Beverages and AI dominated Restaurant Show conversations | Photo courtesy of Alicia Kelso
I collect show badges and was curious about how many I had from the National Restaurant Association Show once I returned home Tuesday evening from Chicago. The answer is 10 (I took a couple-year hiatus from the restaurant industry for a brief stint in higher ed and swiftly boomeranged back, as so many do).
Anyway, the point is in those 10 shows, I can confidently state that the floor has gotten exponentially bigger, the tech and equipment and menu innovations have gotten far more sophisticated, and some major themes have come and gone (3D food printers were a pretty big deal 10 years ago, for instance, and plant-based proteins used to dominate an entire quadrant of the South Hall, but not so much anymore). Some major themes have come, faded, and returned in earnest this year, like gluten-free offerings and foam, though the latter’s comeback has taken on a new form in cold foam to enhance beverage offerings.
Speaking of beverages, one didn’t need to accumulate 10,000 steps to derive that they were the star of the show this year. The big players — Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Keurig Dr. Pepper — had their most diversified lineups ever and new equipment to support the swiftly growing category. Coca-Cola unveiled an iteration of its Freestyle equipment, for instance, to convert real-time pour data into new consumer-driven drinks, while a new mixology dispenser ensures in-demand, real-time innovation.
Meanwhile, Pepsi showcased its crafted Drips platform and also leveraged the dips/sauces craze with innovations like the “Walking Taco,” allowing customers to add toppings and sauces to their favorite chips for a portable snack.
Heinz’s Remix, which allows consumers to create custom sauce combinations, also continued to evolve two years after its debut. One representative from the booth told me the interest in this product was “through the roof.” There were plenty of smaller beverage, dips and sauce exhibitors on the floor, too, because the show provides the best cross section of broader industry trends and seemingly 99.99% of those trends have come from the beverage and sauce categories of late.
Another observation on the food side (besides the obvious more global flavors/less plant-based options) was the increasing proliferation of treats — from ice cream to cookie skillets — as operators work to meet a growing demand for non-traditional daypart occasions, as well as check add-on opportunities (like Taco Bell).
The tech side also garnered plenty of traffic and attention, of course. I won’t swim in my colleague Joe Guszkowski’s lane of expertise here, but AI was — once again — the belle of the ball, but in a different sort of way. As Toast CMO Kelly Esten described, operators in the past two years have been in discovery mode about AI, trying to understand what it is and why should they care. This year, their curiosity has shifted to a “how this can benefit my business specifically” kind of way. Several tech exhibitors told me that operators are seeking solutions to labor, inventory management, real-time guest feedback and more as margins remain more pressured than ever. Bo Davis, CEO/founder of MarginEdge and founder of Wasabi sushi restaurants, said real-time visibility is critical in such an environment, and perhaps the best use of AI.
“We processed 290,000 invoices last week and it is AI. You still need a human in the loop, because these are complicated and difficult and they’ve got gravy stains or are handwritten, but we can now see right away when certain food prices are going up and make menu decisions about what servers should be pushing,” he said. “I’m not suggesting it’s easy, but I am suggesting that if you have visibility, you can make intelligent decisions that help your restaurant’s profitability.”
MarginEdge also just launched a solution that allows operators to have such real-time visibility into miscellaneous expenses charged to their business credit card. For example, if the blender broke and the manager has to order a new one on Amazon, that charge can be better managed on the PnL.
“This is all part of the restaurant’s daily operations, petty cash. It’s the money you need when you have to run to Trader Joe’s because you ran out of avocados,” Davis said. “The miscellaneous charges are the ones that add up quickly, and management of the middle of the PnL is more important than ever. This helps control leaky funding.”
Then there’s the marketing side of AI. New data from DoorDash’s 2026 Restaurant Industry Trends Report shows that 22% of consumers have used an AI tool like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to help choose a restaurant, making AI a new discovery signal to watch. As such, more companies, including Chipotle, are allocating some dollars toward AI search. Kelsey Verdier, VP of marketing at Marqii, said that because of this trend, restaurant operators have to better understand how they perform in those searches.
“Customers are still doing traditional Google searches, too, so there is a need for operators to understand more than ever how their restaurant shows up,” she said. “What we’re all learning, especially for search performance, is that your online presence needs to match everywhere, including your Google Business profile, social media and reviews. If AI search is surfacing information and you have different happy hour times on Facebook as you do Google, you don’t know which answer AI is going to pull. We have less control now as marketers with AI search, so your information has to be consistent.”
Beyond the exhibition booths, operators at the Show were talking about exactly what you would expect them to be talking about at this point in 2026, including and especially gas prices and their impact on both consumer spending/sentiment and on food costs as diesel prices jump. One operator told me he is especially worried about higher diesel prices because the industry is “flat out of pricing elasticity.”
There is also a continued challenge to find long-term, loyal employees. As Audrey Benet, associate professor of the Walt Disney Center for Hospitality and Culinary Arts at Valencia College in Orlando, said, the industry has lost its edge as an employer of choice to the gig economy. She also warned — as did Chad Moutray, chief economist at the National Restaurant Association — of an impending crisis with fewer people coming into the workforce due to population declines and immigration policies.
“We need to figure out how to adjust. We’re losing people,” Benet said.
I asked every operator I talked to (about a dozen or so) if there were any silver bullets to navigate what continues to be a tough backdrop. Most chuckled. All of them said, “no.” Many added that this industry has and always will have its challenges, whether it’s gas prices or beef inflation or rising unemployment levels or something else.
That’s not to say they’re resigned to such challenges, however. Fred LeFranc, managing partner and co-founder of Results Thru Strategy, and who was attending “at least” his 40th show (I’m jealous of his badge collection) said he sees more curiosity than ever from operators as the environment is as tough as it’s ever been.
“Net income used to be 20% and now if you get 2%, you’re thrilled. We used to make dollars, now we count pennies. It’s just really hard right now and you’ve got to be on top of your game,” he said.
In addition to more regulations and higher cost inputs, a swiftly changing and on-demand consumer set and the different need-states of five generations have compounded challenges, he said. So, after 40-plus years of Show attendance, what is LeFranc’s advice on how to manage whatever is happening now?
“Keep it simple. Always start with the guest experience,” he said. “In my 50 or so years of experience, every time someone gets distracted and gets away from the guest experience, that’s when the cracks start to show.”
Contact Alicia Kelso at Alicia.Kelso@informa.com
Follow her on TikTok: @aliciakelso
