How London restaurants are leading the digitalisation revolution

How digitalisation solutions are helping London restaurants drive growth and operate efficiently​

When it comes to restaurant options, few cities can match London’s extensive offerings. From food trucks to fine dining, London has an endless selection of tastes on any budget.

And like restaurants all over the world, the past few years have been challenging for restaurants around London. They have had to navigate lockdowns and restrictions, as well as staff and stock shortages.

But in short order, restaurant operators have met these challenges and are not only staying afloat, but are thriving thanks to digitalisation solutions. Many are planning to expand across London and beyond.

What’s their secret? They are embracing change. Hospitality has been transformed, and savvy restaurateurs are taking advantage of digital technology to grow their business and improve customer experience. They’ve expanded into delivery and online ordering. During lockdown, this was a necessity, but online sales have continued to skyrocket even after the reopening because of the opportunity to increase revenue and reach new customers.

What digitalisation solutions offer London restaurants

Delivery and online ordering can be a mixed blessing for restaurants. While they help increase sales, they also increase complexity - and this typically leads to order mistakes, additional work for an already overworked crew, and unhappy customers.

Fortunately, with an order automation solution like Deliverect​, restaurants can enjoy the benefits of delivery and online ordering, without the added hassle. Online ordering solutions streamline order processing, reducing the burden on staff and eliminating manual entry mistakes.

From small food trucks to large chains, restaurants across London and the United Kingdom rely on Deliverect to enable them to succeed in an increasingly digital economy.

In 2021, we saw the number of online orders processed for our UK customers increase more than 400%. Today more than 3,000 restaurants across the UK rely on Deliverect to improve their operations and manage their digital orders.

From independent restaurants to large chains, here is a sample of some London restaurants digitalisation success stories.

Independent restaurants succeeding with digitalisation solutions

Having built a loyal following and a solid reputation over 20 years, the ​Regency Club​​ faced the daunting challenge of modernising its operations and adding new channels while maintaining its unique atmosphere and authentic charm.

After implementing Deliverect to handle delivery orders, the restaurant saw its takeaway business double​.

A key advantage of implementing Deliverect has been higher placement in search results on the delivery apps​, as a result of processing orders faster. Incredibly, they’ve achieved this without adding a burden to their existing operations. And now, after the great success of the behind-the-scenes delivery operation, the Regency Club is looking to expand the business further into the off-premise sector.

“Working with Deliverect, (and their partners) Flipdish, and Gigable, allowed us to completely streamline our ordering process,”​ reveals Rahul Sharma, Director at The Regency Club, “It made our staff much happier, it provided a better working environment, our customers didn’t have to hear beeping and noise going off from different tablets all the time.”​

Digitalisation solutions for global restaurant chains

While independent restaurants and global restaurant chains have very different operating models, when it comes to digitisation solutions, Deliverect is the preferred choice for both.

Chipotle​ has more than 2,000 locations across the U.S, Canada, U.K., Germany and France, including 13 locations around London.

Adapting to the fast-changing food sector and trying to satisfy consumer demand, Chipotle introduced food delivery quite early, back in 2018, with Deliveroo, adding additional partners like Uber Eats in late 2020 and Just Eat in early 2021.

Chipotle’s main challenge as they scaled up delivery was operational efficiency. Working with Deliverect solved this issue and further simplified the process. Because their online orders are now integrated directly into their point-of-sale, Chipotle doesn't have to fight for space and juggle between different tablets.

Centralising all the online orders allowed Chipotle staff not to rekey all the orders into the point-of-sale manually. And the impact on the business is huge!

“It probably saves us 45 minutes per restaurant, per day.”​ shares Andrew Lawrence, IT Manager UK & Europe for Chipotle.

All of this has helped Chipotle grow even faster. Between January and September 2021, in all 5 locations recently using Deliverect, order volume increased by 66.3% on average with a maximum of 92.3%.

Run a London restaurant? Here’s how you can get started

If you run a London restaurant or a restaurant in the UK and are considering ramping up food delivery, don’t shy away from digitalisation solutions. By using technology like Deliverect​, you can streamline your online ordering process, reduce errors and save time and labour, while increasing your revenue. Join the digital revolution!