00:00:00 – Justin Foster:
Everyone, welcome to Restaurant Tech Trends, where we explore restaurant technology trends with some of the industry’s biggest movers and shakers in a rapid-fire short interview format. This podcast is produced by Incepted. Incepted takes restaurant orders over the phone and in noisy drive-thrus with friendliness and precision. Learn more at Insert I. Now to today’s guest. I’m joined by the one, the only Anthony Presley, Chief Technology Officer of CBS NorthStar, the cloud POS and restaurant tech platform behind hundreds of restaurant brands and kitchen footprints across the U.S.
00:00:41 – Justin Foster:
Anthony also co-founded workforce management firm TimeForge, and now he leads product and engineering at NorthStar. Under his watch, the company has rolled out innovations like Kitchen AI, which we’ll talk about in just a little bit—a predictive kitchen timing engine. Plus, he’s launched new partnerships for digital signage, voice AI, and omnichannel ordering. We’ll talk about how NorthStar builds tech that actually moves the needle for operators, not just shiny new features.
00:01:10 – Justin Foster:
Anthony, welcome to the show.
00:01:10 – Anthony Presley:
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
00:01:10 – Justin Foster:
I’m glad we have this opportunity. I know I just mentioned you’re someone I feel like I should know a lot better, so we’ll get to learn about each other through this format. Let’s start and talk about NorthStar.
00:01:30 – Justin Foster:
You’ve mentioned in the past that many POS systems try to run the show. From your perspective, what does NorthStar do differently—especially looking at the 2025 release that puts ops back in control?
00:01:30 – Anthony Presley:
It’s a good question. If you look at the POS landscape in North America, it’s changed drastically over the last ten years. We’re in a spot where a couple of large players are building walled gardens. They’re saying: we’ve raised enough capital, we’re going to build the entire tech infrastructure—scheduling, marketing, integrations, third-party delivery, online ordering, taxes, kitchen management. It’s a huge landscape to try to own and be best at.
00:02:40 – Anthony Presley:
We believe every operator knows what makes their brand best—how they greet the table, how they bring food out. Technology should amplify that experience. If you’re an all-in-one system without extensibility, you force the operator to operate the way your technology works rather than the other way around.
00:03:32 – Anthony Presley:
We’re offering a best-of-breed solution. The POS should be the best possible thing in your restaurant, with hundreds of configuration options. We want the tech to operate the way your business operates—not change the business to operate the way our software works. That’s easier when you take a best-of-breed approach.
00:04:22 – Justin Foster:
That makes sense. This is a huge point of discussion in the industry. Mid-market and enterprise brands want best-of-breed because you can build a lot of stuff, but you can’t build a lot of stuff and be the best at all of it. Let’s talk about Kitchen AI. What exactly is it, why do operators need it, and where does it still need to improve?
00:04:46 – Anthony Presley:
Kitchen AI came from a discussion with three of our largest customers—hundreds or thousands of locations. Something happened at the end of COVID. Large-format table service brands pivoted into online ordering. Now orders come into the kitchen from first-party and third-party channels while guests are also dining in on a Friday night.
00:05:41 – Anthony Presley:
Kitchens weren’t expecting a 25% lift on a Friday night because of online orders. They don’t know how to prioritize. They may turn off online ordering when overwhelmed, forget to turn it back on, and dine-in guests get frustrated—miss the start of a movie, have a bad experience.
00:06:27 – Anthony Presley:
Restaurants are real-time manufacturers with a small margin of error. Kitchen AI is about streamlining that: organizing orders from all channels so promised times can be delivered.
00:06:51 – Anthony Presley:
To do that, we predict what’s going on in the kitchen. We model cook times and station constraints, feed data into a predictive model, and can say: is the kitchen ahead or behind, how long will this take, what happens if a steak changes from medium-rare to well-done, is the pasta station the bottleneck. We visualize it so teams can streamline operations.
00:07:30 – Anthony Presley:
We can alert customers: the platform told you 45 minutes, but it’s really 53. Those minutes matter—food gets cold and the experience suffers.
00:07:50 – Justin Foster:
It never ceases to amaze me that huge restaurant chains are still delivering promise times based on a static approach—regardless of how busy the kitchen is.
00:08:23 – Anthony Presley:
More than 80% of publicly traded brands likely still operate that way: fixed online order limits and static prep time assumptions. A lot of it isn’t their fault—the online ordering system often can’t handle dynamic timing.
00:09:12 – Justin Foster:
You also co-founded TimeForge, so you have this background in labor management. How do you see POS, labor management, and front-of-house culture coming together next year and beyond?
00:09:37 – Anthony Presley:
Labor is evergreen. You can’t find enough people. When you do, you’re focused on keeping the best people and culture fit. With Gen A, there’s discussion about gamifying work. Amazon and Uber created expectations of getting paid right after a shift—earned wage access and same-day pay. Those are difficult to manage because tools haven’t all caught up.
00:11:06 – Justin Foster:
What are your thoughts on AI scheduling? Click a button, it schedules everyone automatically—how much editing control should GMs have? Is this a fad?
00:11:27 – Anthony Presley:
TimeForge has had scheduling since 2007. We’ve refined the algorithms. But it’s hard to trust the black box. You put in labor cost, sales, availability, labor needs, and out comes a “perfect” schedule. I don’t trust it. You don’t trust it. GMs don’t trust it. Everyone tweaks it and trust erodes.
00:12:21 – Anthony Presley:
What works is AI that nudges: suggests, pre-populates, then lets the manager make changes—and flags when someone is making too many changes. Same issue exists in inventory suggestions: people want to know how the system came up with the number.
00:13:13 – Justin Foster:
Let’s switch away from scheduling and labor. What big errors do multi-concept operators make when evaluating POS vendors? What red flags should they look out for?
00:13:49 – Anthony Presley:
The POS is probably the single most important piece of technology in a restaurant, and mistakes still happen. The biggest one: assuming a feature is “table stakes.” Wrong decisions get made when replacement technology isn’t fully vetted. It’s time-consuming—stand up a lab, run variations, validate workflows and reports. Some brands shortlist by install count and realize none have a feature they assumed was standard because they had it custom built 20 years ago.
00:15:49 – Justin Foster:
In our world—voice AI—the biggest misconception is that AI works on day one. I think of AI like a child you have to raise. It takes time.
00:16:33 – Justin Foster:
Let’s take a step back: automation versus human service. How does this change in the next 3–5 years? Have you seen rollouts where automation didn’t go well? Are we headed toward more automation, or will the human element push back?
00:17:24 – Anthony Presley:
In grocery, self-checkout is polarizing. Some people want the human lane and the interaction. Others won’t shop without self-checkout. Some will self-checkout even with 200 items. Sam’s Club goes further with scan-and-go so you never talk to anyone.
00:19:21 – Anthony Presley:
Restaurants will see similar patterns: kiosks, QR ordering, digital menu boards. Not everyone wants it, but if you don’t have the convenience someone wants, they may choose another place. Over time, restaurants will adjust footprints—if you don’t want kiosks, you don’t need kiosk queue space, and you can shrink the format.
00:20:54 – Anthony Presley:
AI and technology can’t replace soft skills—empathy, reading the room, face-to-face interaction. You can automate many tasks, but if the core is human interaction, you still need people.
00:22:02 – Justin Foster:
Rapid fire rules: I’ll ask a question—try to answer with one word. If you can’t, one sentence. Ready?
00:22:02 – Anthony Presley:
I am ready.
00:22:02 – Justin Foster:
If you had to pick one: solving for labor efficiency or guest experience—what gets priority?
00:22:26 – Anthony Presley:
Guest experience.
00:22:26 – Justin Foster:
Why, in one sentence?
00:22:26 – Anthony Presley:
You can work your way out of it if you have happy guests.
00:22:26 – Justin Foster:
More painful for operators: menu updates or labor scheduling?
00:23:05 – Anthony Presley:
Menu update.
00:23:05 – Justin Foster:
Should POS vendors ever lock operators into long-term contracts—yes or no?
00:23:05 – Anthony Presley:
Yes—if it’s mutually beneficial.
00:23:46 – Justin Foster:
Best ROI-driving feature in a POS: speed, data analytics, or flexibility of integration?
00:23:46 – Anthony Presley:
For enterprise: flexibility of integration. For smaller operators: data.
00:24:16 – Justin Foster:
Anthony, thank you very much for your time today. This has been a real pleasure. Everyone, Anthony Presley, CTO at CBS NorthStar and co-founder of TimeForge. Thank you.
00:24:16 – Anthony Presley:
Thank you. It’s great to be here.
