Trailblazin’ CTO Completes Full Tech Refresh in Under 1 Year - Dawn Gillis Freebirds World Burrito

Dawn Gillis, CTO of Freebirds World Burrito, kicks off our new CTO series and we couldn't find a better pioneer in our space. 

In true trailblazin' in fashion, she joined the fast-casual concept and took the brand by storm, revamping the entire technology stack - including POS, KDS, Back of House, and Online ordering - in under a year.

Dawn shares all her secrets and strategies for achieving the ambitious technology platform upgrade - as well as the early results she's achieved which are beyond impressive!

Key Moments to Listen For:

• The process of replacing 25-year-old architecture and 10-yr old systems with new technology  
• Early results from the tech refresh with Qu > 98% decrease in training and labor hours; and 97% reduction in online ordering failures (lost transactions and sales)
• How to align your tech refresh with the brand values
• How to sell your stakeholders on a new tech vision 
• The most common barriers faced by restaurant CTOs
• Why MACH matters
• Why being uncomfortable is a Good Thing!

 
Related Episodes:
Here's What Innovation Looks Like (Part 2 of 3) - Amir Hudda, CEO of Qu

What Does it Mean to Go “Beyond POS” – Amir Hudda, CEO of Qu

Article: POS is Dead, Right?

Connect with Dawn on LinkedIn 

Check out Qu's Annual State of Digital for Enterprise QSR & Fast Casual Brands

Transcript

Restaurants Reinvented - Dawn Gillis

[00:00:00] Dawn Gillis: I would say, at this point, "Be fearless." It's wide open and there is so much more ahead of us, especially as the technologies evolved to serve people, that's one of the things that delights me the most. 

[00:00:43] Jen Kern: Hello, everyone and welcome back to Restaurants Reinvented. My name is Jen Kern, I'm the hostess here of the show. And today we're kicking off what's gonna be a little bit of a new series, it's a CTO series and we're gonna talk about all things technical, but all, but still sticking to our main core topic of reinventing restaurants for more sustainable and profitable future.

[00:01:04] And so, today with me, I'm very excited to kick off our CTO series with a fabulous female, who's the CTO at Freebird's World Burrito and her name is Dawn Gillis. And welcome to the show, Dawn.

[00:01:18] Dawn Gillis: Thank you so much, Jen. It is a pleasure to join you on the podcast today.

[00:01:24] Jen Kern: Oh, well, great. Well, I'm so excited you're here and I, I've had the pleasure of getting to know you over the last three years, but maybe some folks in our audience don't, don't know you that well. So, if you wanna give a quick introduction and background and just an explanation of the journey that led you to Freebird's in the fast casual restaurant industry.

[00:01:43] Dawn Gillis: Wow. Well, first of all, this is my first podcast, Jen.

[00:01:47] Jen Kern: Woohoo.

[00:01:48] Dawn Gillis: We're here to celebrate this one.

[00:01:51] Jen Kern: Yupi. Oh, what an honor for me.

[00:01:53] Dawn Gillis: Oh, absolutely. Second of all, I have been in technology pretty much all my career. I started in the early eighties, so that'll give you a little bit of an idea of how long I've been around. And it's been a wonderful journey. Let's just say I won't give too much away, but I was programming on punch cards, my early days.

[00:02:16] So, I know a little bit about where this technology started and then where we are today. I really did start as a programmer and a coder, so I can absolutely relate to the world of software engineers that, in our world today, may not be able to code with them because I didn't keep pace, but I certainly appreciate what it takes to get to where you really need to be in order to deliver our quality solution.

[00:02:46] Spent the first half of my career pretty much as a, in the consulting world. So, it was consulting on software engineering or managing projects in software engineering for a wide variety of clients. Everything from travel to insurance, banking. So, I got a, an exposure to, you know, how technology could serve different industries. Well, travel's part of consulting and I got married and after visiting something like 45 states in this United States of America, it got to that point where I needed to focus a little bit and I ended up at a company called 7-Eleven Incorporated. So, pretty big company at the time. When I joined it was 5,800 locations. And in US and Canada, 'cause that was the particular group within 7-Eleven that I worked for and my career there was 15 years. So, I learned a tremendous amount about running retail locations. As you know that convenience store chain, not only does center of store merchandise sales, but they also do some foods, hot served foods, mostly.

[00:04:04] Dawn Gillis: And so, I began to learn a little bit more about the food services business and then they purchased a co, company called Stripes. And that Stripes company had Loretta Taco company in it. And that's where I learned a little bit about cracking eggs in the back. So, it added that I mentioned to my understanding of food service.

[00:04:24] And then, I got that wonderful opportunity and ended up in the quick serve restaurant business. And here I am at Freebird's. 

[00:04:31] Jen Kern: Wow. So, here we are. Well, thank you for that background. I mean, it's fascinating to think about you as learning to code and having coding. Yeah. How, I'm curious how, I mean, I I've been involved a little bit in the girls who code nonprofit, were, how did you find your way into, to that?

[00:04:51] Dawn Gillis: So, how did I find my way into coding? It was back when it was taking, it was certainly an opportunity at the time for new companies who were looking to evolve computer science into business application programming to automate your basic supportive functions within a business. Specifically around the accounting functions, you know, the basics of automation of your back office type functions of industries.

[00:05:23] And that's how I found my way. I just happened to decide that I would take a vocational route that way and take a look at what it would be to program. And I got hired and sent to Dallas and I've been here ever since, in the Texas area.

[00:05:41] Jen Kern: And doing a little bit less travel. I'm just gonna guess.

[00:05:44] Dawn Gillis: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I ended up at Executive Platinum and it was time to go.

[00:05:51] Jen Kern: Okay.

[00:05:51] Dawn Gillis: That's when you know you actually have your pajamas and a blanket that are part of the seat, you know, beside you.

[00:05:59] Jen Kern: That's fantastic. Well, well, and then fast forward and you joined Freebird's in what year?

[00:06:04] Dawn Gillis: So, I joined Freebird's last year in 

[00:06:07] February. So, yeah, 2021.

[00:06:11] Jen Kern: And I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say when you got there, so, so for, for those who aren't familiar with Freebird's, about a 60 unit, do you consider yourself fast casual or QSR?

[00:06:23] Dawn Gillis: We usually trend towards the, the fast casual and primarily, primarily because we actually have dining, right? So, it depends on who you talk to. Right? The quick serve restaurant and fast casual to me are somewhat similar. The dividing line might be whether or not you actually have dining space, right? Where you encourage people to come in and have the experience in your four walls environment and actually have you as a destination for the entire meal.

[00:06:59] Jen Kern: Right. Okay. So, about 60 units, fast casual, serving amazing, you know, obviously, burritos and Mexican style cuisine and you come in there and what did you find in terms of a technology stack standpoint? What was there?

[00:07:16] Dawn Gillis: Yeah. So, bottom line, we had technologies that had been purchased. And it was probably about 10 years old, by the time I got to Freebird's, it, it hadn't really been refreshed much at, in terms of their restaurant technology stack, although they had added online ordering to the mix. So, unfortunately, wasn't the worst of it, the thing is that 8- to 10-year-old technology was actually sitting on top of architecture that was 25 years old. Right? So, you're talking about architectures that basically were flat file driven that were, you know, monolithic in the, in the way in which they handled processing.

[00:08:04] So, and, you know, flat file integrations, text-based interfaces to, you know, whatever the systems were. So, it, it really didn't lend itself for us to be able to evolve the technologies to support the guest journeys that we had in mind for the brand. So, all in all, it was a good time for Freebird's to contemplate completely refreshing their restaurant tech stack.

[00:08:33] Jen Kern: Wow. So, I, I'm just gonna go in on limb and say you inherited a lot of legacy technology.

[00:08:39] Dawn Gillis: We absolutely inherited legacy technology. And I dare say the executive team here inherited the legacy technologies. Pretty much anybody who was here really didn't have a part in the selection of what was here.

[00:08:54] Jen Kern: Right. And so, you joined the company and you've got 25-year-old architecture and then systems, some of which are, you know, 10 years old, like you said. What, what after, I assume you took a look at everything that you had and what was around, what was your vision and your, and your roadmap in terms of, "Here's what I wanna do to refresh or upgrade this technology stack to meet the guest experience," that you had in mind.

[00:09:18] Dawn Gillis: Well, that's a great question because, honestly, it was making sure that everybody shared an understanding of what the guest experience should be. That was the first step, right? Honestly, you had to really start with that guest in mind in order to begin to craft the vision of what we needed to put in place.

[00:09:39] And it's not just the guest. We also wanted a good understanding of the journey that our tribe members take every day. Everybody here at Freebird's is a tribe member. The ones in our restaurant are most loved because they're the ones who do the hard work every day. And so, taking a look at our existing environment and then imagining what it could be for the future was the first step for us to begin to talk about how we would transform the organization with technology. It's a people-first organization. So, that's the direction we took.

[00:10:17] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm. And so, yeah. What did you come up with? What, tell me about it.

[00:10:22] Dawn Gillis: So, after that, you can always bring the tech piece in, into play. Right? And you can definitely say, "Okay, going forward, if we are going to meet these very important requirements to evolve our upfront guest technologies, where they can, the guests can use those technologies to connect with us and purchase our food and interact with us where they want, when they want, how they want."

[00:10:54] Then it's gotta be a very scalable and flexible infrastructure that you put in place, with an architecture that's cloud-native, that is API based, that leverages, you know, microservices, constructs where possible, and with a partner by the way, on partners that can actually help you down this journey quickly. Because we had to do this transformation pretty quickly as we were aging out of the legacy technologies that we had.

[00:11:28] Dawn Gillis: So, there was a lot to consider. It was two parts. One was the people and one was the structures that we needed to use in order to build this new world that we had ahead of us.

[00:11:41] Jen Kern: Wow. It sounds like a lot. How, how was it for you? And how has it been? I'm sure it's been a long year.

[00:11:47] Dawn Gillis: Well, it was, but the journey isn't done on your own and by, and it's not done with only one department. So, we started the journey as a collective effort across our enterprise. And we first laid down that vision, you know, "What do we need to be doing here?" So, a frictionless experience for our guest was number one, we wanted contactless payments wherever we could put them in. We wanted to improve that loyalty experience for our guests and make it really simple for them to be able to accrue and redeem points. We wanted to use biometrics where possible in our environment, in our restaurants because of a few reasons, one is it makes it a whole lot easier to complete the task.

[00:12:39] And two is the less people had to actually touch a device, the better. Right? So, we tried our best to leverage biometrics from that perspective. We wanted a reduction in training. It was taking far too long to train a replacement for a cashier. For us that was critical. It was days that we would have to go through the process.

[00:13:04] So, we needed something that would, reduce our costs around that, as well as reduce the lead time to get fully functional cashier. And then, we wanted to do all of this and make sure that we had minimal disruption as we roll these changes. That was also a very key, critical success factor. So, that was the vision we went into this with. And the whole process started around May, end of May last year, with the actual complete program defined starting in June, July of last year. July 10th, to be exact, was when we had our kickoff. We completed that whole effort July 12th this year for all 60 locations.

[00:13:51] Jen Kern: Wow. Wow. I mean, that's huge. That's pretty much not often heard of in the industry, to do a full technology re, refresh and restack in a year and especially for 60 locations. And I know that you have the benefit of being all corporate own stores. So, I think that's one thing that's probably helping you from a speed perspective, but we've had the luxury of working with you as the POS partner and, and using our platform to help you with that.

[00:14:25] I'm curious, what would you say to folks who really, you know, a lot of the resistance we run into is, "It's gonna take too long. It's gonna take too much time. It's gonna cost too much. We're not replacing our systems." I mean, there's a lot of people who actually want to do it, but when push comes to shove and they look at the numbers and they look at how much time it's gonna take and the effort they just decide, "You know what? We're fine with what we have."

[00:14:52] Dawn Gillis: Yes. All right. So, that, that is a big argument. There is no doubt about that. And...

[00:14:59] Jen Kern: Yeah.

[00:15:00] Dawn Gillis: I think in the role of CTO, in the restaurant industry, that's probably one of the biggest challenges you're going, going to have is to, to deal with that conversation And trying to build the business case as to why it is very critical that the time, effort and money is spent on evolving.

[00:15:21] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:22] Dawn Gillis: I can't speak for everyone, but certainly I think that if you're going to be a restaurant of the future, you absolutely don't have a choice but to take that journey down the path of completely rethinking your commerce platform. You've got to rethink it all together because your channels are no longer a countertop POS only, everybody knows this, but then in order to evolve, to support all the channels that exist today for a restaurant you absolutely have to rethink the entire architecture on which everything's based. So, that to me is your first conversation that you have to really have. If you don't move forward and do something it is likely that you won't have the opportunity for the future to do something. So, it's, it's an imperative that you start to rethink the technologies that support your business and how you use them.

[00:16:23] Jen Kern: Right. And when you talk about rethinking the architecture, one of the things that you've mentioned to us here at Qu is the MACH idea, MACH. And it's a great summary. Can you explain that to, to us?

[00:16:38] Dawn Gillis: The MACH architecture. Yes. So, the MACH architecture is all about microservices, API-first, cloud native and headless. And I think, overall, we had kind of talked a little bit about this and I'll explain it in terms of maybe how we looked at it from the Freebird's perspective and maybe it comes to life for some.

[00:17:03] So, the, the microservices part allows you to be flexible about the, how you go about using the platforms that are supporting your business. And it allows you to maybe leverage working components of a software solution in different ways. So, for example, I'm just gonna throw this out and ordering engine, for example, that might be in place for your POS, your countertop POS can then be repurposed as an ordering engine for your online ordering website.

[00:17:45] kind of the, the services are the same, I'm just trying to be as simple as possible, but the services are the same. Right? So, that's your concept of the microservices, right? The API-first is all about integrating products, solutions across your, your environment. So, what do I mean there? For us, API-first was very critical for us because we also decided on, for example, separating our time and attendance from our POS.

[00:18:17] So, we had a different solution provider doing that and it was through APIs that allow us to have somebody clock in when they walk in through the door. And if they're a cashier to go log in on our POS. What that does for us is say, "Okay, this other solution can share data back to our POS that says, 'Yeah, that cashier can log into the POS because they've clocked in for work.'" So, being able to share information across platforms is also very important and it allows you the flexibility to leverage solutions in a different way. The cloud native part of this is just basically your scalability side. So, how quickly can you grow? We have a huge growth strategy here at, at Freebird's.

[00:19:11] And the intention is that we're not, we have selected the right solution partners for us and that as we grow and our data grows and our processing capabilities grow, we won't have to walk away from those solutions because they'll be able to grow with us. And on the headless side of it, that was the one that was most surprising to us.

[00:19:34] And still is somewhat of a challenge is, so you've got data shared across multiple solutions, which are multiple companies and multiple product suites. And so, where do you go as your single source of truth for that particular data, not that it's, it, it's different from one to the next, but it's an end-user solution.

[00:19:55] So, how do you steer your operations team to say, "Okay. Yes. You know, we'll use this particular user interface over this one that came out of solution B." Right? 

[00:20:07] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm 

[00:20:08] Dawn Gillis: It's their solution A.

[00:20:09] So, but it is a great problem to have, it is an absolutely wonderful problem to have because you've got consistent data across your enterprise and multiple business functions can see that data and consume it the way that is most suitable for their function.

[00:20:25] Jen Kern: Wow. That's awesome. I mean, I just love the whole, ever since you've mentioned that acronym to me, MACH. So, I'll just repeat it really quick, M is for microservices, A is for API-first, C is for cloud native and H is for headless. I thought this woman really has it going on. Like, you, you really do have it going on.

[00:20:44] And, and so you talked about building that business case internally. I'm curious when you came to your stakeholder team, right, the, the other executives you talked about working with all the groups and you started talking about these concepts of microservices, API-first, cloud native and headless. How much, I mean, I don't wanna really ask, like how much pushback did you get, but how much did they understand and how much coaching did you have to do and educating, or was it like, "Let's do it. We know what that is." What was that process like?

[00:21:16] Dawn Gillis: Yeah, Jen, I never said that to them, not in the beginning. Sorry, that won't work.

[00:21:22] Jen Kern: Yeah. Okay.

[00:21:24] Dawn Gillis: Unless, you know, the folks in the leadership team are speed freaks and it just like rings with them because it's like max speed. So, you know, you can use some kind of marketing strategies, you know, to...

[00:21:37] Jen Kern: Right. 

[00:21:38] Sure. 

[00:21:39] Dawn Gillis: But it's certainly not at the detail level that you're going to sell this concept.

[00:21:42] Right? I, I think being able to relate it to exactly what needs to get accomplished to meet the business objectives is the most important approach. So, for Freebird's, what was most important was, "We have to improve our guest ordering channels." That was like, number one. Well, that was a driver, but we had no foundation on which to improve that.

[00:22:11] Jen Kern: And when you say improve the guest ordering channels, gimme more specifics there, like how, like speed?

[00:22:15] Dawn Gillis: Yeah. So, you're talking about improve the guest ordering channels. Technically we only really had one, which was our web ordering and then we also had a, an app, but on a mobile app, but it was a white label app. And honestly it was rather stale. And all, its entire purpose was more to Accumulate and redeem points than it was ordering. So, it was the frontend that then flip, flipped you over to our web. And so, it really wasn't a good experience at all. And that was our number one priority, was to move past that as well. We couldn't because of the limitations of the foundation on which those applications were written. And so, you know, that's kind of how we started down this journey of," Well, what do we need to do now?"

[00:23:13] Well, if you want this, you have to have these things, which is a much more modern architecture on which the applications that can then serve up the, the ordering experience are ready and able to do what it is you want it to do. And so, that really was the selling point to get here. You've gotta have these things and it wasn't necessarily using the concept of a MACH architecture.

[00:23:42] It was more about, "Here is why this is important to your online ordering. Here is why the solution cannot do it today." And then visioning. That, the visioning and adding to the, the, the story that says, once you fix this architecture, "Hey, you've opened up the door for a few other things too, by the way, how about text-based ordering?" Now you can add that in the mix because you fixed the architecture. Right? So, that, it is, it's the visioning portion and making sure that you're listening to where the organization wants to go and then tying the messages together for them and painting the picture of the journey.

[00:24:30] Jen Kern: Right. Right. So, it's really, what I'm hearing, it's the foundation building. You're talking about like setting the foundation with the architecture. You don't need to go, or in your case you didn't go in and say like, "Here's what microservices is. Here's why it's important. Here's what API, here's why it's important."

[00:24:47] It's like, "Here's the foundation we need to get to where we wanna go as an organization from not just a guest experience standpoint, but from an efficiency, an internal efficiency standpoint, a team member standpoint." As you call them your tribe.

[00:25:00] Dawn Gillis: That's right. That is correct. And I think there's much more importance to that than you think because if you engage everybody who's participating that cross functional team I told you about, we had a steering team with representatives from every one of the business functions that would be impacted by these changes.

[00:25:20] And it was high level representation as well as, we had a lower-level tribe participation as well, on occasion. Once they were, they understood what we were trying to address for them and explaining it to them, we were then able to take them on that journey and that journey included things like, 

[00:25:42] Dawn Gillis: "Okay, what's really important to us, if we were to come to the table with a solution, important to us now from a prioritization perspective, intermediately, you know, what could we achieve?" And then long-term that big vision and taking them through those stages was really important. That also helped us to narrow down the scope of what we could achieve within that year. That's where the buy-in comes. So, we took the time and effort to figure out what the Freebirds brand was about, what we wanted it to be, what was priority to us in a year. And then, knowing that we then took it to market, to say, "Okay, this is who we are. This is what we want. How close can you meet these requirements? 

[00:26:31] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm

[00:26:31] Dawn Gillis: All that work is required up front for you to hit the mark.

[00:26:36] Jen Kern: Right, right. So, very collaborative process, not just from a partner. And I love how, by the way, you don't say vendor, you call the people you work with solution partners 'cause you're solutioning, which is lovely. But now, I completely lost my train of thought since I went on that tangent. But it, it sounds like it was just a very collective and collaborative process, which in itself is modern, right?

[00:27:01] To, to not be thinking in, of technology in silo and technology alone, but how's this gonna impact the organization? How about the mission for the brand? And, and you've talked a lot about your visioning and the vision of the other leaders. What is the mission and have you been able to kind of get technology aligned with that in a really, in authentic way?

[00:27:22] Dawn Gillis: I love that question.

[00:27:24] Jen Kern: Okay, good.

[00:27:25] Dawn Gillis: Because that was also very important to us. At the beginning of last year, our CEO, Alex Eagle, he got our executive team together and we actually, completely rethought our mission and we actually came up with a mission to deliver craveable food and it's your world's service to every guest as one tribe. Well, if you think about that, and I said it intentionally that way, there are four parts to it. So, it's to deliver craveable food. Well, we know that based on the feedback from our loyal guests, our food's on the right track. So, we said, "Okay, let's keep on that track."

[00:28:14] How about it's your world service? Well, it's your world service is a very broad category, but it starts with that first touch point and interaction from our guests to us. And it means all the channels that they can connect to us in. And then, all the way through to when they're gonna give us feedback So, we thought about those journeys and we thought about the technologies that they would connect to as they go through that journey.

[00:28:46] Just in following along with what I told you originally, when you said, "How did you start this journey?" Right? We thought about the people, right? So, it's your world service, the guest on one side, the tribe on the other. And we took those journeys, picked out the pain points, prioritize those and those are the ones that we went after. So, as simply put as possible, we realized that, you know, the, certainly the POS had to go. That was a problem. We realized that there were certain functions in managing our tribe, that when it comes to the administrative side of it for workforce management that we knew we had to do and address that as well. And then, we also knew that we needed a fresh look on our website as well as our mobile app. So, we took it in bites and we delivered on the commerce engine along with the updated channels, July 12th, by July 12th. We also were able to put in facial recognition for time and attendance. Extract that from the POS so it doesn't disrupt the flow of the guest line and it doesn't disrupt the flow of the cashier. Right? So, that administrative function was taken away. 

[00:30:08] And then, our labor scheduling, we put in a very graphical drag and drop function so that it, you know, scheduling was easy. We also had selected products that allowed us to mobile enable every one of the solutions we had so that general managers of restaurants can monitor labor and sales wherever they are. So, all these were massive changes for them to improve the ability to provide it's your world service to our guests and to feel much more comfortable in managing the business of running a restaurant.

[00:30:45] So, it was very closely tied and the prioritizations were made based on that. And, you know, we are happy to also say, and I'm gonna kinda scooch this in a little bit, 2023 is coming and that's gonna be a lot of fun too because we are also, we have our eyes on some really cool ideas. But, before that we'll actually see an upgrade to our mobile app, as well as our web app this year.

[00:31:14] Jen Kern: Great. Well, you've been busy. 

[00:31:16] Dawn Gillis: A little bit.

[00:31:18] Jen Kern: Is it too early for you to have any benchmarking data or results from this refresh?

[00:31:28] Dawn Gillis: Oh, there were some very immediate ones. And it came down to, the one of the examples I gave you earlier about training. So, our training went down from something like 80 labor hours to train a cashier down to two.

[00:31:49] Jen Kern: Wow.

[00:31:50] Dawn Gillis: It was huge. It was a huge change. The intuitive navigation that lends itself to the POS that we selected, which was a razor terminal supported by Qu beyond.

[00:32:03] That one, I could not tell you enough about how our tribe enjoys using that device because it's responsive, interface, it's very, it's very intuitive, tablet-based. It doesn't take long to teach the tribe because everything's right there in front of them. It's swiping, it's scrolling and it's going up and down.

[00:32:25] Dawn Gillis: And there are no switching of panels and all the nonsense that goes on in some of the other POS solutions. So, it, it's very easy to train and learn. And so, we've seen that right away, in our environment. We've also seen a tremendous drop in deactivations of our restaurants for online ordering, from a third-party provider that we use.

[00:32:49] And it is significant. And when I say significant, we are talking about a 90, I think it's 97% drop in deactivations of our ref restaurants on a daily basis. Which used to generate something like three hours of labor for our backend support staff. So, those are two huge ones that, for us, we are already seeing a lot of benefit on.

[00:33:12] Jen Kern: That's awesome. That's really great. So much fun, so much fun diving into all this with you. And, and you did give a little sneak peek about 2023. Is there anything on your strategy or roadmap that you can share with us about 2023 and, and just generally, overall, too, I'd love to know what you think, like what is the biggest sort of innovation or trend that's gonna, gonna be next on the horizon?

[00:33:39] Dawn Gillis: Yeah, that's a, a really good question. Innovation or trend. I think the, there are gonna be a couple. One is, I think the biometrics technologies are gonna take over. We see Amazon doing some of the most amazing things when it comes to retail and especially around food. One of our vision, one of my visions this year has been to begin to think through, how we can take a make line where you make it your own down the line and actually have it where it's automated so that somebody doesn't have to tell you what's in the tray when it gets to the end, but that there is, there are video technologies that can track what you put on the tray so that when you get to the end, it's already wrong up. 

[00:34:29] Jen Kern: Mm. 

[00:34:29] Dawn Gillis: There are biometric technologies for payment, like Amazon one where you can put your hand over a device and pay.

[00:34:37] So, you're not pulling out your phone. You're not using a credit card. You're able to just pay at the end. I think some of those technologies you're gonna see evolve more and more. I think, related to supply chain, blockchain absolutely has a role in our future, as re, as restaurants. There is no doubt in my mind. There are so many good reasons for that and it has to do with food safety first, but it also has to do with managing cost. Once you're able to reduce your costs, due to the many different interruptions in the supply chain, you're beginning to win the game that we will continue to play, I think, in the future.

[00:35:25] And blockchain can go a long way with helping us with that. I don't say that's in our 2023 cards, but I see that as an evolving technology, which will absolutely impact us. And it has, blockchain also has another impact that, to our organization and that is yet offering, yet again, another payment option which is cryptocurrency, right?

[00:35:49] Dawn Gillis: We've seen some of our larger chains jump in both feet to, to accept cryptocurrency. And I think that's going to be more and more of one of those things we are not going to be able to avoid.

[00:36:02] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:02] Dawn Gillis: And so, I think it's gonna, it's gonna take hold.

[00:36:06] Jen Kern: Mm. Yeah. Well, I, I love it. And my husband's deep into crypto and so he's educated and kind of drug me along the last couple years. And so, by no means, I mean, I'd still consider myself a novice when it comes to understanding crypto, it seems like very complicated to me, but I love that we're talking about it more in the industry.

[00:36:24] I was just at a conference recently. It was a big topic. I just see it popping up more and more and more. And it's something in that we've started talking to our customers about, like building that capability in our roadmap, which we absolutely could do. It's just a matter of when, like when the consumer is actually gonna demand it.

[00:36:40] Right?

[00:36:41] Dawn Gillis: That, that's right. Mm-hmm. Or it could take a journey like QR codes where, you know, the, it, QR codes were a huge thing back in, you know, the two thousands or so and, and then kind of faded off a little bit. And then, all of a sudden it took over because there was a need.

[00:36:58] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:59] Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:59] Dawn Gillis: I think blockchain might have to go through those cycles first, but I do believe that there, it's inevitable.

[00:37:06] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, that's and it's very exciting. It's very exciting, 'cause it, it definitely will push some boundaries. And, and if you have that foundation, like you've described and that architecture and, and you've got that in place that drives your flexibility and your speed, as you've mentioned, you're gonna be able to adopt these new technologies.

[00:37:26] Without that architecture in place it's gonna be very, very challenging to adopt the new technologies that we might not even know about today. We might not even be talking about something. You mentioned a lot, the biometrics and the blockchain and all that, but there's stuff that's gonna come out that no one saw coming. And yeah, how do you integrate that into your tech stack?

[00:37:45] One of the things that's been trending recently, and you and I talked about this a little bit, is this POS is dead topic, which I opined a little bit. I wrote a little Diddy on it because I felt like a responsibility to the industry to explain why are people saying POS is dead and is it really dead? What say you?

[00:38:07] That's funny because the first thing that I thought about when the conversation started because I'm a LinkedIn, active LinkedIn viewer. So, I even sometimes contribute there, but I had to step back and think about what the statement meant. So, POS means a few things, we won't mention what that is, but, um, point of sale is what we are talking about.

[00:38:35] Dawn Gillis: Correct?

[00:38:35] Jen Kern: Yes.

[00:38:36] Dawn Gillis: And ever since time I know there has always been a point of sale. So, if we are talking about the concept of a point of sale that can't be dead because we'll always trade. Right? We'll always be getting something and paying something, in some way or form. If in fact POS just means the countertop thing in a four walls restaurant, I would say, and so I'm gonna go down that path, the countertop thing in the four walls is gonna evolve. So, if we're talking about somebody standing behind a physical device and trying to ring a sale for our guest and getting payment in the old method, I think that's what we're seeing evolve. You know, if you, you know, Serena Williams is not retiring, right?

[00:39:31] Or the goat of tennis, she's evolving. It's, it's just like that. You know, the POS is evolving. We, it, we evolve from, you know, the, the cigar box and the receipt, little receipt book. Right? We're evolving. And going back to my comments that I mentioned earlier about video technology, being able to tell what you picked up and then you simply, you know, walking away because biometrics have already know who you are and how you pay. Then the point of sale now becomes a technology that is recording the sale.

[00:40:06] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:08] Dawn Gillis: So, it's just evolving, POS, the point of sale will never go away. The device that sits in a four walls environment likely will evolve.

[00:40:18] Jen Kern: Right. Right. So, if you're thinking of POS as hardware, maybe POS is dying. If you're thinking about it as hardware. If you're looking at the POS as the transaction or the commerce engine that is absolutely not dying. And one of the things, yeah, I mean. 

[00:40:36] Dawn Gillis: Absolutely not dying. It’s evolving. 

[00:40:39] Jen Kern: Evolving, I love that. And I, I love the idea of like, not everything just has a start and stop, beginning, end, like life is about evolution.

[00:40:47] That's about a journey.

[00:40:48] Dawn Gillis: That's right.

[00:40:49] Jen Kern: Yeah. And that's why we talk about reinventing restaurants. It's the evolution.

[00:40:55] Dawn Gillis: That's right. 

[00:40:55] Jen Kern: And the next phase. Yeah.

[00:40:57] Exactly. And, you know, we would love to have our tribe completely focused on making this fabulous food and getting it to as many people as we can as quickly as we can. And that's essentially what we're about. By the way, we are also rolling out the program that allows, fully integrated with our online ordering that allows our guests to be able to pick up their food very quickly.

[00:41:22] Dawn Gillis: So, we are gonna have pickup windows, Freebird's is planning to do that, as well as geofencing technology so that whenever they drive into our space, we'll be able to know they're there and either deliver it to them or have it at the window for them as soon as they pull up. So, the idea is to ensure that we are able to serve as fast as possible so that the food can, that craveable food can be consumed as quickly as possible.

[00:41:49] So, you know, you started this whole conversation asking me the question about how did it fit into our mission. I hope I answered the question.

[00:41:57] Jen Kern: You're answering the question in spades, for sure. So, drive through, yes, or no?

[00:42:03] Not drive through for us because it's make your own pick up window, absolutely. I think we are and it kind of goes back to that conversation about fast casual or quick serve restaurant, right? And this, again, I'm not the expert. We are a restaurant in that we are going to have comfortable, comfortable spaces for our guests to come in, purchase food, sit down and eat.

[00:42:26] Dawn Gillis: We're going to have that, but we truly, strongly believe that we'll continue to see the need to serve our guests on the go. So, we will continue to build our enterprise while adding pickup windows. So, to make it as convenient as possible. But we all know that you can't necessarily always have your restaurant in a space that allows for a pickup window.

[00:42:53] So, we'll have and be able to serve curbside, as well.

[00:42:57] Jen Kern: Right, right. That's awesome. And you've mentioned your growth goals and aggressive growth goals. What do those look like over the next couple years?

[00:43:07] Dawn Gillis: Well, to the extent that I can say, we're adding two more this year. And that will have added a eight to our base, this year alone. And next year we're planning to exceed that.

[00:43:21] Jen Kern: Fantastic. So, you're in Texas now, I know.

[00:43:26] Dawn Gillis: Yes.

[00:43:27] Jen Kern: Are we getting into other states?

[00:43:29] Not yet.

[00:43:31] Jen Kern: Okay. Okay.

[00:43:32] Dawn Gillis: Not yet. We are going to be Texas, Texas focused, for a little while, to build strength.

[00:43:39] Jen Kern: Okay, well, I'd love it for you to work your way to the East Coast because we do not have a ton of great fast casual, Mexican inspired, burrito options here. So, we'd love to work your way over here. One of the things that I love to ask you about and you've implemented so much change and you clearly are on the forefront with, with innovative technologies and thinking about what's next.

[00:44:04] What do you see as some of a common barriers for a restaurant CTO to change? I mean, change is something that, it scares people, right? It's not always the comfortable option, change can be very overwhelming. And we talked about some of the reasons why status quo has carried on for so long in the restaurant industry.

[00:44:23] It's very time and labor intensive to make, not, not only just, you know, your operational changes, your technology changes. Those things typically do end up being really planned out well. But people, you know, can shy away from it, as well. Why do you think that is? What are some of those biggest barriers to change for a restaurant CTO?

[00:44:45] Dawn Gillis: So, I, I look at it from a slightly different perspective. I think it's important that anybody in a leadership position is always slightly uncomfortable with where they are, every day. And if they are, it means they're heading towards change and they're, themselves are evolving. So, from a human perspective, I think that is really critical for a CTO not to get lolled into an area of comfort and not take on the hard questions about how things can get done to serve the business from a technology perspective.

[00:45:30] So, that to me is the number one and most critical, right? The, probably the biggest obstacle for a CTO in restaurants is that the restaurant ownership as a whole has never really, or has been late to the game in embracing technology change or embracing technology at all, in some cases. And a CTO in that environment really needs to be strong enough to take that messaging to the leadership to help them grow and help them understand the importance and help the change. So, I think the biggest obstacle really is about the culture of the restaurant environment in the past, overcoming that and then making sure that you're pushing the envelope on making change in the environment.

[00:46:22] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:23] Dawn Gillis: Obviously, there are a lot, there's a lot that comes behind that to do with, "How do you go about funding this? How do you go about calculating the ROI on it? How do you go about justifying that this is actually going to benefit the growth of a restaurant?" That, you know, in a lot of cases, restaurant chains don't stay around that long.

[00:46:45] Right? So, it's, it's a little difficult, I think, overall to make that argument, but it's so important in today's world.

[00:46:55] Jen Kern: Such a good reminder. Uncomfortability is not always a bad thing.

[00:46:59] Dawn Gillis: It isn't, it isn't, it is a, it is the reason I think that people actually get into that space of innovation.

[00:47:08] Jen Kern: Right. Great reminder. Do you see real estate footprints and sizes within your brand getting smaller? I mean, you talked about the fast casual and you wanting to have a comfortable space for guests to come in and be cozy and get their food their way, their world. Do you see that space shrinking? I mean, that's one trend that we've seen out there.

[00:47:28] What, how's that gonna look for Freebird's?

[00:47:31] Dawn Gillis: I think we'll have multiple options depending on location. I wouldn't say we're going one way or the other, at this point, but I think we're going to be offering options, knowing full well that 40% of our sales are, 38% right now of our sales are online sales. We know that it, at one point it was a 100%.

[00:47:54] That was like one of the most magical things to ever have happened to the technology world. Supporting restaurants was that hundred percent online ordering.

[00:48:04] Jen Kern: The pandemic.

[00:48:06] Dawn Gillis: The pandemic. 

[00:48:06] Jen Kern: The silver linings continue.

[00:48:09] Dawn Gillis: That's right. That was one of the best things that happened to restaurants, but we know it can go up as high as a hundred percent now.

[00:48:15] We know where the maximum is. Right? But I think you need to be prepared to serve on both sides. It will continue to be a powerful count contributor to sales within the restaurant environment. So, you need to think about what that means. And every community is different and I think it behooves a restaurant chain to determine who they serve, where they are and then right size what you're doing for the community.

[00:48:43] Jen Kern: Yeah. Can you give us an idea of how your business is doing? I mean, here we are, you know, I'd say coming a year up on being post in the post-pandemic, pandemic environment. What shifts have you seen in terms of your sales and, and just business growth overall?

[00:49:00] Dawn Gillis: Yeah, I think we did pretty well during the pandemic, as did most quick serve and fast casual restaurants. And we probably just like everybody else got hit with a lot of the supply chain issues.

[00:49:14] Jen Kern: Yeah.

[00:49:14] That, you know, took, took their toll. So, we haven't seen the kind of growth we saw in 2020, 2021, but we are still doing quite well

[00:49:25] relative to our, a 2019 provision.

[00:49:29] Jen Kern: Right. Well, I'm glad to hear that. And, hopefully, you're not running out of avocados. Are you having an issue getting avocados?

[00:49:35] Dawn Gillis: No.

[00:49:36] Jen Kern: Okay, good. Because just today, some folks in our office went to a small Mexican chain. I'm not gonna say the name of it, it's probably a competitor, starts with a C and for the second time in two weeks did not have guacamole.

[00:49:51] Dawn Gillis: Ah.

[00:49:52] Jen Kern: Ah.

[00:49:52] Dawn Gillis: It, it happens. It happens and I don't wish it on any restaurant brand. But, hey. I understand. Supply chain issues are abundant and we are affected just like everybody else. However, we have done everything possible to work with our local distributors to make sure we have contingencies and we probably have a leg up because we're just in Texas

[00:50:20] and it gives us a little bit more flexibility. But yeah, we're doing pretty good in, in that manner. And we have a, a great supply chain manager, so.

[00:50:30] Jen Kern: Oh, fantastic. Well, I was thinking maybe in Texas, you have a little leg up on the avocados, but there's just nothing that beats a good guacamole when you're in the mood for a good guacamole.

[00:50:39] Dawn Gillis: There's, that is so true. I am a huge fan.

[00:50:41] Jen Kern: And then, you, you get turned away and it's like, there's a grocery store on that corner and there's a grocery store on that corner and there's a grocery store.

[00:50:49] Okay. I, I, I've digressed. I bet I can find an avocado and then I end up making my own. Well, Dawn, I really appreciate your time here today and, and sharing your journey with us on the whole Freebird's technology refresh. My hat's off to you and getting all that done, which just, I know the amount of work that has gone into it, in less than a year.

[00:51:11] Wish you all the best. As we close, any parting thoughts or advice for maybe, like, a new CTO coming into the space or someone coming from outside the industry?

[00:51:22] Dawn Gillis: Oh, I, I would say, at this point, be fearless. It's wide open and there is so much more ahead of us, especially as the technologies evolved to serve people. That's one of the things that delights me the most, is that we really do now see the convergence of a lot of technology advancements in the past 30 years.

[00:51:46] And it is just a thrill to me to think that you could string together a set of software solutions that can meet your needs by just simply partnering with, with other, with vendors, across the board. And I, I just, I think be fearless. There's nothing but great things ahead. You might fail, but be undaunted, just keep going, make the change.

[00:52:13] Jen Kern: Fail forward fast. Go for it.

[00:52:16] Dawn Gillis: That’s right. Mm-hmm.

[00:52:17] Jen Kern: Well, thanks again for your time here today. I wish you and Freebird's all the best. I know I'm gonna get to see you soon, that's gonna be a big treat for me, but for all of our guests who maybe not get a chance to see you soon, where can they find you or contact you?

[00:52:30] Dawn Gillis: Oh, I'm on LinkedIn.

[00:52:31] Jen Kern: LinkedIn, baby, Dawn Gillis.

[00:52:34] Dawn Gillis: That's right. Exactly.

[00:52:36] Jen Kern: Fantastic. Well, thank you for being such a strong advocate for reinventing restaurants and thank you for all the hard work and the professionalism that you've brought to our industry as a fantastic female CTO.

[00:52:47] Dawn Gillis: Oh, thank you so much, Jen.

[00:52:49] Great, great podcast. 

[00:52:51] Jen Kern: Thank you.