The future of restaurant technology is not human versus machine. It is human plus machine, designed around the guest.

McDonald’s and Burger King are making that clear in September 2026. McDonald’s is retraining more than 2 million employees through its “Make it Golden” initiative, placing hospitality alongside speed, value, and accuracy in its franchise evaluations. Burger King is redesigning lobbies so kiosks move to the side while a friendly face remains visible at the counter.

The message for independent and multi-unit restaurant operators is direct: kiosks are not disappearing. Their role is changing.

We have worked every position in a restaurant: from busser and server to cook, manager, brewer, and Director of Marketing. We know the difference between technology that genuinely helps a team and technology that simply gives guests another screen to fight with during the dinner rush.

The winning model combines automation efficiency with intentional hospitality. Here is how to build it.

The Kiosk Pivot Is a Hospitality Strategy, Not a Technology Retreat

Use automation to remove friction while keeping people in the experience

Kiosk adoption is now widespread. Industry tracking has placed the global hospitality installed base near 450,000 terminals, while independent field research has found kiosk ordering can be approximately 17% faster than ordering with a cashier.

That speed matters. Faster ordering can improve throughput, reduce line abandonment, and give managers more control during peak periods.

But speed alone does not guarantee profitability.

One independent Burger King field study found that kiosk orders moved faster without producing a higher average check. In fact, kiosk checks were lower in that test. That finding should make every operator pause before approving a technology purchase based on a vendor’s promise of larger tickets.

A kiosk can process orders quickly. It cannot automatically:

– Welcome a confused guest who has an allergy question.

– Recover a service failure when an order is delayed.

– Read the room when a family needs help or an older guest is uncomfortable with the interface.

– Create emotional loyalty through a warm greeting, a remembered preference, or a sincere “Thanks for coming in.”

Customers broadly prefer human interaction over AI for important service moments. Several 2026 surveys place that preference around 80%, particularly when guests need help, reassurance, or problem resolution.

The operational answer is not to remove kiosks. It is to position them as tools that make employees more available for meaningful guest contact.

Placement Drives Perception and Performance

Make the human option visible before the technology becomes a barrier

Burger King’s lobby redesign is strategically important because placement communicates priority.

When kiosks dominate the entrance, guests may assume the restaurant does not want to speak with them. When kiosks sit to the side and a staffed counter remains visible, the message changes: you can use technology, but you are not required to navigate the experience alone.

For independent and multi-unit operators, we recommend evaluating kiosk placement through four practical questions:

– Can guests see a team member immediately? Place a trained host, cashier, or guest-experience lead within the first visual line from the entrance.

– Can guests choose their preferred ordering channel? Maintain a clear staffed counter even if most transactions migrate to kiosks, mobile ordering, or QR codes.

– Does the traffic flow make sense? Separate ordering, pickup, delivery-driver access, and dine-in circulation. A kiosk should not create a human traffic jam beside the soda fountain.

– Can employees intervene without hovering? Staff should be close enough to assist but not positioned like a security guard supervising every tap.

A simple pilot can reveal the answer. Test two kiosk placements for two weeks each. Track order abandonment, staff interventions, queue time, guest complaints, and sales by channel. The best location is not always the one that processes the most taps. It is the one that improves total restaurant performance.

Hospitality Standards Must Become Operational Standards

Train the behavior you want to measure

McDonald’s “Make it Golden” initiative reinforces a critical point: hospitality cannot remain a vague aspiration printed on a break-room poster. It must become part of training, coaching, and accountability.

We recommend defining service standards that are specific enough to observe during a shift:

– Greet within 10 seconds. Acknowledge every guest entering the restaurant, even when the team is busy.

– Offer help without taking over. Train employees to ask, “Would you like a hand ordering?” rather than assuming every guest needs assistance.

– Own the handoff. At pickup, confirm the guest’s name or order number, verify key modifiers, and make eye contact.

– Close the loop. Teach team members to check the dining room and ask whether guests received everything they needed.

– Recover visibly and quickly. Empower employees to replace a missing item, correct a payment issue, or provide a small recovery gesture without waiting for three layers of approval.

The goal is not to create robotic greetings. Nobody wants a cashier reciting a script with the warmth of a tax audit. The goal is consistency, confidence, and genuine human connection.

For franchise systems, these standards should appear in mystery-shopper evaluations, manager checklists, onboarding, and performance reviews. For independent restaurants, they can live in a one-page daily service playbook.

Measure the Complete Guest Journey

Stop judging technology by one attractive metric

A kiosk may reduce order time. An AI forecasting tool may improve prep accuracy. A labor platform may generate a beautiful schedule. None of those outcomes matter if the guest experience deteriorates or margins remain flat.

MarketScale reports that chain restaurant visits remain approximately 7% below 2019 levels, even as operators continue investing in customer-facing technology. The same analysis notes that consumers are divided on technology’s impact on hospitality.

That means restaurant owners must measure more than adoption.

Build a balanced scorecard that includes:

– Throughput: Average order time, queue length, peak-period transactions, and order-ready time.

– Profitability: Contribution margin by channel, labor minutes per transaction, food waste, and technology cost per order.

– Guest behavior: Average check, item attachment, repeat visits, loyalty enrollment, and abandonment.

– Hospitality: Guest satisfaction, service recovery volume, complaint themes, and mystery-shopper scores.

– Team performance: Staff intervention rates, manager overrides, training completion, and employee feedback.

A kiosk that increases transactions by 10% but drives a 5% decline in repeat visits is not a clear win. A system that reduces cashier hours but adds manager workload may simply move cost from one labor line to another.

This is where restaurant operations optimization becomes more valuable than buying another piece of software.

AI Investment Requires Execution Discipline

Move from technology spending to measurable impact

Qu’s 2026 State of Digital & Beyond benchmark surveyed 168 QSR and fast-casual brands representing more than 94,000 locations. Its findings expose the industry’s execution gap:

– 73% of brands are investing in AI now or within the next year.

– Only 9% report meaningful or transformational impact from AI.

– 55% cite operational execution as the top barrier to a better guest experience.

The lesson is especially important for restaurant owners watching margins closely. AI should not be purchased because every competitor is discussing it. It should be deployed against a defined business problem.

Start with use cases that connect directly to the P&L:

– Demand forecasting to reduce prep waste and stockouts.

– Labor optimization to align staffing with daypart demand.

– Menu engineering to highlight profitable items and remove operationally expensive underperformers.

– Guest personalization to improve retention and targeted promotions.

– Order monitoring to identify bottlenecks across kiosks, mobile, delivery, and the POS.

Qu identifies order flow, team workflow, and accurate pickup times as major operational priorities. Those are not flashy use cases. They are the unglamorous systems work that makes technology useful.

The operators who win will not necessarily own the most advanced tech stack. They will own the cleanest data, clearest standards, and fastest feedback loops.

Protect Margins Without Pricing Guests Out

Use hospitality and technology to defend value

Approximately 48% of operators have stopped raising menu prices as their primary response to cost pressure. Guests have limits, and many operators believe they are approaching them.

That shifts the focus to operational profit optimization:

– Reduce restaurant costs through tighter purchasing, portion control, waste tracking, and supplier negotiations.

– Improve restaurant margins by engineering menus around contribution margin, prep complexity, and attachment opportunities.

– Optimize labor by matching staffing to demand instead of cutting blindly and leaving the remaining team overwhelmed.

– Use technology selectively to eliminate rework, improve accuracy, and create better decisions.

– Protect hospitality because a short-term labor saving is not worth a long-term decline in repeat business.

For operators considering restaurant investment, restaurant funding, or smart funding for restaurants, the technology plan should be part of the capital plan. A kiosk rollout, POS modernization, or AI implementation must show how it will improve cash flow, strengthen the restaurant tech stack, and support restaurant growth.

At Restaurant Finance Advisors, we evaluate those decisions through the lens of results. Our work spans restaurant turnaround, operational improvement, restaurant capital, funding, branding, technology implementation, and franchise development. We focus on the measurable opportunities hiding inside the business: not technology for technology’s sake.

The Winning Restaurant Will Be Easier to Use and Better to Feel

Build a hybrid model your guests and team can trust

McDonald’s and Burger King are not abandoning automation. They are acknowledging that hospitality cannot be automated completely.

The practical takeaway is clear:

– Keep the kiosk. Use it to improve speed, ordering flexibility, and transaction flow.

– Keep the cashier visible. Make human help easy to find and easy to request.

– Train for hospitality. Define behaviors, coach them consistently, and measure them.

– Track the full economics. Evaluate throughput, check size, repeat visits, labor, guest satisfaction, and contribution margin together.

– Fix execution before adding complexity. A disconnected restaurant tech stack will not become intelligent simply because an AI feature was added.

The restaurant industry does not need to choose between efficiency and warmth. It needs better operating models that deliver both.

We are Restaurant Finance Advisors. RobertWKuypers, William Kuypers, and Robert Kuypers bring decades of restaurant leadership experience across independent, public, private, franchise, and chef-driven concepts. We partner with owners and operators to unlock hidden opportunities, improve restaurant margins, and build profitable restaurant growth.

Visit us to learn more about maximizing your revenue, book a call to start making more money.

Sources

– New York Post: Fast-food chains are bringing back human cashiers amid digital ordering complaints

– MarketScale: Restaurants are buying more customer tech even as visits stay 7% below 2019

– Qu: The Execution Gap and the 2026 Restaurant Technology Benchmark

– Datos Insights: Global demand for self-ordering kiosks

Target Keywords

restaurant consulting; restaurant operations optimization; improve restaurant margins; restaurant tech stack; restaurant growth; profit optimization; restaurant turnaround; restaurant investment; restaurant funding; smart funding for restaurants; franchise development; reduce restaurant costs; restaurant capital; RobertWKuypers; William Kuypers; Robert Kuypers

Meta Description

McDonald’s and Burger King are repositioning kiosks around human hospitality. Learn how restaurants can balance automation, staffing, service standards, technology, and margins.