The Howard Company's Blog

If you are a typical quick-service restaurant operation, you have been in business for a few years, and have had a good run because of smart marketing and a great product. Maybe you bought an existing property and have nursed it from a "just getting by" business to one with a decent financial return.

As consumers, we see digital menu displays everywhere. It is all restaurant chains talk about – getting their franchisees into the digital menu board game. Local restaurants are dipping their toes into digital displays too. Menu board companies all seem to have their version of digital boards in their product lines. But once a user has installed their board, what happens then? Let's examine the four "T"s you should think about once you have invested in updating your restaurant with your new digital menu board.

You have decided to invest in installing drive-thru systems for your restaurants. Great! Having a drive-thru has many benefits. 

Every so often a new technology comes along that fundamentally changes the way we lead our lives. “The U.S economy is in the midst of a wrenching technological transformation that is fundamentally changing the way people sleep, work, eat, shop, love, read, and interact.” (Derek Thompson, The Atlantic).

Something that we see all too often at The Howard Company is restaurants using digital signage to display static images. Imagine going out to eat and the digital menu board displays the exact same products, prices, and images day after day and week after week, without moving or changing. This, to put it bluntly, is a tremendous waste.