from operations, systems management, project management, development, and business development.
ABOUT DATA DELICACIES—
Data Delicacies is a weekly podcast that dives deep into the world of technology and data as it pertains to restaurants. Host Arun Kumar interviews some of the best and brightest in the industry about all things hospitality tech, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
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