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Food Equipment News 3 5 Saturday, February 11, 2017 HOW INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY KEEPS THE CONVENIENCE IN CARRY-OUT When customers want take-out, they want it fast. That's the point, right? The problem is, many restaurants haven't come up with a fast, efficient way to manage order carryout that doesn't dis- rupt normal workflows or cause traffic jams near the front entrance. That's why Apex Supply Chain Technologies introduced AnyWhere Secure Self-Serve Solutions. "Apex AnyWhere systems allow restaurants to make it even faster for customers to place an online order, skip the register and pick up their order from a stylish, sleek and secure locker and even pay with virtually no waiting," said Apex Chief Executive Officer Kent Savage. Purpose-Built for Efficient Order Pick-up These automated solutions are ideal for full-serve, quick-serve and fast casual restaurants, purpose built to accommo- date virtually any type of food or drink, both hot and cold. Restaurant staff can load from the rear, while customers pick up from the front, resulting in significant workflow efficiency. The Apex Trajectory Cloud is the brain behind the system, and serves as a single, secure, unified transaction plat- form, providing real-time service and pick-up performance data. It also inte- grates easily with existing order manage- ment and POS systems to provide or enhance analytics and insights into order- ing trends, dwell time and more. Ideal for Quick-Serve or Full-Serve AnyWhere Self-Serve solutions enable a wide range of scenarios to make take- away orders work across multiple channels. For example, customers may use a smartphone to place a coffee order on their way to work. The drink is prepared and placed into an insulated, Apex smart locker system. When cus- tomers arrive, they can skip the line, grab the drink from the locker, and be on their way. Or a customer may order several dinner entrees from a full service restaurant and click to indicate a time to pick up the food. The kitchen staff prepares the food and loads it into the locker. The customer can then pick up the purchase from the insulated Apex smart locker system. TIME IS MONEY AT THE OGDEN, CHICAGO'S FAVORITE SPORTS BAR The Ogden sports bar, named Chicago's Best Game Day Spot, is located just two blocks from The United Center, the largest arena in the United States and home to the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Bulls. Its menu is filled with made-from-scratch versions of classic bar favorites, as well as a few new cre- ations, such as Animal Fries topped with pulled pork, fresh cheese curds and a sunny side up egg. As many as 3,000 avid sports fans are served at The Ogden on a busy game week. The entire dining and bar areas practically burst at the seams before games with the rowdy, happy crowd, so serving great food and drinks very fast and efficiently is essential. "When people come into The Ogden, they often have a ticket for a game in their pocket – it could have cost them $200 or more. We want to make sure they are on time for their event. If they are three min- utes late, they could miss the only goal scored in that game," says Joe Magoonaugh, one of The Ogden partners. "So every minute counts in keeping our customers happy and coming back." When the server crashed on his point-of-sale system and was going to cost him $8,000 to replace, Magoonaugh decided it was time to look for a new sys- tem that would do more to help him improve serving time and efficiency. After a year researching, Magoonaugh chose TouchBistro as the iPad POS that offered the features he needed, especially tableside ordering. "When there are 250 peo- ple in house, it is difficult for a server to walk through the restaurant. The servers don't have time to run back and forth to the bar and kitchen," Magoonaugh explains. "With tableside ordering, servers can go out and take three or four drink or food orders, make one clean sweep on all the tables, and send the orders to the bar or kitchen as they take them. When they get to bar, the drinks are ready to pick up." Efficiency and timing are very important, Magoonaugh says. "Gaining an extra minute on the drink order, on the food order, on closing the table out – three or four minutes in the course of a meal can equate to an extra turn on that table." The Ogden also implemented the TouchBistro kitchen display system with additional moni- tors, so orders sent electroni- cally to the kitchen don't have to be printed or manually dis- tributed. As soon as the system pings, the fry, grill, sauté, salad and prep cooks can all get to work simultaneously on their portion of an order. Magoonaugh claims the system saves the kitchen two to three minutes per ticket. "If we can save 30 seconds on a drink order, 30 seconds on picking up the drink, on sending the food, on delivering the food and on paying the bill – every 30 seconds we save is 30 seconds someone can be consuming an extra beer or appe- tizer which leads to a higher check aver- age," Magoonaugh says. And that, folks, is better than a shorthanded goal. Learn more at www.touchbistro.com. LOLLICUP USA TO REDUCE ENERGY COSTS WITH NEW MACHINERY By Julia Gutierrez, Marketing Coordinator, Lollicup USA Inc. Lollicup ® USA Inc., which proudly man- ufactures in the United States, is taking steps necessary to decrease its energy use by adding a new, more energy efficient extruder to its production area. Energy use and conservation of the planet's limited and precious resources have always been hugely important to the company. It will also increase the quality of the finished product. This extruder will sup- ply the company with thicker sheets of plastic, which are used to make plastic cups and lids. This new extruder arrived at the end of March, and will be ready for operation within three months. Once this machine becomes operational, the extruders cur- rently in use at the production facility will be de-commissioned. Lollicup's Karat ® Earth eco-friendly brand provides bio-based utensils and compostable bowls, plates, cups, lids and food containers. For more information, visit www .lollicupusa.com.