Bruce Horovitz

USA TODAY

Food used to be what drove folks into restaurants. But these days, it's also increasingly the technology behind it.

That's why two major restaurant chains, Taco Bell and Outback Steakhouse, made marketing waves on Tuesday, not with new product rollouts, but with industry-leading technology announcements.

Taco Bell went way outside the bun to unveil an advanced mobile app that lets folks order and pay on their smartphones and then walk or drive in and pick up their food.

To draw social media attention and promote the new app, all of Taco Bell's social media platforms — including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram — went dark on Tuesday, revealing the new way to Taco Bell is #onlyintheapp. Each social media platform, as well as tacobell.com, provides only a link to download the new app. Consumers with the previous Taco Bell mobile app get an automatic update to the new mobile ordering app.

"Technology has fundamentally changed the way people interact with brands," says Brian Niccol, president of Taco Bell. "All can be done any time, any place on a smartphone."

The driver behind the social media blackout: chat.

"We wanted to make sure our fans were the people who found out about this first," says Tressie Lieberman, senior director of digital platforms. "We wanted to break through with a message that gets them excited and talking."

Meanwhile, Outback on Tuesday announced plans to roll out an industry-first online reservations tool for mobile, iPad or laptop that shows real-time waits for seating at every Outback in the country and lets the user get a place in line.

New technologies are driving the $683 billion restaurant industry like never before. McDonald's and Starbucks both are spending huge sums on new technologies. So are Pizza Hut, Papa John's and Domino's. Most are aimed at Millennial consumers who would much rather interact quickly with their smartphones than stand in line waiting to order or to be seated. Chili's has technology that lets folks pay, order more food or play games on table-top tablets.

"Everyone is trying to stay ahead of everyone else in terms of connectivity," says Jerry McVety, founder of food service consulting firm McVety & Associates. These days, he says, the No. 1 goal is "get the customers and provide technology and services to keep them."

And not just Millennials. "It's well known that younger consumers are more likely to accept — and even request — technology options being part of their dining experience, but we're finding that older consumers also are willing to incorporate technology for a variety of restaurant-related activities," said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president at the National Restaurant Association.

Some 56% of consumers ages 45 to 64 recently have used technology options in restaurants. Four of 10 have ordered food or looked up menus online in the past month. About a third have looked up restaurant locations on a smartphone. More than one in 10 have ordered takeout/delivery, looked up nutrition information or made a reservation via phone or tablet apps, he says.



Outback will roll out its online Click Thru Seating tool on Nov. 4. Beyond letting customers see wait times for every Outback in the country, it lets customers add their name to the current wait list or put their name in the queue for any time that day. Unlike a traditional reservation, late guests will not be dropped from the wait list or penalized.

"It's more important than rolling out a new steak," says John Schaufelberger, chief marketing officer, in a phone interview.

And it responds to what bugs casual dining customers most: waiting. On a busy Friday or Saturday night, customers typically wait almost 40 minutes for a seat at the typical casual dining restaurant. "This has historically been a pain point to our customers," says Schaufelberger. "We don't want that to be a barrier" to coming in.

But McVety, the food service consultant, warns that some traditional Outback customers who opt to just show up and wait in line may be turned off when they see customers who arrive later seated before them.

At the same time, Taco Bell became the first national, fast-food chain to launch its mobile ordering and payment app for both drive-thru and dining room orders. The free Taco Bell mobile ordering app for iOS and Android gives consumers access to every Taco Bell ingredient.

"Consumers have told us they continue to look for the experience that meets them where they are and to customize it to what they want and how they want it," says Niccol, in a phone interview.

Early next year, Taco Bell will roll out a loyalty program that links with the app, says Niccol. And it's also testing a new catering program in about 15 stores.

To encourage use of the app, some new products will initially be accessible only via app ordering, says Lieberman, "You'll be able to order products that no one else can."