RTN Workgroups

Workgroups are hyper-focused, technical collaborations where technology suppliers work together to develop tangible outcomes such as data standards, frameworks, and best practices. Restaurants provide strategic guidance while tech suppliers deliver expertise.

Participation is flexible — join anytime and contribute as much or as little as you like. Leading or contributing to a workgroup provides visibility as a thought leader in the industry, often leading to speaking opportunities at events like MURTEC.

Frequency: Twice per month
Length: 1 hour

RTN Town Halls:
Where Restaurants and Tech Meet.

No Slides, Just Solutions.

Restaurants and technology suppliers come together for unscripted conversations on some of the hottest topics in the industry.

WHO SPEAKS?

A panel of restaurants share ideas and experiences. From there, you are invited to listen in, learn, ask questions and contribute in a collaborative space.

WHO CAN ATTEND?

RTN Town Halls are open to all restaurant operators regardless of RTN Membership! Technology companies must be RTN members to participate.

The Friction of Frictionless:

Navigating the Realities of the Off-Premises Restaurant

7.28.26 | 1 p.m. ET

Off-premises dining, digital ordering, drive-thru innovation, third-party marketplaces, and AI are reshaping how restaurant brands engage guests and operate their businesses. But while the guest-facing experience is often positioned as “frictionless,” the operational reality behind the scenes can be far more complex.

In this RTN Town Hall, restaurant technology leaders will discuss how brands are navigating fragmented systems, overlapping vendors, POS standardization, AI and automation decisions, marketplace strategy, and the need for greater control over their technology roadmaps.

The conversation will explore how operators can move from vendor-led decision-making to brand-led technology strategy, evaluate emerging solutions through practical business outcomes, and simplify the digital ecosystem without slowing innovation. Panelists will share real-world perspectives on balancing growth, consistency, profitability, and operational execution across today’s increasingly digital restaurant environment.

Attendees will walk away with a clearer understanding of how leading restaurant brands are reducing technology friction, aligning vendors to business goals, and building a stronger foundation for the modern restaurant experience.

AI Data Standards

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 Workgroup

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!