Hospitality has always been about more than serving delicious food. As Doug Stephen, owner of DownLow Chicken Shack, puts it, “There’s two to three thousand places that put food on a plate or in a box. The thing that we can do to separate ourselves from everybody else is how we treat each person who comes through the door and how we respect their decision to come and spend money with us.” This sentiment holds true, whether you’re running a quick-service establishment or a fine dining restaurant.
Restaurant owners are catering to diners who want personalized, memorable experiences, but they’re also dining in more ways than ever: in person, through takeout, and delivery. They also expect great service every time. Three in four Canadian diners rate their dining experiences positively, but nearly half of them expect the restaurants they visit to add or keep value offerings in the next year, according to Square Future of Restaurants data.
And many get frustrated when their expectations aren’t met. With so many new ways to dine and check out, it can be difficult for owners to know where to invest their time and resources to meet customer preferences. Staffing remains a hurdle, and there’s always more to manage behind the scenes, from tracking inventory to ensuring quality. So, how do you maintain a personal connection while keeping everything else running smoothly?
This is where technology comes in — not to replace the human side of hospitality, but to make it easier to deliver the kind of service that keeps people coming back. With the right tools, you can offer seamless ordering, thoughtful personalization, and loyalty programs that make every guest feel valued, whether they’re grabbing a quick lunch or ordering dinner from their couch. Here’s how.
Personalize the dining experience with data
Understanding your customers is the foundation of providing exceptional hospitality. And technology helps make this easier than ever. Using integrated systems, restaurants can gather valuable insights about customer preferences and behaviours without being intrusive.
That’s why business owners like Dallah El Chami, founder of Superbaba, appreciate the value delivered by modern comprehensive tools. “Since we started using Square, it’s been really easy for our team to understand how our cash flow and sales work,” explained El Chami. “The staff actually love looking at our Square Dashboard — they look at the reports more than I do! The reports allow you to consider unadulterated consumer behaviour.”
Data points collected from various channels come together in the Square Dashboard and become a powerful tool for delivering personalized touches that keep guests coming back. Practically, this could mean:
- Greeting returning customers by name and recalling their preferences thanks to customer profiles that show detailed purchase history.
- Sending personalized offers based on past purchases, like alerting a regular coffee customer about your new breakfast menu.
- Creating targeted rewards that match customer behaviours, like offering special dessert promotions to diners who frequently order sweets.
Once you have the data, you can use it to create genuine moments of connection with customers and optimize operations. “You can see what customers are actually purchasing, what kind of modifications they make to their orders. By looking at common modifications, I actually ended up changing a menu item, because I could see how often people were asking to remove a certain ingredient,” said El Chami. “That small change saved us labour hours, reduced food costs and ultimately made our customer happier.”
Expand your ordering options
The way customers want to order and pay for their food has fundamentally changed. Square Future of Restaurants data revealed that online checkout and in-app pay drive the most orders for Canadian restaurants at 83% and 84%, respectively. Also, 58% of diners aren’t likely to return to restaurants that don’t offer convenient ordering and payment methods.
Offering more ways to order means creating more opportunities to serve customers how they prefer. For example, online orders might capture office workers ordering lunch, while a kiosk might appeal to on-the-go customers looking for quick service.
Multiple ordering options can also help reduce wait times during peak hours. A self-service kiosk, for example, allows customers to place orders independently, cutting waiting lines and freeing up staff for more value-adding tasks. A handheld POS like Square Terminal enables servers to take orders and process payments tableside without crowding the counter. If you stack that with a Square Online site, you can take orders that sync seamlessly with your physical POS and hardware.
The key to effectively managing multiple ordering channels lies in integration. For example, Square POS can unify orders from various sources — whether they’re coming from your counter, website, third-party delivery apps, or self-service kiosks — into a single, manageable stream. This ensures your kitchen runs smoothly and efficiently, regardless of where the orders originate, helping you scale without sacrificing service quality.
At the end of the day, hospitality is about meeting your guests where they are and making their experience as seamless and enjoyable as possible. Offering customers multiple ways to order shows that their time and preferences matter, which is essential for building trust and loyalty.
Strengthen hospitality with a loyalty program
When guests become regulars, they become part of your restaurant’s story. Creating a well-structured loyalty program powered by modern tools is a great way to encourage repeat visits and build those connections.
Modern loyalty programs do more than just track points — they create a digital connection between restaurants and customers. For example, Square Loyalty integrates with your point-of-sale systems, so you can automatically identify returning customers, track their preferences and deliver personalized rewards that feel meaningful rather than generic. This digital relationship complements and enhances traditional hospitality by helping staff recognize and reward loyal customers without requiring them to present physical cards or remember phone numbers.
Carter Friesen, CEO of Snowbank Brands’ OAKBERRY division in Western Canada, told us that he was surprised to see that during the opening of a new restaurant, the reward program sign-up rate was nearly 100%. He attributes this success to the simplicity of the registration process. “People only had to enter their phone number, and it went straight to their cell phone,” Carter notes.
Digital loyalty programs work best when paired with genuine community engagement. “It’s funny. We have a T-shirt and a hoodie that people can save their points for. Many people save up to get their OAKBERRY shirt,” added Kyla Friesen, operation lead at OAKBERRY.
With Square Loyalty and Square Marketing, you can amplify these community-building efforts in so many ways:
- Track customer visits and rewards automatically.
- Offer personalized promotions based on ordering history.
- Enable targeted communication with different customer segments.
- Create incentives to try new menu items or visit during off-peak hours.
- Gather feedback to continuously improve the dining experience.
Use automation tools to free up more time for guests
The secret sauce of restaurant technology lies in its ability to free up staff time for meaningful customer interactions. With modern tools, you can simplify back-office operations like payroll, shift scheduling, and inventory management. For example, with Square Shifts, you can set team member availability, add shifts and build schedules that are accessible to your entire staff. Square Inventory Management tracks inventory in real time and sends daily stock alerts when items are low.
When routine tasks like these are automated, your team can focus on what matters most, such as:
- Building genuine connections with guests
- Providing attentive, personalized service
- Addressing special requests and dietary needs
- Creating memorable dining experiences
Technology gives me the gift of time – time that I can spend in my kitchen. In a nutshell, the right tools and technology help me sustain my business and my joy for cooking.
– Award-winning chef, Darren MacLean.
Deliver memorable experiences at scale
When implemented thoughtfully, technology doesn’t replace hospitality — it enhances it, allowing restaurants to serve more guests while making each one feel special. “We pride ourselves on hospitality. When somebody said, ‘The internet exists. It’s not 1999 anymore, and when you have the ability to take an order over the internet and you are choosing not to, and that’s inhospitable,’ it [opened my eyes],” said Doug Stephen, owner of DownLow Chicken Shack.
Technology’s role is to strengthen the elements that make your restaurant special, helping you create an experience guests can take home with them. After all, hospitality is about making people feel valued, whether dining in, ordering takeout, or getting delivery. The right technology helps deliver this connection more effectively than ever before, across every channel where you serve your guests.