RTN Workgroups

WHAT ARE RTN TOWN HALLS?

The RTN Town Hall is a live, interactive dialogue designed to bridge the gap between restaurant operations and tech innovation.

Operator-Led Insights: Hear directly from restaurant leaders as they share their real challenges, big wins, and the topics they want to explore within our community.

Zero PowerPoint: 100% unscripted, authentic discussion.

Audience-Driven: Jump into the conversation, share your wins, ask questions, and shape the outcome together.

WHAT ARE RTN WORKGROUPS?

The RTN Workgroup is an ongoing, collaborative working group designed to build open technology standards and solve the industry's toughest technical challenges.

Hands-On Problem Solving: Collaborate directly with peers to develop universal frameworks, API standards, and best practices that eliminate tech friction across the restaurant ecosystem.
Action-Oriented Output: Focused 100% on building real solutions—less talking, more creating actionable specs and frameworks that drive the industry forward.
Evergreen Recognition: Earn "Key Contributor Badges" credited directly on official published RTN deliverables to highlight your leadership and expertise.

Proof Over Promise: What’s Working and What’s Driving Real Restaurant ROI

Wednesday, August 26th | 2 PM ET

Technology is evolving fast—how do you choose tools that actually boost your bottom line?

How It Works

Operator-Led First: Industry leaders kick off the discussion with real-world playbooks.

Open Floor to Follow: No slides, 100% unscripted. Jump in with your questions, ideas, and wins to shape the outcome.

What We’re Tackling

Strategic AI: High-impact use cases, organizational readiness, and human adoption—proving AI ROI comes from eliminating friction for a happier, more efficient workforce.

Revenue Growth: How shifting marketing strategies toward core customer retention unlocks measurable incremental revenue.

Data & Systems: Practical, real-world applications of computer vision, drive-thru tech, and data integration.

Walk away with real operator playbooks, live answers to your questions, and a clear path to higher profitability.

AI Data Standards

Frequency: Meets every other Thursday | 1 PM ET
Length: 1 Hour Virtual Meeting
Note: Once you register, calendar invites will automatically recur bi-weekly (every 14 days) until the project is complete or you ask to be removed

Because You can't build anything great on a bad foundation.

Every AI initiative, every analytics project, every digital transformation effort your brand is planning right now — it all runs on data. And if that data is messy, inconsistent, or ungoverned, none of it will perform the way you need it to.

Data standardization and governance is not glamorous. It does not make headlines the way a new AI feature does. But it is the building block for everything else — and the longer you wait to address it, the more expensive and painful it becomes.

This workgroup is for operators who are ready to stop treating data governance as an IT problem and start treating it as a business strategy. We will tackle the hard questions: How do you build a governance framework that scales? How do you move fast with AI without creating risk? How do you get the CEO and board aligned without letting quick-win thinking derail long-term progress?

Don't chase perfection on the way to good. You have to start somewhere — and this is the place to start.

Join us. Let's lay the foundation the entire industry can build on.

AI Workforce & Compliance (AIWC)

Frequency: Meets every other Tuesday | 1 PM ET
Length: 1 Hour Virtual Meeting
Note: Once you register, calendar invites will automatically recur bi-weekly (every 14 days) until the project is complete or you ask to be removed

Your AI scheduling tool might be making decisions you can't legally defend.

Agentic AI is here. It is already being used to schedule shifts, optimize labor, and make workforce decisions at scale across the restaurant industry. And most organizations have no idea whether those models are discriminating — or how they would prove it if challenged.

This is not a hypothetical risk. It is a cost, legal, and compliance exposure that grows every day these models run without governance frameworks around them. The question is not whether AI will reshape restaurant workforce management. It already is. The question is: how do we manage these models responsibly?

This workgroup brings together the people who need to answer that question: HR leaders who understand employment law and workforce equity, Legal teams who understand the liability landscape, Technology teams who build and deploy these systems, and AI governance experts who can help the industry build the right guardrails. Together, we will define the standards and practices that let the industry benefit from agentic AI without the legal and ethical landmines.

Because the cost of getting this wrong — in lawsuits, in fines, in reputational damage, in harm to workers — is far greater than the cost of getting it right.

Call for Speakers!