Restaurant chain

Interface Security Systems, a renowned managed service provider offering enterprise security, managed network, UCaaS and business intelligence solutions to distributed enterprises, announced that El Pollo Loco, one of the channels fastest growing restaurant restaurant specializing in fire grilled chicken, relies on Interface’s managed video verified alarms and intrusion alarm monitoring to reliably detect intrusions and minimize harm. false alarms.

With Interface, El Pollo Loco saves several thousand dollars in annual penalties for false alarms in 198 restaurants. When Louis Burke, Senior Director, Security and Loss Prevention, joined El Pollo Loco, he had to deal with many alarm management protocols, as El Pollo Loco had half a dozen vendors for intrusion alarms. . Each vendor had different terms of engagement and there was no way to hold anyone accountable even when the alarm systems broke.

Security alarm system

“When I started I got a call from a restaurant about their missing safe. When I called the large, well-known alarm company, I was told that they had stopped receiving signals from the on-site alarm system for over six months. Apparently we had not subscribed to a separate add-on service that would have guaranteed the functioning of the communication channel between the alarm and the monitoring center. “

We have worked our way through the maze of alarm vendors and are working with a company that understands our needs “

“All the time we were paying a service charge with no one monitoring our location and no communication from the alarm company.” This incident marked a turning point in El Pollo Loco’s approach to loss prevention and paved the way for a comprehensive review of the implementation of intrusion monitoring. “We decided to step out of the maze of alarm providers and work with a company that understood our needs and was ready to take responsibility for service. This is why we decided to hire Interface ”, Burke said.

Alarm monitoring systems

The scope of service included the replacement of obsolete alarm systems with a new state-of-the-art system as well as Interface’s 360 alarms maintenance service which ensured that all maintenance issues with duress buttons, connectivity and alarm panels were proactively resolved, along with a comprehensive annual technical review. inspection to ensure alarm systems remain operational at all times.

The Managed Alarm Service revamped by Interface became the gold standard for El Pollo Loco as the Burkes team insisted on following a similar model and protocol of engagement with other service providers. After El Pollo Loco streamlined basic alarm surveillance systems, Burke decided to deploy cameras to the remaining 40% of restaurants that still did not have video in place. However, the team first wanted to effectively demonstrate the ROI of the proposed investment.

Alarm service verified by video

As Burke reviewed security operations, hefty false alarm fines that amounted to several thousand dollars each year stood out. In collaboration with Interface, El Pollo Loco piloted a video verified alarm service in a few of their restaurants where cameras were already installed. The results of the pilot project were revealing. Whenever a restaurant had an alarm event, Interface’s remote monitoring team would check whether the alarm required a call to local law enforcement or not.

Only 5% of alarm events required police intervention. The rest were false alarms. The pilot project paved the way for the installation of security cameras at all El Pollo Loco sites. Interface’s video verified alarm was then made available to all locations and directly contributed to thousands of dollars in savings per year as El Pollo Loco reduced false alarm penalties by 95% and the associated costs in their corporate restaurants.

Eliminate false alarms

The Interface Command and Control Center identified the current burglary and immediately dispatched the police.

“In addition to the direct savings associated with eliminating false alarms, our in-store associates are happy because they are no longer awakened at undue hours by a false alarm. Every time they receive an emergency call from Interface, our associates know they have a verified event ”, Burke said.

The bespoke video verified alarm solution also helps prevent crime in El Pollo Loco. Recently, a serial burglar attempted to escape with a large sum of money stolen from a smart safe at a Los Angeles area site. The Interface Command and Control Center identified the ongoing burglary and immediately dispatched the police. The burglar was arrested on the spot.

Convert alarm panels

Interface is currently working with El Pollo Loco’s IT department to also eliminate expensive POTS lines and convert their alarm panels to help them cut costs for all of their locations. According to Burke, “The biggest benefit of working with Interface isn’t just the value for money, it’s the strong, process-oriented culture, the willingness to listen to customers and the ability to creatively solve problems by keeping the customer’s best interest in mind. “

Voosh, India’s leading virtual restaurant brand company, recently raised pre-seed funding led by Better Capital. The company will use the fund to create Voosh OS products to optimize kitchen operations and expand to more than 50 kitchens.

Priyam Saraswat, Co-Founder and CEO of Voosh noted, “At Voosh, our goal is to create India’s most trusted family of uniquely delivery brands by meeting customer needs by location while enabling our restaurant kitchen partners to improve their monthly income. a win-win situation for our customers. as catering partners as we unlock demand and create personalized options based on time of day as well as location. “

Priyam Saraswat is an IIT Guwahati alumnus who led the launch of Oyo in China. He was previously the founder of a bike-sharing startup, Tazzobikes. Kshitiz Sanghi is an ISB alumnus and was part of the Samsung growth team. During his undergraduate studies, he also created a food start-up, which he expanded to 10 cities in India.

The unorganized catering market is over 90%, or roughly $ 80 billion, and growing day by day. Due to lack of data driven planning and execution, India executes 2 million orders / payment compared to 40 million orders / day delivered by China. Voosh bridges the gap by incorporating a data-driven approach and a lightweight asset model to monitor and improve menus, pricing and customer satisfaction.

“Delivery is resolved. Food is not,” noted Vaibhav Domkundwar, CEO and Founder, Better Capital.

“With a strong food delivery network in place, Voosh is innovating with a unique decentralized kitchen partner model to deliver high quality and affordable food brands to customers while empowering independent restaurateurs with a profitable business model. We are delighted to partner with Voosh from ground zero, ” he added.

Currently, Voosh is partnering with independent restaurants as cloud kitchens and delivering food using Voosh OS, a technology-driven model for ensuring compliance and operational efficiency.

Voosh OS observes a strict compliance and certification process for all of its kitchens to ensure quality and hygiene. It also ensures streamlined operations in every kitchen, from order management and supply chain pricing and discounts.

With a Voosh-branded location nearby, customers will get a consistent taste and experience as well as a wide range of cuisines as the company plans to build food-focused sites and brands.

Voosh currently operates out of 8 locations in Bangalore.

A large number of companies have converted cash reserves into bitcoin over the past few months. At the end of August, the Mediterranean restaurant chain Tahini’s announced that the Canadian company had converted all of its cash reserves into bitcoins. Tahini tweeted about the recent crypto reserve conversion on Friday, as the team recalled telling the firm’s financial advisor that gold as a precious metal and its years of being a reliable safe haven. are counted.

This year, a large number of private and publicly traded companies have collected large amounts of bitcoin (BTC) and stored the crypto asset as a form of reserve status. For example, the bitcointreasuries.org web portal shows 23 companies that hold bitcoin in reserve.

The nearly two dozen companies listed hold around 888,864 BTC worth over $ 15 billion, or 4.23% of the supply. In August, after Microstrategy announced its initial purchase, Canada-based Mediterranean restaurant establishment Tahini’s announced that it had converted all of its cash reserves into bitcoin (BTC).

“We just converted all of our cash reserves that were originally used as savings into bitcoin,” Tahini revealed at the time. The restaurant chain’s official Twitter account told the public on Friday why it decided to choose bitcoin over gold, a precious metal, as a safe haven.

“We looked our financial advisor in the eye and told him gold would become a scam because of bitcoin,” the company said. tweeted Friday. “He laughed and patronized the 6,000-year argument back,” Tahini added.

The restaurateurs decided to go further into why the company thinks “the years of gold are numbered”. Tahini’s concedes that gold has been a store of value for a very long time and that it is used in jewelry. Then the Twitter account noted that individuals in the gold sales industry like Peter Schiff “will lie to you and tell you that the value of gold comes from practical use cases like electronics,” said said Tahini.

“Gold is used for things other than a store of value, but this demand is not what gives gold a market cap of $ 10,000 billion,” said the Canadian restaurateurs. insisted.

Instead, Tahini’s believes the big countries and institutions that accumulate gold in coffers are what gave gold long-term value. For millennia it worked noted because “gold has always been the rarest asset with the highest stock-to-flow ratio”. However, Tahini pointed out that “Bitcoin changed that”.

Tahini’s opinion is that bitcoin is “1,000 times better than gold in every way” and gives 14 reasons why the company thinks the crypto asset is better. On the one hand, unlike gold, bitcoin is “a 100% monetary premium, which means it is not used for electronics or for any other use case other than silver. pure ”.

“Bitcoin dematerializes value and makes it digital, making it easier to transfer value across the world without the need for third parties,” the company said. wrote. “We can move $ 100 million from Canada to the UK in Australia and back to Canada in 2 hours for up to $ 30. To do this with gold you will need an armed security team and [it] will cost you from 300 to 500 thousand dollars [and] to take [four] To [five] months, ”Tahini added.

Conservators further said that due to the weight of the gold, some countries like Venezuela store their gold elsewhere and risk being confiscated. Tahini’s wrote that even ordinary citizens would go to great lengths to smuggle gold and illustrated their point by referring to a man who was recently caught storing gold bullion. gold in his rectum.

“Gold is scarce but bitcoin is absolutely scarce – A very important differentiation,” the company said. “Gold miners currently extract 2% of the gold supply each year. The higher the price of gold, the more resources will be spent trying to extract more gold, just like oil. Going forward, Tahini expects gold mining technology to improve, and on the other hand, bitcoin’s supply issue is fixed and has a tough adjustment.

The company concluded with a few other reasons why BTC was better than gold, and further noted that precious metal investors may “be easily surprised that a discovery of a new gold mine soon floods the Marlet”. In Tahini’s summary on gold versus bitcoin, the company also noted that he disagreed with investors like Dan Tapiero, Paul Tudor Jones and Stan Druckenmiller who “think gold and bitcoin are cousins”.

“Bitcoin’s supply is verifiable down to the last 1/100 millionth unit just by running a full node on your laptop,” Tahini said. determined in his Twitter feed. “While the gold bugs will tell you that gold is rare, there is no precise way to verify this scarcity down to the last ounce.”

What do you think of the opinion of Canada-based Middle Eastern restaurant chain Tahini that bitcoin is 1,000 times better than gold? Let us know what you think of this topic in the comments section below.

Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Express news service

TIRUCHY: To celebrate World Biryani Day in a unique way, a popular biryani chain in Tiruchy sold delicious biryani for a mere 10 paise on Sunday. The restaurant chain also offered biryani for Rs 1 to frontline warriors fighting the Coronavirus pandemic.

Contrary to the usual Sunday morning appearance, the Shastri road in Tiruchy was bustling with activity and excitement after the KMS Hakkim Biryani center sold Biryani to the public for 10 paise. As the outlet announced that the offer was only valid for the first 100 customers, several people rushed past the restaurant holding 10 demonetized paisa coins in their hands.

Speaking to TNIE, KMS Mohideen, owner of KMS chain Hakkim Biryani, said: “We wanted to thank the frontline workers for braving their lives and decided to offer the biryani for the price of Rs 1 on the day of World Biryani Day. However, we didn’t. want other customers to be left out, so we presented an idea of ​​selling biryani to the public in possession of the demonetized 10 paisa coin. “

With the biryani being offered at such an incredible price, several people, including children and women, tried their luck. By the way, not many customers who waited in the queues said they spent the last two days ransacking their homes so they could find 10 paisa coins and buy biryani.

Ravindran, a resident of the town who had come with his son in the hope of buying a package, said: “My father, in a conversation with my son, had taught him the values ​​of currencies at the time. and gave her a few 10 paisa coins as a keepsake. After seeing the social media ad, our whole family began to thoroughly search the house to find the demonetized room. “

The biryani center today served through its two outlets a total of 210 people – 100 customers thanks to the 10 paisa and 110 COVID warriors offer. Customers were served with chicken biryani as well as raita and dalcha in carefully wrapped containers. Although they offered tokens to frontline workers on Saturday even while checking their IDs, the tokens for the 10 paisa offer were not issued until Sunday.

“A total of 110 frontline workers – 45 from the police department, 35 from the companies department, 20 from the health department and 10 sanitation workers were served with delicious biryani. Although the package intended for regular customers limited to Biryani and Raita, we added Chicken 65 and Sweet Kesari to frontline workers’ packages to appreciate their efforts and make them feel special, ”said a hotel chain official.

Tendon Kohaku, a Singapore-based chain specializing in Japanese tempura dishes, is about to open a store in downtown Vancouver.

The franchise business is moving to the ground floor of the Robson Court building at 840 Howe Street on the corner of Robson and Howe, and hoarding is in place on the windows.

Tempura is one of the increasingly popular branches of Japanese fast food and casual dining. Earlier this year, Japanese tempura franchise Hannosuke opened its first store in Vancouver.

In addition to its multiple locations in Singapore, Tendon Kohaku operates in Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan. Their strategy is to start by promoting Japanese-style tempura rice bowls, made with Japanese rice, signature sauces and freshly fried ingredients, and increase the popularity of the dish globally. The brand was launched in 2016.

According to a global franchise portal site, the name “Kohaku” means “amber” and “like a mysterious shiny amber gem with vegetable inclusions, the fresh ingredients are dipped in golden batter and fried to amber perfection to please. palates of their clients.

Tendon Kohaku’s signature dish is tiger shrimp, chicken breast, shiitake mushrooms, pollock, squid, baby corn, green beans and pumpkin, all fried in tempura and served over rice with your choice of regular or spicy house sauce.

In addition to plans to launch downtown Vancouver, Tendon Kohaku has also been listed as a planned tenant for Station Square in Burnaby.

We will offer updates on these two pending companies as more information becomes available. In the meantime, check out some photos of what people are eating at Tendon Kohaku stores elsewhere in the world.

[Tendon Kohaku] . This brand new Tendon, limited to 50 bowls per day, will be available in their Suntec point of sale from tomorrow, December 20, 2017 and in Boat Quay point of sale from mid-January 2018! . Tendon Ocean Gems ($ 23.00 ++) made with fresh catches such as shrimp, squid, oysters, scallops, SNOW CRAB and KING CRAB MEAT !! Everything is green in color as they added dried seaweed powder to the tempura batter which adds a subtle flavor and earthy note. . Locations: @kohakutendon Eat At Seven @ eatat7 3 Temasek Boulevard, # 03-311, Suntec City Mall, Singapore 038983. 64 Circular Road, # 01-01, Singapore 049418. #tendonkohaku #burpple #burpplesg

A post shared by JOE YANG (@mightyfoodie) on December 19, 2017 at 1:54 am PST

Declines in customer transactions at large restaurant chains improved in the week ending Aug. 16, rising to single digits after 21 weeks of double-digit declines.

Customer transactions were still down, -9% from a year ago, but much healthier than the -44% in mid-April, according to data from The NPD Group.

The numbers come from NPD’s Crest Performance Alerts which provide a weekly view of chain-specific transactions and trends for 75 fast-food, casual, mid-range and casual food chains, according to a press release.

Customer transactions at major QSRs, which account for the bulk of the industry’s transactions, were down -8% from last year and full-service restaurant chains saw their customer transactions drop -19% from last year. compared to the previous year.

While still a decline, the figure represents a gain of +57 points from the largest drop of -76% in the week ending April 12 compared to the year previous, the statement noted.

“While transactions are still down, the move from single digit to single digit is a positive sign for the US restaurant industry,” said David Portalatin, NPD food industry advisor and author of Eating Patterns in America, in the data release. “Although we are stuck in neutral for the moment, I firmly believe that there is still a lot of upward recovery for restaurants. My belief is rooted in one reality: Consumers are not ready to give up on convenience. and the experience that a restaurant meal brings to them and their families, regardless of the barriers. “

Although Amber Beverage Group Holding will not have a controlling stake in Lido, the parties plan to agree that Amber Beverage Group Holding will have the right to appoint two members to the company’s supervisory board.

In addition, Amber Beverage Group Holding could have veto power over strategic decisions.

Lido board chairwoman Rita Auzina told LETA that Lido shareholder Gunars Kirsons has no plans to sell a controlling stake in the company. At the same time, Lido is the largest catering company in Latvia, and from time to time investors have expressed interest in investing in its shares. Several investors who have expressed their interest.

As reported, in 2018 Lido achieved a turnover of 41.883 million euros, up 8.5% from a year ago, while the company’s profit fell by 7, 3 times to reach 241,365 euros.

Lido was registered in 1991 and has a share capital of 1.292 million euros. The beneficial owners of the company are Gunars Kirsons and Russian national Vladimir Shestakov, owner of VSh Holding.

Amber Beverage Group is a leading producer, distributor, logistics provider and retailer of beverages. It operates internationally from its head office in Luxembourg and through its production and distribution companies in Russia, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Austria, Australia and the Baltic countries, its historic homeland. The Latvijas Balzams distillery is also part of the Amber Beverage group.

Tell us about a mistake

PHOENIX, AZ (3TV / CBS 5) – In Arizona, about 33,000 people applied for unemployment benefits last week. More than 500,000 have filed for unemployment in the past eight weeks. Nationwide, 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the past two months, but despite the growing number of jobless claims, some small businesses in Arizona are struggling to hire workers.

“With an unemployment rate of almost 20%, you would think we would have a lot of applicants, but we don’t,” said Paullette Cano, owner of Italian restaurant Times Square.

Cano said it was because of the federal CARES law, which adds $ 600 per week on top of the state unemployment check. Cano said his employees on leave told him they made more money staying at home than working at his restaurant.

“They don’t want to come back to work,” Cano said. “It’s unemployment. They get about $ 840 a week, which gives them about $ 22 an hour.”

Times Square has more than 30 openings as they laid off dozens of positions at their three restaurants after Gov. Doug Ducey shut down businesses to stop the spread of COVID-19. Their dining room is open to customers again, but their restaurants are understaffed. Additionally, if Cano cannot rehire the same number of employees that it once had, its Paycheck Protection Program loan will not be canceled.

“You want to hire, and they just don’t come out the door,” Cano said. She said the few who apply for jobs ask for more than $ 20 an hour, a salary equal to what they would receive in unemployment and federal dollars.

“They charge $ 20 an hour, which makes it difficult because we operate on low margins,” Cano said.

The federal CARES law, which grants an additional $ 600 per week, is set to expire on July 31. Washington DC lawmakers are in talks about a new federal relief package. Until then and beyond, Cano has been told to stop by one of his three locations and apply for a job.

“For our country to get back to work, employees have to get back to work,” Cano said.

Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican fast casual chain based in Australia, used Adyen, an Amsterdam-based payment platform, to process customer payments at its Singapore locations.

Officials said that Adyen, one of the world’s largest payment platforms, has helped Guzman y Gomez reduce transaction times by an average of 30% at its 10 Singapore locations.

“GYG is always looking to take advantage of disruptive technologies to streamline processes and deliver a better experience for our customers and our team,” Josh Bell, director of GYG Singapore, said in a statement from Adyen. “We have often seen that the payment experience is the key element of the overall restaurant experience. Customers tend to wait only about five minutes to pay before they start looking for alternatives. To that end, Adyen has empowered us to increase the speed with which we serve customers through streamlined payments, with every order now completed at least 30 seconds faster, overcoming a hurdle in the order taking process. . “

Adyen’s solution, which is integrated with point-of-sale provider Revel, brings everything from the front-end of the transaction to the back-end reconciliation.

Bell said the implementation process was painless.

“We expected it to take weeks, but we had our first restaurant up and running within hours, with no disruption to our operations,” he said. “We launched a trial with Adyen at our Funan Mall point of sale, and the results were perfect with real operational efficiency gains. Improvements in staff and customer experience at the following points of sale where the solution has been implemented have also been consistent, with positive customer feedback and increased revenue. “

Adyen announced an exclusive agreement with Subway in January to manage its payments in North America. Meanwhile, Guzman Y Gomez, which has 135 locations in Australia, Japan, Singapore and the United States, debuted in the United States earlier this year.