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Explore the full 2023 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 540 organizations that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact across 54 categories, including artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, gaming, and more.
This year’s standout companies tackled some of the most nagging problems facing restaurants and their customers, three years after COVID-19 upended the industry, forever changing how we eat.
Several companies worked to streamline restaurants’ operations without eating into their already low profit margins. Tablz, which allows restaurants to offer variable reservation pricing depending on the location of the tables and the reservation time, opens up a new revenue stream for restaurants. Olo, which helps restaurants offer ordering and delivery services, launched Olo Pay. The service saves customer payment methods, letting them easily pay for orders from any restaurant on the Olo platform. Similarly, Toast launched a service that lets customers and servers start a tab at their table, so that diners can order more food without waiting for a waiter. They also launched a service that lets customers order and pay from their phone or via kiosks.
Pizza chain Domino’s incorporated technology in its marketing efforts, creating a cheeky feature that tips those who order their pizza. The company also launched a Stranger Things–inspired “mind ordering” function leveraging facial recognition and eye-tracking technology. Popmenu also uses technology to bring restaurant menus to life, turning the actual menu into an e-commerce opportunity. Its new service, Popmenu Max, lets restaurateurs overhaul their website and menu and provides ordering and marketing tools. It also gives them access to an AI-powered phone answering service that can field calls from customers. In China, Yum Brands created an all-new app designed to make the ordering process easier for older users.
On the mechanical side, Flytrex is being recognized for clearing the airways for drone-delivered meals, working with state and federal agencies on regulation. Miso Robotics launched new robots that can help restaurant chains automate their cooking, including “Chippy,” a robot that fries tortilla chips at Chipotle; Sippy, an automatic beverage dispenser used at Jack in The Box; and CookRight, a coffee machine.
Read on for more details about the companies that are reshaping how it feels—and tastes—to dine in 2023.
1. OLO
For helping restaurants organize different ordering platforms under one roof
Olo runs the backend digital ordering and delivery programs for some 600 restaurant brands with a combined 87,000 locations. It consolidates orders that come from a variety of digital channels onto restaurants’ point-of-sale (POS) systems, allowing restaurants to manage orders in one place. It also ensures that any updates that restaurants make to menu items and pricing via their POS systems get transmitted across all digital ordering platforms. In 2022, the company launched an online payments solution, called Olo Pay, designed to upend the way restaurants process payments while significantly expanding the reach of Olo’s restaurant brand partners. The feature lets customers who order from restaurants’ own digital platforms save their payment information details, enabling faster future checkouts. Olo is now expanding that capability to allow customers one-click checkout across Olo’s entire ecosystem of restaurant websites and POS systems, which touch some 85 million diners. The feature is similar to Shopify’s game-changing ShopPay solution for retailers, which has allowed shoppers to use a single saved payment across the company’s extensive network of independent stores. In 2022, Olo generated $184.5 million in revenue, a 24% increase year over year. Virtual Dining Concepts, the parent company which operates MrBeast Burger among other delivery-only brands, introduced Olo Pay at all of its 3,000-plus virtual restaurants during the fourth quarter of 2022. During the second half of last year, the company added Smashburger (200 locations), Ruby Tuesday (200 locations), Zaxby’s (900 locations), and Captain D’s (550 locations) to its growing list of customers.
2. TOAST
For keeping restaurants nimble, fast, and responsive
Toast, a point-of-sale system for restaurants, became vital during the pandemic, allowing some 74,000 restaurants to offer customers QR code menus and let them browse and pay for meals through their phones. Now Toast is helping restaurants remain nimble in the face of labor shortages and rising costs. In 2022, the company released a new feature that allows both customers and servers to start and add to a restaurant tab, so diners can place an order without waiting for table-side help. Toast also allows restaurant owners to customize their digital menus based on a table’s location (indoor or outdoor, for example), enabling them to easily test new prices and seating combinations. In April 2022, Toast also launched Toast for Quick Service, a hardware and software solution to help fast-food restaurants serve more customers in less time, generating revenue more efficiently. The new and upgraded features for quick-service restaurants include mobile order and pay, kiosks, and an app for mobile ordering. These new products and features helped Toast grow revenue 60% year over year, to $2.7 billion, and grow to approximately 79,000 locations, an increase from 2021 of about 40%.
3. MISO ROBOTICS
For integrating robots into the kitchen
Miso Robotics has created some of the only restaurant-robot experiences that actually work. Two years ago, White Castle rolled out Flippy, the company’s burger-flipping robot, at a couple locations. In 2022, Miso Robotics launched Flippy 2, greatly expanding the abilities of the original robot. This model can fry frozen ingredients and place ready-to-serve food on a tray while juggling different recipes. Today, it’s being used at 100 restaurant locations, including outposts of White Castle, Wing Zone, and Jack in the Box. Miso has also recently launched a handful of additional restaurant robots including “Chippy,” a robot that fries tortilla chips at select Chipotle locations; Sippy, an automatic beverage dispenser, used at Jack in The Box; and an AI-powered CookRight coffee machine, designed to monitor data to deliver perfectly made cups to customers. CookRight is currently being piloted at Panera.
4. YUM CHINA
For a food-ordering app that caters to older users
In 2021, a new KFC opened every four hours—and a staggering 40% of the new 4,180 locations were in China. But KFC’s app in China, where fans can order food, collect loyalty points, and organize catering, among other offerings, sometimes left a key demographic behind: older users. So in 2022, parent company Yum China rolled out a new version of the app that’s explicitly designed for customers over 50. The app, the first of its kind in the fast-food business, streamlines the ordering process, reduces pop-up advertising and other interruptions, and recommends meals based on the user’s previous orders. The retention rate for the new app is 70%, and monthly active users reached 50,000 users within three months of launching. In the fourth quarter of 2022, digital orders, including those via mobile devices, made up about 90% of KFC and Pizza Hut’s sales.
5. CHAIN
For putting a delicious spin on chain restaurant cuisine
In 2020, actor and director BJ Novak and Michelin-starred chef Tim Hollingsworth launched Chain as a delivery-only pop-up restaurant that serves gourmet versions of chain restaurant classics. In 2022, they expanded into physical pop-ups around Los Angeles. One location of the wildly popular pop-up restaurant looks like a bungalow on a residential street, but once guests—who receive a text alert when a reservation opens up—enter the kitschy lobby, they check in and wait to receive souped-up versions of classics like Outback Steakhouse’s Bloomin’ Onion or McDonald’s McRib but made with Snake River Farms ribs and Pappy Van Winkle BBQ sauce. Creating the dishes requires some ingenuity from the kitchen: The team has to avoid crossing any fast-food legal departments by copying dishes too closely. In 2022, Chain also began actually collaborating with well-known brands. After Novak messaged national chain Chili’s, the company provided them with some branding and recipes to riff on. The result? A gourmet version of the Chili’s Southwestern Egg Rolls dusted with a custom blend of spices. In July, Taco Bell reached out to Chain and partnered with the restaurant to offer “Fire Tier” members of its rewards program a Hollingsworth riff on its Crunchwrap Supreme—this one made with wagyu beef.
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6. DOMINO’S
For masterful marketing that results in orders
In 2022, Domino’s combined clever marketing with a tech twist to engage customers—and get them to place orders. In May, the company banked off the popularity of Netflix’s Stranger Things series to create an app that drops users into an immersive environment themed after the show and filled with Easter eggs. The app also urges users to use Stranger Things–style telekinesis to place their orders, leveraging facial recognition and eye-tracking technology to power the “mind ordering” function. The app was downloaded 350,000 times as of September 2022, resulting in 2,000 orders. Meanwhile, a long-form ad featuring characters from the series has drawn more than 8 million views to date, while the broader push around Stranger Things generated more than 820 million earned media impressions for Domino’s.
The pizza giant also created a tech-savvy campaign in early 2022 to get people to order—and carry out their pizza—by offering them a “tip,” i.e. $3 off of their next online carryout order. Again, it took a compelling tech integration to get it done: The company had to integrate the feature into its app and online, and launch a dedicated webpage, carryouttips.dominos.com. The campaign raised same-store carryout sales by 14.6% and drew more than two billion earned media impressions—nearly 350% higher than a typical Domino’s campaign. For the year, Domino’s grew sales 3.9% in 2022, to $4.5 billion, generating a profit of $452 million.
7. POPMENU
For helping restaurants pop online
Popmenu turns online menus on restaurant websites into interactive experiences by enhancing them with photos, ratings, and social scores. Each dish is also a unique and indexed page for search engines like Google, helping push restaurants higher in search results. By doing this, the company has turned menus themselves into e-commerce opportunities. Today, Popmenu’s services include website design and hosting, online ordering and delivery, and digital remarketing. In 2022, Popmenu expanded its offerings by launching Popmenu Max, which offers restaurants an “all-in-one” system that includes its website, menu, ordering, and marketing tools. It also includes access to a new AI-powered phone answering service that can field calls from customers and reduce the burden on frontline staff at busy times. Customers with basic questions—“are you open,” “can I place an order,” “what’s your wait time”—are given automated custom responses, and are texted links to place an order or join the wait list online. The service can also transcribe voicemails and categorize calls, so restaurants can see which ones they need to respond to first. Popmenu is currently being used by more than 10,000 independent restaurants in Europe and the U.S., up from 6,000 last year.
8. TACO BELL
For reinventing drive-throughs for the pandemic era and beyond
In June 2022, a family-owned and -operated Taco Bell franchise group in Minneapolis debuted a digitally focused two-story prototype restaurant that includes a four-lane drive-through. The so-called Taco Bell Defy prototype includes check-in screens for mobile orders, as well as two-way AV services to speak with workers. Food elevators also make sure that as few people as possible touch the food before it gets to the customers. The Defy concept reduces customer wait times by half, allowing more people to be served. Taco Bell corporate took note of the successful design and is now working to bring the concept to more locations around the country in the next couple of years. Taco Bell is also planning to adopt the restaurant’s development process. The Minneapolis franchise worked with local community groups and vendors to design and build the restaurant, which reduced development time from the typical five years for a new restaurant format to just two years. Overall, Taco Bell is the growth engine for its parent company, Yum Brands, opening 496 restaurants worldwide in 2022 and U.S. same-store sales rising 11%.
9. TABLZ
For letting restaurants charge for the best seat in the house
Launched in late 2022, table reservation platform Tablz uses 3D maps and surge pricing to help restaurants charge diners a fee for booking a specific table, similar to how airlines sell tiered seating. Tablz is a reservation platform on its own. Patrons have the option to book a reservation with Tablz, or with another platform. They can choose where they want to sit, paying between $5 and $100, depending on the time of day and the table itself. Tablz takes a cut of the fee. Tablz works with Matterport, which uses 3D cameras to produce virtual models of interior spaces, to map each restaurant’s interior and create the renderings from which users select their tables. The platform is currently used by more than 70 restaurants in cities including Houston and Toronto, and the new feature helps restaurants generate an additional $400 a week, on average.
10. FLYTREX
For helping drone delivery go mainstream
Israeli startup Flytrex is working with the likes of El Pollo Loco and Chili’s to pilot on demand drone-based food delivery services in the suburbs of the United States. The company has been at the forefront of working with state and federal government agencies on drone regulation, and this year, Flytrex’s efforts paid off. In 2022, Flytrex received waivers from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that let it operate in Texas and North Carolina. The company can now deliver food and drinks to eligible customers who place orders through its delivery app (approximately 100,000 compared to 40,000 last year). Delivery takes approximately three and a half minutes in Flytrex’s current authorized range of 2.3 miles.
