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Transforming Restaurant Operations with Rocket Box: A Deep Dive with Ross

• Erika Rivas

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In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, Jeremy Julian hosts Ross, the founder of Rocket Box, a company that revolutionizes third-party delivery and kitchen synchronization. Ross shares his inspiring journey from running a family pizzeria to founding a technology company aimed at solving inefficiencies in restaurant operations. They delve into the innovative ways Rocket Box integrates with POS systems, manages delivery orders, and addresses critical issues in order timing and synchronization. Ross also discusses the company's global approach, including multi-language support and future plans for enhanced reporting and guest communication.

00:00 Rocket Box

00:14 Introduction and Welcome

01:19 Ross's Background and Journey into Tech

03:35 The Birth of Rocket Box

07:11 Challenges in Restaurant Operations

14:48 Rocket Box Solutions and Features

22:09 Global Reach and Multi-Language Support

29:49 Future Plans and How to Connect

31:02 Conclusion and Farewell

Speaker:

This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.

In today's episode, I am joined by the founder of Rocket Box, and I had actually never heard of them until he reached out to be on the show and I was blown away with what he and his team have been building. They really are taking a different approach to third party delivery and the way that it integrates back with the core systems of point of sale, he really dug in and lived in the trenches in a bunch of different restaurants to try and understand what it was gonna take to make this process better for the operators. And he is really. Looking to expand his reach in North America. He's got some really innovative ways that take a different approach than what most have. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I'm the Chief Revenue Officer for CBS Northstar. We sell the North Star point of sale product for multi-units. Please check us out@cbsnorthstar.com and now onto the episode.

Jeremy Julian:

Welcome back to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us, as I say each and every time. and I appreciate you guys spending time with us each week where I get to talk to some tech founders and some people that are doing some really cool stuff. And today is no exception. Ross. I love, I'd love for you to share a little bit about your background, who Ross is prior to jumping into your latest project.'cause I am quite excited to hear about, what you guys have been building most. Most lately. But I also know that, this isn't your first foray into, into tech or into any of these kind of things. So why don't you give everybody a little bit of background on who

Ross Cronin:

Yeah. I guess it started off when I was about 14 years old. My dad opened his first pizzeria. I initially started off, delivering some leaflets door to door. after myself and my brother finished, we got to go back, behind the scenes of the kitchen. we get our pizza, and I got to see the chefs worked their magic. I think after about, three weeks, I bothered my dad enough that he agreed to. To let me get into the kitchen and I started off on bases, got onto toppings, work in the oven, by the time I was 18 years old I was running the show. and then we, expanded into multi-locations. So we went to four stores, then started to franchise, got up to 18 stores, got up to 43 stores, And yeah, basically while I was studying, my business degree, we were opening up franchises, left, right and center, got up to 43 locations. And then, essentially my dad sold the business to Yum and he got outta the restaurant game. And that's when I got involved in restaurant technology. So I guess it was started off by, reselling, US technology, for online ordering. ran into some kind of. Consistent, problems with the tech. it made the tough decision to go out. Find my own team, and to build our own product essentially. So we did that, about eight years ago, launched menu.com, which is white label online ordering. and, been doing that for a number of years up until the point where I. I guess, we then, I came across another problem, which is that, there is no synchronization in the kitchen between, the preparation of orders and delivery drivers and, I'm still in the restaurant business. and, I found a problem that needed a solution and decided. I was gonna build some technology, using the experience that I've gained over the years, both in the restaurant game and also, on the technology side of things. So I think it's a great match and, we've done a great job so far, in, bringing a great product together.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, no, and I'm excited. and my favorite episodes are those that, people are scratching a niche that they had or that they, there's a problem that they saw out in the space. And so your latest project, for those that are on video, you can see it on your, on your jacket, but, rocket Box, why don't you talk us through a little bit about what Rocket Box. Is before we dig into kind of how did you get to that place because, it is definitely an interesting origin story as to how how you've con continued to see this problem and then work to solve it.

Ross Cronin:

I guess it started off when I'm standing in one of my own kitchens and I'm looking at a fleet of delivery drivers, that are waiting for orders to be prepared. Then I look at the kitchen and I see right beside the oven there's a bunch of orders prepared. But for some reason, none of those orders are for the drivers that are waiting, and the drivers are waiting for the orders that are over on the other side. And I'm looking at them going, they haven't made the orders yet. Okay. what if the orders were changed around in the kitchen so that driver was able to come in, pick up their food, and, and leave. So what I started to do was, I started to do it manually. So I was walking around with these machines in my hand, and I had tickets in the restaurant. And I would literally, when there was a status update, I would just move the stuff around. and I noticed that the efficiency of the restaurant and the stress levels of the restaurant just went down. so then what we did was is okay, we, one step farther. we built, the prototype, we put it into the restaurant, we tested the daylights out of it, and yeah, basically. ended up, building, a great product that, that, I guess it was time to start to share with the world. the idea of it is that, as orders come in, we are, monitoring the contents of the orders. We're monitoring the, sources of the order, so all the different channels. in some cases, there can be manual rules set by the. By the restaurant, for pickups or delivery orders or, dining orders, that sort of thing. we monitor all of the orders, with the delivery channels so we know, what driver's been assigned, how many orders he's due to take up, what's his ETA? Oh, he's been taken off the order. Another driver's been put on what's his ETA and essentially in the simplest form, the chef is just looking at a KDS like he normally would. And he's just told what order to make and when he's told not to make orders, and he's told, okay, now you can make these orders, future orders come in. They can look at them, they can get them outta their view, and then they'll automatically pop back into the screen at the right time when they're supposed to be made. yeah, I guess in, in, its, in its simplicity, it's about monitoring, all of the different sources of the orders and then, making sure that the right orders made at the right time.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. No, and I love that, that you guys are working this Ross.'cause I think, your example of walking around and seeing a bunch of delivery drivers and seeing a bunch of orders that aren't completed, but a bunch of orders that aren't completed without delivery drivers for them is huge. before I get too far ahead of myself. those that are listening and or watching, probably hear the accent. and then your first reference is Deliveroo. And up until a couple of months ago, probably in the states, nobody knew what Deliveroo was. But why don't you just break down a little bit about where you've been building this as you're coming stateside.

Ross Cronin:

Yeah. we are based in Dogpatch Labs, which is in Dublin City Center. you can see me, my background is not fake. This is one of the vault areas of the, old building. I think it was an old warehouse where they used to, store alcohol, once it got shipped off the ship. So we're in the very heart of Dublin City Center right now. although we're a Dublin based, tech company, our focus is primarily on the US market.

Jeremy Julian:

I love it.'cause, again, up until, the, DoorDash, Deliveroo, merger, I didn't even know what Deliveroo was and I'm like, oh, that's, and again, some of our US based listeners that might have missed that press release might, I didn't even have known that. And so I wanted to just make sure I catch people up that, that's kinda where you guys had started and where, Where the accent came from, but really you guys are solving that problem. Dig in a little bit deeper, Ross, to the problem because why is it that there's such a divide between the third party delivery service providers and the kitchen? Automation. you talked about the problem that you saw and then you started to solve manually. But walk me through why aren't those things connected and why is it so hard to manage timing and really even prioritization of the orders that are coming and going from the kitchen? Because I think, it's a huge problem. And I would say in the top three when I talk to our own clients. About understanding, how do I inform the guests? How do I inform the delivery drivers of these things? It, staffing is a problem and making sure that they're doing this, but, order accuracy. And then this would be one of the top three problems when I'm talking to restaurant executives that they bring up is being able to inform my guests and really the delivery drivers on what's going on is a huge piece. Why do you think that's the case?

Ross Cronin:

if you think about it, traditional systems are really dealing with orders in a first come, first serve basis, FIFO. Okay? So in, in and Out. Now that doesn't really work in an environment where delivery drivers are essentially arriving and collecting orders outta sequence. then you have the, different channels, whether it's DoorDash, GrubHub, whoever. they all have their own individual applications, but no one's really brought it together. from a kitchen sense, you have companies like Olo and Direct, bringing the orders into the POS, but once they get into the POS, you've got a traditional P-O-S-K-D-S that doesn't necessarily have all of this additional functionality, in terms of prioritization. what's the alternative then? So you've got all of these orders, that are lying there either in virtual or physical tickets. and, one of the only ways to actually manage this process is literally by grabbing the tablets and staring at them. And as orders are updated then to, change your making order. But that's very difficult. we're hiring chefs, not logistical managers. you know what we. what we're looking for is, a tool to be able to pull all of this information together. Give me all of my orders in one place. Now, tell me when to make each one of them so that they're all on time. The busier we get, we need, we need a system to be able to help with the thinking process. if you think about how long it takes to train a staff member up, and what happens if you lose staff members, now you've gotta hire, a new logistics manager to, to organize these orders. so yeah, I think in reality. the current systems that are out there are just not built for delivery. And I guess, that comes. right back to where I came from, which is the pizza delivery business. so I've always thought and relate back to that kind of operation and seeing, how can we, how can we make things a little easier for the chefs? at the end of the day, I. They don't wanna have to move tickets around and, trying to work out what order to make next. Oh, let's wait till the driver arrives and then make it, now we're creating delays. Those delays are passed on to the customer. you know that driver

Jeremy Julian:

besides the fact that some of these delivery service providers will charge you more if you're making their delivery drivers sit and wait, at least in the state side, I don't know how it is in, in, in, in Ireland, but I know for sure here in the states if they have to wait too long, sometimes they'll just abandon altogether and sometimes they'll have to, sometimes they end up charging the restaurant back if they're, if they're delayed

Ross Cronin:

yeah. I mean there's a number of drawbacks to that. The first of all is if the driver can just drop the order and then now the platform has to go and find you another driver when you just had one. and then, if you then go, okay, Now I might be, if you constantly do that, you're not necessarily gonna be prioritized by the platform because of these constant delays, I think the stores or the businesses that have, solid operations are the ones that will be prioritized drivers ahead of those who aren't. because they know that if they send orders to your business, that it's gonna be, ready, there's gonna be minimal amount of wait time, and then they can keep their drivers running and running. They're, if they're all dealing with their own challenges, and they need their drivers to be as productive as possible, within that hour, you know that he's working. it'll kill them if drivers can only do two deliveries an hour because the restaurants, don't have their act together operationally.

Jeremy Julian:

Yep. and Ross, talk me through how you guys are managing in-store orders.'cause that, in pizza delivery, large percentage of pizzas are delivered, in certain types of environments, but in a casual dining environment. you've got different channels, you've got walk-ins, you've got phone orders, you've got delivery orders, you've got in-person orders in the dining room. Managing all of that is, takes a degree in physics and lots of different logarithms that have to manage that because you want to make sure that you take care of your guests and in-house as well as the walk-ins as well as your third

Ross Cronin:

You know what? That's not the most complicated part. Okay? order. Order. They're just order sources at the end of the day. Okay? The complicated part is, having a flexible enough solu solution out there that's gonna fit into certain types of business models and their floats. do they need service? based, routing of orders? deliveries. Go over here, dins, go over there. Do they need station, routing. Where grill, pizza, drinks, all that sort of stuff needs to get split up. I find that the complexities are actually in splitting everything up across a business and then bringing it back together again. but the trick being, that preparation is synchronized in a way that everything can be ready at the same time. So if you've got a steak that takes 20 minutes and then you've got french fries, that takes two and a half, based on how busy that station is. the system will then determine when it should be fired. what the ETA of the order is what's most important. so if you set rules, like I want, first courses to be, served within 15 minutes, I want second courses to be served within 30 minutes. you program those rules in. All of the orders go into the system and it will basically still, fire the orders at the right times, the right products to the right stations, and make sure that the orders are made on time as much as possible. Obviously, with high volume there, there could be delays, but the system is supposed to anticipate this and, and, prioritize it as best as possible.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. and the other thing that I like to talk to people about, and I know that this doesn't, often get thought about is this menu mix. when I talk to certain brands, they're really heavy in salads. salads take less time than steaks, right? They just do, there's nothing you can say that salads take less time than steaks. And so if you're heavy salads, your pantry station is gonna be working. I'm turning orders faster and, but if I'm a steak heavy, brand and my grill might be a lot, a lot heavier, does that go into effect as far as what, whatever your channels are, like you said.

Ross Cronin:

I think, look, every single order, has an ETA, whether it's by product or by the whole order by itself, in, in the case of delivery, everything must be ready by a specific time. In the case of dine in, you break that down into multiple ets and you just, and again, some of these rules. are purely based on what the restaurant, configures in the control panel. So they set the rules and then the system will operate using AI in order to make sure that, the right order's made at the right time.

Jeremy Julian:

I love it. we're 15 minutes in. We finally hit the word ai. There's been no shows in 2025 that have gone on without having AI at least mentioned in the first 30 minutes of the show. So thank you for that. you're keeping my streak alive, Ross. talk me through what, so we've defined the problem. We know that it's a huge issue. We know that it's gotta be on the top two or three issues for all brands, is ensuring that they are by channel, not only. Delivering food that's hot and fresh, but communicating that back out to, whether it's the DSPs or any of those kind of things, and even their staff and figuring out how to, how do we manage it?'cause that's the other thing I'd love to talk through, but why don't we, why don't we leap over to now we, we know what the problem is. How is Rocket Box uniquely solving this challenge? what are you guys tackling first and where are you guys at on this journey of really trying to solve these

Ross Cronin:

That's a good question. It's quite interesting because a lot of the feedback that we're getting is from operators, operators of all sizes. we're, we have had the, fortune of meeting a lot of great operators who are, who are donating the time, to answering all of our annoying questions. what we are doing is really going in there and going, okay, so you might be using, a po s's KDS and it's like, all right. And a lot of the times it doesn't take too much pressing to find out, what does this key s not do that you'd like it to do? You ask 10 people and all of a sudden the same things start popping up. so in reality, our niche is that we're, focusing on some of the more complex scenarios that a standard KDS, doesn't do. So that's really where we've tried to focus, our time on and really trying to understand the needs of the business, to understand. why they think they need it, is it the best option? And and really what we've done is this, I'll give you one example. We were at the Food on Demand Show in Vegas, and we met with about 25 different operators. We have, stayed in touch with many of those operators. They've been great with, meeting with us, talking through functionality. but I would say that from that, that one show and the operators that we met, we've already started to, release functionality. That is based on feedback from that show. and I expect that actually a hundred percent of the feedback that we got and that we decided to move ahead with is gonna be built probably within the next four weeks and released. it, it's all about the operators. It's all about the operators and what they need, so I'm not gonna tell them what we do. It's gonna be what do you need? Tell me why. Let's talk through it. understand it. because, at the end of the day, like I said, you've got all the different channels, that's fine. You take them in and then we've gotta find out a way to prioritize them. Great. But then we need to fit that into your kitchen. and, oh, you've multiple kitchens. Oh, you want order throttling between the kitchens. You want delivery orders going over to kitchen B when it's open. Do you want a way to be able to, to open and close kitchen b And when you do that, when you close it, it all orders get rerouted automatically to a, this is all the stuff that we're building with the operators. So it's all.

Jeremy Julian:

I was having dinner with, one of the former operators from Chipotle and they'd had the whole kitchen, a kitchen b at Chipotle when they were, when, before they got mass adoption of stores where there's a store on, feels like every other corner here in the States. they were at a place where they were so busy with digital orders and even going back to faxing, he said they would do exactly that. But then on a low Tuesday afternoon at three o'clock, you don't need both kitchens. So everything goes to the front line. But, I love that idea that says, how do, how do you smart route those things based on those kitchens? Are you guys even doing it inner chain, where, at certain chains they're more efficient in certain areas because of the layout or product mix or any of those kind of things? Or is it overlaid and I'm not judging as much as just trying to understand how deep you guys are going to help operators get to that

Ross Cronin:

I would say going super deep. Yeah. I, like I did with Menu, I built an extremely, flexible platform that, you know. met the needs of our customers. obviously development priorities are based on, how many customers are gonna need a particular function, but then, you have the bigger customers that have specific requirements and you have to go there too. we're very much a, a customer driven, development pipeline. So the more

Jeremy Julian:

to con confirm,

Ross Cronin:

go. You go ahead. You go ahead.

Jeremy Julian:

I was gonna say, just to confirm, so are you guys going into existing implementations and replacing their KDS? just walk me through that.'cause you talked a lot about the data and evaluating the data, but I'm assuming it's also the screens that the chef is seeing on what to prepare when and all of the data that's above it to make better business decisions. Is that

Ross Cronin:

Yes it is. Yeah. yeah, basically it, it depends because in, in some cases they are totally doing a rip and replace and they're putting in a new POS and we're Coming in as part of that new package, in other, in other ways. They're currently using a POS, they're using the KDS, but they were unhappy with the functionality. We're working with that KDS partner in order to, to basically retrofit our solution in, into their existing, into their existing operation. So we're pause agnostic. We don't really mind which pause you use. and that's the way we'd like to try and keep things and like we see ourselves as a compliment to the POS if your POS does not have, if your KDS doesn't have all of the functionality that your customer needs, at least you have the ability to bring someone like us in that we'll be able to fill that gap.

Jeremy Julian:

I love that. I'm gonna flip back over to pizza'cause I was just at, ec, a multiunit restaurant, tech show earlier this year and I got to hear the, the guy that was, That was on the Domino's Pizza Tracker, project. And he talked about that. And as a guest, I know that's a big thing that people are looking to get to. Talk me through where Rocket Boxes are on that journey. you've got the operators, you've been working really tightly with the operators, but now it comes down to the guests. The guests want to know. Amazon tells me. That the package is nine stops away, and then it's eight stops away, and then it's seven stops away. And I think in general, in food service, a lot of people are wanting to get to that place. And I think Domino's has set the standard in that regard. help me understand how Rocket Box is, where they're at on that journey.

Ross Cronin:

I guess we, we log absolutely everything, from the second that an order comes into the restaurant, even way past the. The handover to the driver, we continue to track until that order has been delivered. so every single touch point along the way, is recorded by the system. So that we can then take that data, use it, for that person's next order. We know if someone got a late order, ideally we'll like to know if they complained, later so we can try and do some service recovery. There's a lot of opportunity with having this information, at your disposal. but yeah, I think the main thing is that we capture everything and it was, intentional from day one that we wanted to be able to, capture all of the data. Then ultimately figure out, how does it need to be used? Do we need to send an SMS message to the customer to let them know their order's ready for pickup? we already, tell the platforms, Hey, the order's ready for your driver to collect and that sort of thing. I think that there is gonna be an evolution. and I guess also from our side, it's how much of it do we do versus how much of it do we hand over to the individual platforms to handle themselves? we work with, the third party delivery. we also work with, first party online ordering companies. and then you've got the POS itself. I think that, I think

Jeremy Julian:

lot of work that you guys put into to building that ecosystem,

Ross Cronin:

Yeah, exactly. look, it is. And I guess you could say that the last eight years of building, another platform, certainly gets you, all of the knowledge that you need in order to do something like rock box, but do it really well. I think if I didn't have those, 25 plus years of pizza delivery under the belt and that it would be a difficult job to do something like this.'cause essentially. What I'm doing is, jumping into people's kitchens, analyzing their operations, understanding their wants, but also then presenting them with, with the options that are available and in some cases then discussing what sort of custom development might be required in order to get them, that extra 10% that they're looking for.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. two more things on the product side, Ross.'cause you've talked a lot about what you guys do. and it was in the bio that, your team sent over multi-language. that blew me away.'cause again, dumb American, what's the joke? talk to me about some of the, I dunno. I'll tell you the joke. It's, somebody said this joke to me, what do you say, somebody that speaks two languages, bilingual, what do you say that somebody speaks, three languages, trilingual. What do you say? That somebody speaks one language in American? Because in America we only speak English. And so with that, the fact that you guys have got over 15 languages built into the product is blows me away. help me understand how did that even come about and how do you manage that?'cause

Ross Cronin:

okay, so first of all, your restaurant may be in the US but that doesn't mean that is the, English is the first, language of the chef who's making the food. like there's a few things. So the first thing is we take the language of the country that the restaurant is in, let's call it English. So everything that prints from the kitchen and stuff like that. So we handle all of the printing side of things as well. That's not done by the POS. all the receipts will be printed in English, however, the screen, that's there, you can basically toggle it from French to German to Mandarin to Arabic if you want. all within seconds. And it's really just about, making it comfortable for the chefs that are working, on, so that, they. You have to recognize that, the people who are in these kitchens aren't necessarily first language English. So we needed to make it as flexible as we can. Also, we, we have built this platform, from a global perspective. So if somebody wants this, in the UAE, they can have it in Arabic, they can have it in English if you want to deploy it in the Netherlands. there's your Dutch. so it was important for us. at the end of the day, language is, it's not that difficult to do these days, as it used to be. but yeah, I, we're starting off at 15, but actually, we'll be probably adding, whether another maybe 10 to 15 languages. We'll stop at around 30 and then we'll add them, on a demand basis. If there's a demand for more languages, then we'll add them on. But we thought 15 is a pretty good coverage to start with.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, it's incredible and most products that, that are getting into the space, and again, not that you guys are brand new in this space, but you guys are relatively young. Don't start there. So I love that, that.

Ross Cronin:

Yeah, I think it comes to, look, we are, we're, being in Dublin, we're European. we have all of the benefit of traveling to Italy, to Portugal, all these sort of places and, we've respect and awareness that language is a key piece. All of our developers are actually based in SoFi. yeah, look, we've built it international from day one. I think investors will like that too.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah. No, I love that. last thing on the product side, Ross, you guys built, so you talked a lot about kind of internal to the store, internal to what goes on operationally. Talked a little bit about the guest journey. Talk to me a little bit about the above store reporting, master agent level, for lack of a better term, content management and reporting above store. being able to see that from a corporate level or even from wherever I am in the world, is a critical piece to whether you talk about guest recovery or operational efficiencies or any of those kind of things. So I'd love to have you talk a little bit about what you guys built there as well.

Ross Cronin:

there's a lot we can do with it. I think what we have at the moment is, I would say is fairly basic in terms of the dashboard reporting. We have, individual loca, we have individual order reporting, location reporting. Brand reporting. you can even technically have multiple brands if you have, multiple brands under your umbrella, all of that. there we also have an API, so you'd be able to pull all of the data into your own business intelligence platform too. in, in terms of the, we're very much focused on the operational side of things at the moment. but. the reporting side of things is an area that I am, I'm quite interested in getting into, but I would say we need more data to be able to really focus on that as a next steps. But in the meantime, the API helps businesses to connect to their existing platforms and take the data that they want.

Jeremy Julian:

and I could see it also as a guest recovery tool. It's having to dial in, log to deliver, act to, log into any of these systems to go figure out these things. It's just, it's extra work. So now being able to see that from a high level and being able to manage it is really

Ross Cronin:

it's, it's gonna be very helpful. if you have, some sort of a dispute that you'd be able to just, Hey, which system do I log into? Hey, let's go in, into Rocket Box. Let's look at that particular order. I see the order coming in. I see it on the prep station. I see it was bumped here. I see it when it went into the oven. I see what time, it, got picked up by the driver. Dropped off by the driver. you're right.

Jeremy Julian:

No, I can see that being a huge operational, even going back to operations.

Ross Cronin:

theory, the more restaurants that also use Rocket Box, the better because then we'll actually have, More information about all the orders that run through the platform, not just, from that particular brand or restaurant. we'll, when we're talking about our kind of logistical side, if we have a, let's call it, an area where all hundred restaurants are using Rocket Box, now we are able to orchestrate scenarios where, where we are operationally, making. Restaurant a, and restaurant B'S orders synchronize in terms of, okay, there's a distance between this at three minutes, make this order, three minutes now fire that order so that it can be ready in the second restaurant. there's a lot that can be done with this in terms of a network effect and the more restaurants that used Rocka box, the more information it has at hand to be able to, to prioritize the orders appropriately.

Jeremy Julian:

and I think it's amazing,'cause you guys are one of the first ones that I've seen that kind of started from the external orders to build, to help automate some of the kitchen. Whereas most of the systems Started in-house, whether that's A-P-O-S-K-D-S or any of the KDS solutions that are out there, you guys said, my big challenge is all of these, multiple channels, how do I manage them and then back backfill and integrate into the POS. So I love that

Ross Cronin:

Yeah, unfortunately can't, you still can't ignore, some of the kind of dining, in requests, coursing and things like that, but that, yeah. We're doing things from back to front.

Jeremy Julian:

it's just, it's, because again, most of the solutions out there that you guys are in competing with, were created when delivery didn't even really exist other than in a

Ross Cronin:

APIs didn't exist.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ross Cronin:

Yeah. go.

Jeremy Julian:

I was just gonna say, so Russ, something that's been weighing on my mind since you brought it up earlier, what's been harder building out a restaurant brand and growing a restaurant brand or building out a tech brand and continuing to grow it? think back in your history and think

Ross Cronin:

think you should you ask me that question again in 25 years? I know which, I still own restaurants and I still have a huge passion for it. and nothing more than a restaurant that just nails the operations on a Friday night. there's a lot of satisfaction that I get out from knowing that shift ran really smooth. but at the end of the day, I also, Love building software. love solving problems. I love taking on challenges. when someone says something is difficult from a software perspective, I like to bring it to my team and break it down and, come up with some clever ways to do things. fortunately, the team that I have, we've been working together for over eight years. and, I think that is, a huge help. that we're able to take all of these problems and, and really just break them down and get them built.

Jeremy Julian:

I love that. and again, you're unique in that regard'cause you started in restaurants building, with your family business and then, you still operate restaurants, but now you're on the tech side. And anybody that I know that's, traversed

Ross Cronin:

Which one do I like,

Jeremy Julian:

they're both hard.

Ross Cronin:

they're both hard in their own way. and I would say running the restaurants is harder. it's harder, the intensity of it.

Jeremy Julian:

and the urgency of it. Yeah. No, and, I love that, that answer. So thanks for sharing. How would people learn more? How do people get in touch? How do people, what would next steps look like? Run more if they wanted to. They sat and listened. They're like, we love this. We need to talk. We, we have the problem that he is solving for.

Ross Cronin:

Yeah, I think the best thing to do would be, I head to our website and we've got a link there for getting started. I can post it here if you want. where do I chat here? So there's the link there. I.

Jeremy Julian:

bottom right hand corner.

Ross Cronin:

Rocket Box io slash get started. fill that out. you'll be able to book a time slot with one of the guys and they'll be able to, run through your requirements, see if there's a good fit. And, yeah, we can take it from there.

Jeremy Julian:

I love it. I know you're coming to the States for a couple of shows coming up this, later this year. you wanna throw out, I know, I know there's one in July, one in, one in August, I don't know exactly. Or one in September I think. what shows will you be here if people,

Ross Cronin:

so we'll be at, we'll be at retail now. retail now predominantly looking for some resellers. and then after that we'll be at FS Tech. and then after that we'll be at the Fast Casual Executive Summit. now I'm sure there's more that I've haven't mentioned, but, those are the ones that come to mind right now. But yeah, basically we'll be actively, on the scene and making it to as many shows as we can.

Jeremy Julian:

Well, Ross, I'm grateful that, people like you exist in the world. I truly do love talking to founders that have, have built a product that solves something that, that really they saw as a huge piece because they have a different lens by which they solve the problem because they're looking at it and saying, you know what? I see this problem. The fact that you even walked around with the tablets manually to solve this problem

Ross Cronin:

they were calling me Ross at Box. They were calling me Uck'cause they knew I was building it, but it wasn't, it wasn't live. And I was trying to get familiar with the process and, so they'd be able to spot things that are wrong. So I was standing there, with, holding four or five tablets going around and then I replaced me with a screen.

Jeremy Julian:

Yeah, no. And, we'll have to, put that in the show notes, Ross at Box, the in inception of Rocket Box. But, but I love that. And again, those are

Ross Cronin:

that was the, the real MVP.

Jeremy Julian:

yeah, no, I love that. thank you for creating the solution. thanks for coming on and sharing your story. To our listeners, guys, we know that you guys have got lots of choices, so thanks for hanging out with us. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, please do so on your favorite, listening platform and, make it a great day.

Ross Cronin:

Thanks.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Visit restaurant technology guys.com for tips, industry insights, and more to help you run your restaurant better.

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