For decades, restaurants were built on a single transaction: the table. Guests dined, paid and left. Loyalty was anecdotal—a bartender remembering a favorite drink or a maître d’ recognizing a face. The pandemic shattered that simplicity. To survive, operators spun up delivery, subscriptions, events and merchandise. Now the industry is scrambling to be “guest-focused” in an omnichannel world, but the tools remain outdated, fragmented and built for one-off transactions. They don’t just miss personalization—they block growth.
Without unified data and true ownership of the guest relationship, operators can’t scale loyalty or unlock new revenue streams. The aspiration gap is clear: restaurants say they are guest-centric, but most don’t actually know their guests.
It’s time for restaurants to reclaim their power. That means demanding systems that put them—not a third-party software—at the center of the guest journey. It means insisting on tools built around first-party data, not rented profiles. And it means recognizing that the future of hospitality will be shaped not by who owns the table, but by who owns the relationship.
The personalization playbook—retail’s head start
Retail has long understood that data and personalization unlock lifetime value. Loyalty programs, omnichannel shopping and A.I.-powered recommendations work together to build deep customer profiles. Shoppers feel recognized and rewarded—while the retailer quietly becomes the trusted guide, shaping purchase decisions across the entire journey. Crucially, personalization spans both in-store and online, creating a seamless loop of recognition that not only drives sales but also deepens engagement and loyalty. Retail mastered the handoff between digital and in-person. Restaurants, by contrast, rarely connect those touchpoints. Guests may browse menus or book online, but when they arrive to dine, that context is lost.
Hospitality is now at the same inflection point—two decades later. Diners expect recognition across channels, for preferences to be anticipated, and their loyalty rewarded. Yet most operators juggle half a dozen disconnected systems: multiple reservations platforms, POS, event booking, ticketing, loyalty apps and marketing software that don’t talk to each other. The issue isn’t functionality—it’s ownership. Fragmented tools keep operators from controlling the guest relationship—and from growth.
Hospitality’s leapfrog moment
Restaurants already have richer, higher-frequency interactions than retail. With ownership and the right tools, they can leapfrog ahead—scaling loyalty, closing more high-value sales and unlocking entirely new revenue streams.
Most restaurant technology wasn’t built around the guest profile. Platforms began with a single function—reservations, POS or delivery—and bolted on features during the pandemic. The result: sprawling “all-in-one” stacks that promise omnichannel solutions but offer secondary features that rarely go deep enough.
More critically, many solutions were designed as marketplaces. That means the parent company—not the operator—controls the data and shapes discovery. A guest searching for a table may see a competitor listed first simply because of paid visibility. These dynamics shift control away from the restaurants, placing platforms between operators and their own guests.
Retail shows the alternative. Leading retailers own their customer journeys outright. When a customer signs in, their landing page is personalized to their history and preferences. That experience is mirrored in-store, creating a seamless loop that keeps the customer inside the brand’s ecosystem.
Restaurants don’t need to settle for less. Their relationships are already richer, more emotional and more frequent than retail. What’s missing isn’t insight—it’s integration and ownership. And let’s be clear: restaurants are not powerless. They are the ones building the memories, delivering the service, and creating the loyalty. The question isn’t whether they can own the guest—they already do. It’s whether they’ll demand systems that reflect that reality instead of renting it back.
What the numbers show
- Sixty-two percent of consumers say they’ll abandon a brand after a non-personalized experience.
- Seventy percent of restaurant operators now send personalized offers as part of their marketing strategy.
- Nearly half of operators admit they aren’t optimizing their data, even though it’s the key to customer retention and return visits.
- Clean, organized guest data is the foundation for personalization, enabling custom outreach and stronger loyalty.
- Seventy-six percent of operators say technology gives them a competitive edge, yet many admit they’re not fully realizing it, underscoring that the right fit of tech matters.
The message: ownership isn’t optional—it’s the real engine of growth.
Hospitality’s hidden weakness—and its untapped advantage
Unlike retail, restaurants sit in the sweet spot of real-time, emotional engagement. A guest’s experience isn’t a one-click transaction; it’s a sensory memory. Who they dine with, what they celebrate, how often they return—this context is richer and more actionable than any product purchase.
But here’s the paradox: despite having the deepest guest relationships of any industry, operators lack visibility into them. The limitation isn’t insight—it’s integration. And without integration, restaurants can’t unlock growth. Fractured systems stall revenue, shallow loyalty keeps guests from returning and high-potential opportunities never scale to their full potential.
This shift isn’t just operational—it’s strategic. For full-service restaurants, owning the guest relationship means more than personalization—it means growth. In luxury retail, recognition is part of the brand promise. Hospitality has the same opportunity, but with richer context and higher-frequency interactions. With ownership and unified data, operators can scale loyalty, close more sales and unlock new revenue streams beyond the table.
That’s where CRMs should come in. A true Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system unifies guest interactions into a single, living profile—something marketing, sales, operations and guest services can all act on together. CRMs matter because they transform fragments into a full picture of the guest, and they fuel growth. With one source of truth, operators can grow revenue, scale loyalty across concepts, close more high-value sales like events and private dining and retain guests through recognition that keeps them coming back. The difference is subtle but seismic. A true CRM collapses complexity into a first-party profile operators control—turning memory into data, data into recognition and recognition into growth.
Retail perfected personalization. Can restaurants catch up?
The opportunity is unmistakable: when restaurants stitch data into a true ecosystem, they can shift from one-off transactions to lifetime loyalty. A guest who books a birthday dinner might later attend a chef’s table, buy a subscription box and host a corporate event—all within the same restaurant group. Without a unified view, those moments stay siloed.
And the stakes are enormous. Without connected data, operators can’t see the full value of their guests across channels. A $50,000 corporate client might look like a one-off if event data lives in isolation—while their weekly dining and recurring ticketed experiences sit elsewhere. Fragmented systems hide opportunities; a CRM connects them, giving operators the visibility to grow revenue, close more deals and retain their highest-value guests.
If restaurants could close this gap, the possibilities would be transformative. Browsing a menu online could update a guest’s profile, informing how they’re greeted at the door, what offers they receive next week and how their loyalty is rewarded across visits. That level of recognition would move hospitality beyond transactions and into true, long-term relationships.
Retail has already shown that whoever controls the customer journey controls the industry. Restaurants now have the chance to do the same—only faster, deeper and with far greater emotional resonance.
Closing the aspiration gap
Despite every intention to be guest-centric, most restaurants are left flying blind—fragmented systems, rented data and no unified view of the customer. Guests may feel recognized in the moment, but the reality is that operators are relying on memory, not insight.
That gap is no longer sustainable. Consumer expectations have been reset by retail, where online and in-person interactions are seamlessly connected and every touchpoint feels curated. Hospitality has the raw ingredients to go even further: richer emotional context, higher-frequency interactions and guests who want to belong to something more than a loyalty tier.
What’s missing is ownership. Guests already belong to restaurants. The technology should serve that truth—not obscure it.
The shift has already begun. Operators who embrace it will deliver recognition that feels effortless, loyalty that feels genuine and experiences that extend far beyond a single meal. For the first time, hospitality has the chance to outpace retail at its own game. Retail sells products. Restaurants sell belonging. And belonging—when recognized, remembered and scaled—is the most powerful growth engine of all.
The next generation of hospitality leaders will be those who use CRM not just for personalization, but to grow, scale, close and retain, building businesses that thrive across every channel and every guest touchpoint.
