- 2 days ago
Deborah Matteliano, Global Restaurant Industry Lead at Amazon Web Services, believes technology should make hospitality more personal. After helping restaurants navigate online ordering at Uber Eats, she now helps brands create better guest experiences through technology at AWS.
Watch now to learn what digital hospitality means, why first-party data matters and how technology can strengthen the guest experience.
Restaurant Influencers is sponsored by:
• Toast All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://entm.ag/ToastRI
• PepsiCo Foodservice: https://entm.ag/RIPepsico
Watch now to learn what digital hospitality means, why first-party data matters and how technology can strengthen the guest experience.
Restaurant Influencers is sponsored by:
• Toast All-In-1 Restaurant POS: https://entm.ag/ToastRI
• PepsiCo Foodservice: https://entm.ag/RIPepsico
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NewsTranscript
00:00Nine out of ten of the top restaurants on earth use AWS, and it's about the same for the food
00:05tech brands like Toast, Uber Eats, and DoorDash.
00:08So we're able to scale incredible restaurant technologies to SMB restaurants who don't have builders sitting behind a computer all
00:15day just through having partners like Toast.
00:17That's super meaningful for us.
00:26Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur.
00:29I'm your host, Sean Walcheff.
00:30This is a Cali BBQ Media production coming to you from the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago.
00:36This is the biggest restaurant show on earth.
00:3955,000 restaurant-obsessed people, 2,200 vendors, 12 football fields.
00:44If you care about restaurants, please come to this show.
00:47I speak from personal experience.
00:49I have an amazing team at Cali BBQ, but for 10 years, I was stuck in my restaurant, and I
00:54didn't come to the show.
00:54I knew about the show, but I didn't come to the show.
00:57And for the last five years, every single year, we make the mecca to come here to learn things, to
01:02ask questions, to interview incredible people.
01:05Deborah Metalliano, Global Head of Restaurants for AWS, Amazon Web Services, is my special guest.
01:13Welcome to the show.
01:14Thank you so much for having me.
01:15So, in life, in the restaurant business, and in the new creator economy, we learn through lessons and stories.
01:21One of the reasons we started this show, thanks to Toast for believing in this project, and thanks to Informa
01:26for giving us an opportunity to have conversations like this,
01:29is that as restauranteurs, we want to know the things that are going to help us run more profitable, run
01:34more sustainable businesses.
01:36Can you tell us a little bit about high-level, what does the global head of restaurants do?
01:43First of all, let's start with what is AWS, for those that don't know.
01:46Great.
01:47So, AWS is the cloud computing side of Amazon.
01:51Okay.
01:52Amazon is AWS's biggest customer.
01:55Wow.
01:56AWS is what does all the infrastructure behind the scenes that gets you what you need from Amazon every single
02:02day.
02:03Amazon basically built AWS to fulfill its delivery promise to the world of one day or less.
02:08So, we made that promise, built the delivery infrastructure around it, and that's really how AWS was formed.
02:14Then, we decided to offer it out to the world.
02:16So, what I do is I help that infrastructure layer come true for restaurants and food tech brands.
02:23What that looks like is how do we help the young brands or the DoorDash of the world meet the
02:28promises that they have to their customers?
02:29What does that look like in the age of hospitality?
02:32We want restaurants to become more customer-centric and deliver on their promises just like Amazon does.
02:37So, it's about how do we apply this to the industry to make restaurants better?
02:41I mean, what I love about it is it is the largest scale of our thesis, which is digital hospitality.
02:48How does a company like Amazon deliver digital?
02:51What does digital hospitality mean to you?
02:53Ooh.
02:53I think digital hospitality is different for every brand.
02:56Yes.
02:56And I think every brand has their own promise.
02:58So, I told you about Amazon's promise.
03:00Yes.
03:00Get there in one day or less.
03:02Design everything around that.
03:04You guys are faster than one day.
03:05One day or less.
03:06My wife, she is a number one customer, biggest fan.
03:09And, you know, shout out to my wife and the wolf back.
03:11But, I mean, literally when I think of the greatest hospitality brands, Amazon is the top of the list.
03:18Correct.
03:18You guys are transforming what hospitality truly means.
03:21Correct.
03:21In terms of logistics.
03:22Yes.
03:22And then back to the restaurant.
03:23And communication.
03:24Sure.
03:25And empathy.
03:26And empathy.
03:27Right.
03:27And it's all powered by tech.
03:29So, what does digital hospitality mean?
03:30I think it's using technology to help people feel seen, known, understood, and special.
03:36I think hospitality still happens at the human, even more soulful level that we don't always get to do on
03:44a daily basis through tech.
03:45I think hospitality becomes a superpower when you apply tech.
03:48And I've got a lot of examples of this.
03:50Give me an example.
03:51I'll give you an example.
03:52We love stories.
03:52Okay.
03:52Here's my story about hospitality and digital hospitality.
03:55I like to think of it like a three-layer cake.
03:57Yes.
03:58So, the bottom layer is where AI is by itself.
04:01The middle layer is where AI is handing off to the human.
04:05And the top layer is where humans should only ever be.
04:08So, the bottom layer, and Amazon does this really well.
04:11Think of the logistics, all of the operational efficiency, all the data collection, all the stuff that why should a
04:17human be bogged down with that?
04:19And then let's lift it to the middle layer.
04:21The middle layer is the handoff.
04:22How do we find really smart ways to get it to the human at the point where it matters that
04:26we can then go to the top level, which is human-only hospitality in the moment?
04:31So, I'll give you an example.
04:33Data might source that it's your 100th visit.
04:37How could a human count, you know, whose 100th visit it is?
04:40So, we know it's Sean's 100th visit.
04:42That pass-off happens.
04:44Maybe you get a little ping in your POS or whatever that interface looks like.
04:48And then the human at the point of hospitality can say, hey, we saw this.
04:51Like, what's your favorite thing?
04:52Here's a free cookie.
04:54That can change your day.
04:55And I really believe in the power of you change one person's day, you change five people's days.
04:59You change 500 people's days.
05:00And hospitality is more important than ever in an age of digital where people feel really lost and lonely and
05:06kind of sequestered and siloed off in a way.
05:09These are ways that we can empower hospitality when it matters.
05:14So, I see this a little bit differently than others.
05:17That, like, there should be this whole invisible infrastructure data layer there that nobody even knows about.
05:23But that's just making people better able to connect and serve each other.
05:29Whether you're a global restaurant powerhouse or local independent like us here at Cali BBQ, we all want the same
05:35thing, sustainable growth.
05:36And let me tell you, PepsiCo is a partner built to do exactly that, help you build a sustainable business.
05:42As operators, we get it.
05:44We know that digital matters.
05:45Online ordering, third-party apps, digital menus, online visibility, it's a lot.
05:50And it's incredibly hard to prioritize when you're just trying to take care of your kitchen and manage a busy
05:56team.
05:56But a few small digital tweaks can have a massive impact, especially when you have the right team backing you
06:02up.
06:02That's where PepsiCo's Digital Lab stands apart.
06:06This is an in-house team built specifically for restaurant operators.
06:10They use proven media services and AI-backed menu optimization to drive what actually matters.
06:16More guests, smarter digital experiences, and more profitable online orders.
06:21Just look at the numbers from last year alone.
06:23And the absolute best part, these digital lab services are available completely free to Pepsi restaurant partners of any size.
06:31If you're a Pepsi customer, stop waiting.
06:33Talk to your Pepsi rep today or click the link in the show notes below to learn how to unlock
06:38your growth advantage.
06:39Let's keep that momentum going.
06:44So one of the things that we've talked about for a while are restaurants in San Diego, barbecue restaurants, slow
06:51-smoke barbecue.
06:51But we wanted to build the Amazon of barbecue.
06:54And what does that look like?
06:56That means getting more barbecue to more people that aren't just inside the four walls of our business.
07:00The only way to do that is to leverage technology.
07:02So many of the best-in-class technology partners that we use in our tech stack are powered by AWS.
07:08So a company like Toast that has 160,000 locations globally is depending on AWS to power all of those
07:16locations.
07:17Can you talk about how important it is not only for your relationship with Toast, but all of the other
07:21technology vendors that depend on AWS?
07:23Absolutely.
07:24So 90% of the world's largest quick service restaurants run on AWS.
07:28And it's about the same.
07:2990%?
07:30Of the world's largest.
07:31Wow.
07:31Nine out of ten of the top restaurants on Earth use AWS.
07:35And it's about the same for the food tech brands like Toast, Uber Eats, and DoorDash.
07:39So we've got great presence there.
07:42Customers like Toast mean a ton to us because not every restaurant can make their own toast.
07:49Yes.
07:50Like literally and figuratively.
07:51Yes, 100%.
07:52So instead of building your own POS, which you could do on AWS, we have that level of infrastructure.
07:58If you want to hire the engineers to do that, go for it.
08:01But do you really want to?
08:02But why?
08:03Why would you do that?
08:04Find someone who does it better.
08:05And then AWS is still the infrastructure on the back end.
08:08So we're able to scale incredible restaurant technologies to SMB restaurants who don't have builders sitting behind a computer all
08:14day just through having partners like Toast.
08:16That's super meaningful for us.
08:18And that middle layer we talked about where it's like you have that underbelly AI layer surfacing it up to
08:23the top, which is that human-to-human special connection.
08:27Toast is really good at that pass-off layer.
08:29Like how do we unearth insights and then start to push them?
08:32And you're seeing that they're building more and more capabilities like voice AI partnerships, et cetera, to help that hospitality
08:38handoff happen.
08:39So that's really important for us as the middle layer because on AWS, we also have giant brands like YumGrants
08:44or even large brands like Wingstop.
08:46They build all their digital infrastructure on AWS and they've got huge teams ready to innovate and do this.
08:52Well, not every team has that.
08:54And so it's really up to the restaurant and how they want to deploy their resources.
08:57But Toast is basically a secret weapon for restaurants who want that kind of capability immediately.
09:03Did you know that Toast powers over 140,000 restaurants across the United States, Canada, and UK?
09:11It's an incredible company.
09:13I'm on the Toast Customer Advisory Board.
09:14They are proud sponsors of this show, Restaurant Influencers.
09:17We couldn't do it without their support.
09:19They power our barbecue restaurants in San Diego.
09:22If you have questions about Toast, if you're thinking about bringing Toast on to be your primary technology partner at
09:29your restaurants, please reach out to me.
09:31I'm happy to get a local Toast representative to take care of you.
09:35You can reach me at Sean P. Welchef on Instagram.
09:38Once again, thank you to Toast for believing in the power of technology, the power of storytelling, the power of
09:44hospitality.
09:45Back to the show.
09:46Do you remember when you first learned that you were the global head of AWS?
09:52Like, what was the weight of the responsibility?
09:54Like, can you bring us into that moment?
09:56You know what's cool is that it was a net new job that no one had ever done.
10:01Does that make it cool or scary?
10:03There was no playbook for how to do it right or wrong.
10:06So what was interesting is this job came about during the pandemic.
10:10We used to have a global head just of restaurants.
10:12Our AWS practice was focused on the large restaurant brands.
10:16During the pandemic, I think it's something like now 75% of restaurants use automation in some form.
10:22And we had this huge cloud migration of restaurant tech brands during that time.
10:26And so Amazon was looking for an expert to help those customers.
10:30And I had come from my years at Uber Eats.
10:32So it was really just brand new stepping into kind of a unicorn role and helping figure it out.
10:36Now I run the whole industry, which includes restaurants and food techs.
10:39But kind of charting that out was sort of interesting.
10:42How big is the industry?
10:43At AWS?
10:44Yeah, like you have to run, not only have to run restaurants, but you also have to run the tech
10:48side.
10:49Like how many vendors are we talking?
10:51It's not small.
10:52It's not small.
10:52There are thousands of restaurant ISVs, vendors, tech companies, restaurant brands themselves, packaging suppliers, supply chain technologies that run on
11:03AWS.
11:04And we help everyone from the Cisco's of the world on distribution all the way to the pass-off with
11:09forecasting DoorDash drivers to come to your door.
11:11So what's exciting for me is to see someone in your position and a new position at a company as
11:16big as Amazon and AWS here at the show having conversations, sharing your expertise, learning what the pain points are
11:24from small units to mid-sized units to enterprise-level brands to the tech partners to the vendors, to even
11:30the equipment companies that are also technology companies.
11:32They're probably still powered by AWS.
11:35I mean, literally, technology is everywhere and the rate of change is happening so fast.
11:39Can you share a little bit about like, what are the plans?
11:41What do you think this is going to look like for 2027?
11:44And how do you have more unscalable conversations that will actually help AWS power this industry better?
11:50I think right now, a lot of brands are asking about agentic commerce and what is that going to mean?
11:54I guess right now, our form of it in the industry is voice AI.
11:57It's like kind of our form of agents that we've invented.
12:00I think it's going to go so much further than this.
12:03Yeah, voices, vision, and then agents for commerce for ordering too.
12:07So what is it going to look like if Claude is able to fulfill your delivery order at some point?
12:13Is there going to be another middleman?
12:15So I get a lot of questions about that.
12:18At Amazon, we really believe in owning the customer relationship.
12:20We have our own shopping assistant, Alexa for shopping assistant on amazon.com,
12:25because we want to keep the customer with us.
12:27We want to continue learning about our customer.
12:28If you own the customer data, you own the relationship, and then you own the hospitality.
12:32So what I tell a lot of brands now is this is the time to get really smart and tight
12:36on your first-party data.
12:37Do what Wingstop did and build my Wingstop digital ordering platform on AWS with such a good app that customers
12:44will go right to you.
12:46And then whether you have a third-party deliver the orders is irrelevant.
12:49You still own the data and the customer interaction.
12:51Here's why that matters.
12:53Because eventually, customers might just go to Claude and say, what do I order on DoorDash?
12:57I'm in Chicago for two days, and I don't know anything about the city.
13:00Now Claude is the decider.
13:01And these AIs and agents, they decide based on who has the best and the cleanest and the most comprehensive
13:08data.
13:08So they're going to be finding the brands that have built up apps with first-party data that they know
13:14they can trust
13:14and that have good, clean data that agrees with itself all across all their sources, whether it's Reddit or Yelp.
13:22AI is so contextual.
13:23So you really want to get that so tightened up so that the AI is going to pick you.
13:27Now, that's still very futuristic.
13:28That's not happening yet, but first-party ordering and first-party data collection
13:32and making your app a really great place to order matters more than ever for that reason.
13:36For sure.
13:37What advice would you give to the restaurant owner that's watching this, that's here at the show?
13:42How can they start to think?
13:43You know, we are obsessed with figuring out how to get more barbecue to more people in San Diego,
13:48but also how do we get it beyond San Diego?
13:50What can somebody do?
13:51What can they learn from AWS and Amazon best practices?
13:54One thing we do at Amazon is we simplify things with a working backwards model.
13:59So work backwards from the experience that you want to deliver.
14:02And that's what's really interesting about Amazon.
14:04In 1997, we had two fulfillment centers and we started out of a garage and we were a bookseller.
14:10And then we decided the customer might want something else.
14:13As a result, built those 800 fulfillment centers and a million robots to now deliver your book.
14:18So it wasn't, oh, you know what?
14:21We have all these warehouses.
14:22I guess we can fit canoes and everything under the sun in them.
14:26And hey, let's sell that.
14:27It was, I think customers want this thing and we are going to find a way to sell it.
14:31So that's a very backwards way of looking at it that most business owners don't think like.
14:36I would encourage restaurant owners to work backwards from what is their perfect moment of hospitality that they're chasing.
14:43So like, what is, how do you want customers to feel when they're eating your barbecue?
14:48What is it that you want it to do in their day?
14:51Like, what is it that you're putting out in the world?
14:53What does the perfect experience look like?
14:54And then design the tech around that.
14:57So it's not just, oh, we have this infrastructure and these new services.
15:00Like, how do we use it to help the customer?
15:02It's what do we actually think the customer needs?
15:04And then how do we build around it?
15:05It sounds simple, but you'd be surprised at how many times the goals for executives that I do board presentations
15:11for will be, oh, we just need to use AI.
15:15Just use AI.
15:16Using AI.
15:17Just implement AI for AI.
15:18That's not a goal.
15:18Yeah, it's not a goal.
15:20It's a tool, not a goal.
15:21Correct.
15:22So solving the customer problem and enhancing your special brand of hospitality in the world, that is the goal.
15:29And how do we design around that?
15:30I think it's really interesting.
15:32So you have a background of building the sales team for Uber Eats.
15:36Is that correct?
15:37Yes.
15:37Can you bring us back to the early days of selling to restaurant owners?
15:41Are you sure you want to go there?
15:42I would love to because, you know, it's funny.
15:44We didn't even do third-party delivery until, gosh, it had to have been, I don't know, maybe 2018.
15:50And it took us, obviously, like most restaurants to the pandemic to offer multiple third-party delivery.
15:56Can you bring us into those early conversations of telling restaurant owners that we can think beyond the four walls?
16:01And how did those conversations go?
16:04Not always well.
16:06Not always well.
16:07So it was really...
16:08Well, the first step is how do you get a restaurant owner on the phone?
16:11You don't.
16:13How do you...
16:14Do they respond to emails?
16:15No.
16:16Definitely not.
16:16Okay.
16:17You walk in.
16:17You walk in.
16:18You open the door.
16:19You walk in and you sit there enough times with something to offer that they finally have a conversation.
16:24That...
16:25I try to really scale this in-person visit model.
16:28Like, build trust in person.
16:30Restaurant owners care about personal connections.
16:32It's weird, right?
16:33It seems so counterintuitive.
16:35But, like, yeah, tech...
16:35If you're a tech company watching this, please bring humans to restaurants.
16:39That is the way to serve the customer.
16:41And operators notice that.
16:43And, by the way, operators just want to feed you.
16:45Yeah.
16:45And once you're fed, then maybe you can talk.
16:47So it's really a different language.
16:48I came from this B2B sales world where maybe we could write these really articulate emails.
16:54Heck no.
16:55Not for restaurant owners.
16:56That's not what it was.
16:57But I'll tell you where we got it wrong at Uber Eats.
17:00Oh, please.
17:01So when I was building Uber Eats, we realized that we had this really cool data that we have
17:07the search data where, yes, I can upload or onboard Cali BBQ to our app.
17:13Yeah.
17:13But what if people in a five-mile radius to your restaurant are searching for poke?
17:17Mm-hmm.
17:18Ooh.
17:18Should we tempt you to build a virtual restaurant and then serve poke bowls out of the back of
17:23your restaurant?
17:24Sometimes, yes.
17:25But so we built this data science.
17:27We used AI, like a bottom layer, really early, 2017, 2018.
17:30We're using AI to service.
17:32What are the three types of cuisines we think this restaurant-
17:35Virtual brands.
17:36A virtual brand.
17:37This restaurant could offer that we could put on our app and then more customers would
17:41be satisfied in their search and we would reduce that card abandonment from customers
17:44searching it and then leaving.
17:45That was the data we were going on.
17:46So it's super smart.
17:48And this is an example of where super smart people don't always get it fully right because
17:52you miss the sole layer.
17:54So I'll give you an example of this.
17:55Restaurants are super complex.
17:57It's super complex.
17:58So if you're going after an Italian concept and saying, hey, make sushi, maybe they'll
18:05do it because they see the revenue opportunity.
18:07That's real.
18:08The data's real.
18:09But are they passionate about that?
18:11Is that part of their mission for hospitality?
18:13Are they going to execute a quality and scale?
18:15So sometimes, yes, and it really is a good idea.
18:17We have these amazing stories from virtual restaurants at Uber Eats.
18:21We were able to grow at zero to 700 percent and we had operators like this guy who did
18:27a VR called Miami Wings.
18:29He would call us and say, I'm putting my kids through college.
18:32I'm paying off equipment debt.
18:34I'm doing so much for my restaurant.
18:36Well, guess what?
18:36Wings were a lot easier to execute than maybe sushi.
18:40And you can fry them up, get them out easily.
18:42He did a really good job.
18:43He grew his VR.
18:44That was amazing for his business.
18:46But maybe it's not amazing for everybody.
18:47So that top layer of the cake where there's that like soul of hospitality, does the idea
18:52integrate with the original soul of the operator?
18:55And like, are we helping that scale organically or are we just mixing up the layers and putting
18:59tech at the top where the soul really needs to be?
19:01So I think that one keeps me up at night.
19:03And when I came to AWS, that was something I took really seriously that we can't just throw
19:09tech at operators and expect it all to work.
19:12It all has to integrate with the mission.
19:15What's the most important question about AWS that I haven't asked you that you want restaurant
19:21owners to know, that you want anyone attending this show to know?
19:24The big message from AWS is it's so possible to achieve your dreams using tech.
19:30And we have so many resources there to help.
19:33Sometimes you're using AWS indirectly through a partner of ours like Toast.
19:37But sometimes maybe you want to own your own digital destiny and build your own tech stack
19:43like My Wingstop or Bite by Yum is run on AWS.
19:47So really anything's possible and we want to help you work backwards from your goals.
19:50I think it can be really intimidating for operators who just want to make food to know what's
19:56out there and how to get that level of help and understand what these things are.
20:00Because sometimes it's not always relevant to like, why should you think about the cloud
20:04if you're running a five location restaurant?
20:06At the same time, I like to say imagination is more powerful than knowledge.
20:11You don't need to know everything about the cloud to scale a restaurant these days.
20:14You could vibe code a restaurant website in two minutes using one of the apps and accelerators
20:21to do that.
20:22And AWS can help you scale.
20:24So I guess I just want to inspire people who have good ideas, but maybe don't have the
20:28technical knowledge.
20:30Either did I.
20:30I was an English major and a fine arts minor.
20:33That's awesome.
20:34Here I am to tell the tale with an extremely techie role.
20:37But that helps me every single day.
20:39It's really understanding human behavior and creativity and innovation.
20:44And the tech follows that.
20:46Like it's not just like, oh, we have to learn AI for this AI forward world.
20:49Like take it back to your goals and what matters to you and what matters to your customers.
20:53Amazing.
20:53If you guys are watching, if you're listening, we do live shows every Wednesday, every Friday.
20:57It's called Rising Tides Live.
20:58It's an incredible community of restaurateurs, hospitality professionals, storytellers, technologists.
21:04You can go to betheshow.media slash risingtides to sign up.
21:07One of the things my grandfather taught me, he would be so happy to know that we're here
21:12with my team.
21:12Shout out to Aaron, Michon, Brandon, Tony, every single person.
21:16We have an incredible team of media professional storytellers.
21:19We believe deeply in this.
21:20If you're watching this, if you're listening to this, you matter.
21:23We want to do videos with you.
21:24We want to hear your story next year at the National Restaurant Association Show.
21:27We want to visit your restaurant wherever it is on earth.
21:30Stay curious, get involved, and don't be afraid to ask for help.
21:34So grateful, Debra, for you to take the time.
21:36Grateful to Informa.
21:37Thank you to Toast, our title sponsor of the show.
21:40It's truly an awesome opportunity for us to have you on.
21:43Awesome.
21:44Thank you so much for having me.
21:45Great to be here.
21:46We appreciate you guys.
21:47Please subscribe.
21:48Please share it with a friend.
21:49And we'll see you next year at the National Restaurant Show.
21:56Thank you for listening.
21:57If you've made it this long, you are part of the community.
22:00You're part of the tribe.
22:01We can't do this alone.
22:02We started.
22:03No one was listening.
22:04Now we have a community of digital hospitality leaders all over the globe.
22:08Please check out our new series called Restaurant Technology Substack.
22:12It's a Substack newsletter.
22:13It's free.
22:14It's some of our deep work on the best technology for restaurants.
22:18Also, go to YouTube and subscribe to Cali BBQ Media.
22:22Cali BBQ Media on YouTube.
22:23We've been putting out a lot of new original content.
22:26Hopefully, you guys like that content.
22:28If you want to work with us, go to betheshow.media.
22:31We show up all over the United States, some international countries.
22:34We would love to work with you and your growing brand on digital storytelling.
22:38You can reach out to me anytime at Sean P. Welchef on Instagram.
22:41I'm weirdly available.
22:43Stay curious.
22:44Get involved.
22:45Don't be afraid to ask for help.
22:46We'll catch you next episode.
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