Restaurants Are Facing an ‘Evolve or Die’ Reality

What does the future hold for restaurants? More consolidation, more tech integrations, and — hopefully — a better understanding of each company's core customer, according to a new Morningstar report predicting what the industry will look like in 2019. The report summed up this year as “evolve or die” for operators, which is blunt, sure, but accurate: this year's earnings calls were dominated by discussions around how each chain is addressing its own evolution on multiple fronts, from delivery, to labor management, to menu development, and restaurant redesigns. In particular, the traffic and labor challenges that have been discussed all year will be a lot easier to weather for those who have a good handle on leveraging restaurant tech, understandi