Latest news with #ChrisStanton


Harvard Business Review
22-07-2025
- Business
- Harvard Business Review
Shake Shack's Digital Playbook: More Tech, Same Hospitality?
Shake Shack started in 2001 as a hot dog cart in New York City's Madison Square Park. It's now a global fast-casual restaurant chain renowned for both quality and hospitality. In 2024, following a rapid rollout of digital tools like kiosks and mobile ordering, Chief Growth Officer Stephanie So found herself asking, had Shake Shack built a model that could truly scale, or one that still needed work? That question came during a leadership transition and amid ambitious plans for growth. Digital orders were up, and average check sizes were higher, but the shift also raised new challenges. Would automation undermine the guest experience or change what it meant to work at Shake Shack? Could personalization and operational efficiency coexist with the company's hallmark hospitality ethos? Harvard Business School professor Chris Stanton joins So and host Brian Kenny to discuss the case ' Shake Shack's Playbook for the Digital Era.' Together, they explore what it means to scale hospitality in a tech-driven industry and how Shake Shack is balancing brand values, digital adoption, and the evolving role of its frontline team.


Daily Record
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Tributes as Perthshire hotel boss loses cancer battle just months after marrying partner
Chris Stanton, known as Mr Chris, married his fiancee Alice Maxwell at the hotel earlier this year in front of hundreds of their loved ones. Tributes have been paid to Pitlochry Hydro Hotel general manager Chris Stanton who has died of cancer aged 56. In March this year Chris married his fiancée Alice Maxwell at the hotel in a ceremony attended by over 200 guests. Alice said this week it created a blended family of three beautiful daughters – Francesca, Isabelle and Amy. The happy occasion followed a three-year cancer battle – during which he climbed Ben Vrackie in a charity fundraiser he co-organised. Sadly Chris passed away on June 21 at Cornhill Macmillan Centre, Perth. Chris was born in Whiston Hospital on Merseyside and lived in Huyton until he was three, with his mum, dad, sister and two brothers. He called himself a 'woollyback' and his sense of humour, warm nature and love of The Beatles came from the strong connection with Liverpool. At the age of 16 Chris moved to London to work in various hotels for several years. He went on to work on cruise liners, exploring the world. He also worked during ski seasons, blagging he could speak fluent French, but when it came to food and drink orders he had to ask his sister to help. Chris always wanted to be a dad and he came back to the UK to settle down, moving to Pitlochry in 2000, raising his two beautiful daughters Francesca and Isabelle, and working as general manager at the Pitlochry Hydro Hotel. Chris loved music and volunteered at the local community owned Heartland FM radio station; Moonlight Drive was aired each Thursday and Sunday night, showcasing a range of music and quizzes entertaining Highland Perthshire. Various friends and family joined him on a show or two. He was a keen writer producing stories, short plays and even a musical. He also created and produced a quiz board game called 'All Rounder' and sold them at local farmers' markets. Chris was well known around Pitlochry for his work at the Hydro. He was known as Mr Chris to his colleagues. Many employees became friends, one of which Chris set up on a blind date and now the couple are happily married with two wonderful children. He enjoyed going to gigs, walking his dogs, entertaining at home with his brilliant cooking, playing scrabble, tennis, running, and riding his Vespa. He was behind the name of the '100 step walk' by Pitlochry visitor centre and dam for which Chris and his daughters made the sign, sneaking down one night to erect it. The steps are now officially called '100 step walk'. In 2022 Chris was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent successful surgery. Late 2023 he was diagnosed with unrelated lung cancer and received further surgery and treatment. Only six months after he had his right lung removed Chris and colleague Csaba Kollo decided organise a charity walk 'Picnic up the Ben' which raised £7,486 with 50% of proceeds to Macmillan, 25% to local first responders and 25% to Pitlochry Paths. Post operations and treatment Chris and his family thought that was the end of Chris's cancer, but unfortunately he started to experience back pain, which turned out the cancer had spread to his spine. Chris didn't have a bucket list, but he wanted to marry his fiancée. During Chris's stay at Perth's Cornhill Macmillan Centre he was told even more devastating news in that the cancer had spread to his brain. Alice said: 'Chris stayed at Cornhill for over four weeks where the care he received was astounding, the whole team of consultants, doctors, nurses, health care assistants, auxiliaries and volunteers worked together delivering the best medical, personal and emotional care. Great support was given not only to Chris but to family and friends. 'Chris never stopped being positive and strong. 'The Cornhill team did everything they could to accommodate his wishes, including a couple of home days, film night and take away with the family and friends in the communal sitting room, two new tattoos (a first for the centre to have a mobile tattooist visit), surprising Chris and me with a bed for us to share, encouraging Chris that if he wanted to enjoy a cigar and dram at home for him to do so and much more... Chris's mum Ruth and sister Julie were named the 'Golden Girls' and stayed at the centre the whole time and like everyone were made extremely welcome. 'Everyone has shared loving words about Chris, his love of life was contagious and those who were in his world were so lucky to have known him.' A JustGiving page has been set up in aid of Perth's Cornhill Centre: His funeral service took place at Perth Crematorium on Monday July 14.


Hamilton Spectator
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Go ahead, binge on Fringe
Some people say government should be run more like a business — really? — but, if factors like debt and deficit matter, guess what government should be run more like? The Hamilton Fringe Festival. You read that right. On the cusp of the start of its 2025 edition, July 16 to 27, Hamilton Fringe is breathing easier with the exhalation of an outfit that just wiped out a $50,000 deficit. Such a sum of debt can represent an existential threat to an organization of its size — that deficit was brought on mostly by COVID-related challenges. But they paid it off not over the course of an arduously long austerity plan, but lickety-split — in a single year. How many can boast that? Not that that's what the Fringe is about — it's about creativity, experiment, challenge, fun, and access to all. But, says executive director Chris Stanton, the remarkable rebound is notable even more for social than fiscal achievement. It's a testament, he explains, to the Hamilton community and how valued the Fringe is to it. 'I think the real story here is that the community stepped up,' says Stanton. 'Donors came out of the woodwork and different funders. People really came through for the Fringe.' Indeed, Hamilton does love its Fringe, as the crowds illustrate, as does the volume and vibrancy of the programming. Last year, almost 18,000 people attended Hamilton Fringe, coming from all over Canada, the United States and beyond, and this year, one of the festival's biggest ever and the very biggest by some measures, promises much of the same if not more, with some new wrinkles and some alterations to old ones. To get to the actual meat of the matter, the Hamilton Fringe Festival this month will feature more than 55 performances, covering everything from sketch comedy, improv, theatre, dance, puppetry, magic, musicals and more. General information on discount Fringe buttons, ticket orders, prices, dates, times and locations of all performances and other Fringe events (including kickoff party July 16, Mills Hardware 6:30 p.m. start, and closing parties with DJs and music on Fringe Boulevard, 6 p.m. on July 27) see the Fringe website at: Physical schedules are also available at Coach & Lantern, 384 Wilson St. E., Ancaster; Crown and Press, 303 Ottawa St. N.; Democracy, 202 Locke St. S.; Detour Café, 41 King St. W., Dundas; Last Supper Books, 148 James St. N.; Mulberry Coffeehouse, 193 James St. N.; Paisley Coffeehouse & Eatery, 1020 King St. W.; Playhouse Cinema, 177 Sherman Ave. N.; RELAY Coffee Roasters, 27 King Wiliam St.; Tourism Hamilton, 28 James St. N., Village Coffee Roasters, 977 King St. E. 'For one thing, we have two new indie venues,' says Stanton. 'The Gasworks and the Centre for Talking Arts (156 James St. S.), with new partnerships and more players taking part than ever before.' Some of the featured plays/treatments/shows are: 'Minimum' The premier of Ontario finds himself having to live on minimum wage in this outrageous comedy by The Intergalactic Federation of Space Beers production company. 'Brown Noise.' 'Brown Noise' A mix of standup, sketch and storytelling probing the South Asian-Canadian experience from two different sides. Media Arora is first generation Canadian. Rishabh Kalra is older stock, and together they clash, connect and find laughter. 'Once Upon a Pizzeria.' 'Once Upon a Pizzeria' Hamilton's beloved Charly Chiarelli is back with a chase through the city stemming from Nonna Maria's square pizzas and her grandson being bullied because, well, pizzas are round, right? Music, visuals, audience participation. Also featuring Jay Shand. '3 Hours, 10 Minutes.' '3 Hours, 10 Minutes' Two strangers, one painting. What do they see in it? In each other? A look at connection, reflection and the power of shared experience in an age of screens and self-absorption. By Beauchemin Productions. 'Ugly Privilege.' 'Ugly Privilege' An hour of standup comedy by Vancouver comedian Jessica Pigeau featuring discussion of autism, social awkwardness, and growing up gay in rural Alberta. This is just a sampling to give a sense of the wide variety on offer, but there's so much more — as mentioned, more than 55 performances in nine stage locations (Theatre Aquarius, Mills Hardware, Players Guild of Hamilton, The Staircase, The Westdale, Hamilton Theatre Inc., Ringside and, aforementioned, The Gasworks and Centre for the Talking Arts). 'And Fringe on the Streets is back,' says Stanton, 'and we're billing it as a tour (of downtown Hamilton) unlike any other. It starts at the farmers market with performance and fun all the way up King William' to Theatre Aquarius. 'And people can hop on and off as they like and come back later.' Fringe on the Streets, free and in partnership with City of Hamilton and with support from Downtown Hamilton BIA, is an immersive walking experience punctuated with live art and performances along a 75-minute route, featuring music, burlesque, women of vaudeville behind the Tivoli, and a grand finale of dancing at King William. Some of the tour acts are Cesar C. Cordoba (accordion, keyboard, storytelling, bird puppetry); Claud Spadafora (cabaret/burlesque/theatrical comedy/storytelling): Sheep's Clothing Theatre (Pony Girls vaudeville); Flesh & Wire Co. (puppet show celebration of Elizabeth Bagshaw, Hamilton feminist icon/doctor/birth control pioneer); Devin Bateson ('Everything Is a Condo' enactment of time traveller beaming down from the future to give ghost tour of urban development); and Bloom (dance imagining of garden planted in concrete of downtown, with choreographers Skye Rogers and Vik Mudge. Tours depart the Hamilton Farmers Market, 35 York Blvd., at 3 p.m. and/or 6 p.m. most days. Check the festival's website for more, including stops along the route. Replacing single space Fringe Club of the past is this year's more expansive Fringe Boulevard, along King William and James Street North. It is a pedestrian-friendly hub of music, dance, drag, film painting and performance, sprinkled with local artisans in marketplace tents, on both the Saturdays of Fringe (19, 26) and an Indigenous marketplace on Saturday, July 26. The boulevard is designed to maximize integration of the festival with the neighbourhood and area food culture, typified by restaurants like The Mule, The French, RELAY, The Diplomat; HAMBRGR, Undefined, The Standard, Electric Diner, Parma and Piccolo, as well as other businesses and organizations along the strip. A feature of Fringe Boulevard will be the RELAY Licensed Patio, open 6 to 10:30 p.m. every night at RELAY Coffee Roasters, 27 King William St. Two other features of the festival this year: Visual Fringe Work by nine visual artists at RELAY Coffee Roasters. Film on the Fringe Short showcase competition, sponsored by the Downtown Hamilton BIA on Thursday, July 17, after 9 p.m. with entrants' films shown under the stars on Fringe Boulevard.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Palona reveals new restaurant-dedicated AI sales assistant
Palona AI has unveiled an AI sales assistant designed specifically for the pizza, fast casual and QSR (quick service restaurant) sectors. Called Restaurant AI, its introduction follows a pilot with the pizza chain, Pizza My Heart. Palona is now collaborating with 20 restaurants and brands across the country, including Twenty Five Teishoku House, Kobunga, MOTO Pizza, CaliBBQ and Pleasure Pizza Santa Cruz. The company has also announced the appointment of two industry veterans to spearhead Restaurant AI's growth: Martin Briant, former North America president for Me&U, and Chris Stanton, former strategic sales executive for Qualtrics and Tableau Software. Both bring a wealth of experience in technology and the restaurant industry. Restaurant AI integrates Palona's conversational intelligence, complex customisation handling, and a multimodal memory system to address a key challenge in foodservice: consistently correct order-taking via voice or text. The system has new features tailored to the demands of the restaurant industry, including unified voice and text ordering, multi-lingual support and voice cloning with accents and personality options to match each brand's identity. The AI accurately handles complex orders and customer requests. It is able to upsell, escalate issues to human representatives and secure payment processing. It also supports loyalty programmes and coupons, enhancing customer satisfaction and sales. Palona CEO and co-founder Maria Zhang stated: 'With Restaurant AI, we're bringing Palona's powerful and delightful agent experience to the most complex menu categories in food service.' 'Our pilot with Pizza My Heart showed us just how impactful an intelligent agent could be when it understands every nuance of a menu, remembers past orders and engages customers like a real team member. Now, with more nationwide restaurant brands on board, we're scaling that service to a much broader audience.' Restaurant AI manages the intricacies of fast casual and QSR orders, which often involve customisations and regional variations. The technology is compatible with major POS systems and designed for easy piloting, requiring just a few simple steps to set up. "Palona reveals new restaurant-dedicated AI sales assistant" was originally created and published by Verdict Food Service, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.


Business Wire
10-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Palona Launches Restaurant AI: New Technology and Team Dedicated to the Unique Needs of the Restaurant Industry
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Palona AI, the company redefining customer engagement with emotionally intelligent AI sales agents, announced the launch of Restaurant AI, a purpose-built AI sales assistant tailored for the Pizza, Fast Casual, and QSR restaurant industry. The launch comes on the heels of a successful pilot with West Coast favorite pizza chain Pizza My Heart, Palona is now working with more than 20 restaurants and brands nationwide including Twenty Five Teishoku House, Kobunga, MOTO Pizza, CaliBBQ, and Pleasure Pizza Santa Cruz, among others. Palona's new restaurant-dedicated AI combines Palona's best-in-class conversational intelligence, complex customization handling, and multimodal memory system to solve one of the trickiest challenges in food sales: getting food orders right every time. Share Palona is also announcing two new major hires to lead the charge with Restaurant AI: Martin Briant, former President of North America for Me&U, a leader in guest experience and hospitality technology. Chris Stanton, former strategic sales executive for both Qualtrics and Tableau Software. Both have strong track records bringing technology to the mass market and years of experience serving the restaurant industry. Palona's new restaurant-dedicated AI combines Palona's best-in-class conversational intelligence, complex customization handling, and multimodal memory system to solve one of the trickiest challenges in food sales: getting food orders right every time, via voice or text, with the same charm and care as a seasoned staffer. New features dedicated to the unique needs of the restaurant industry include: Unified Voice and Text: Whether ordering or making reservations, customers receive the same on-brand, high-quality experience via voice or text Multi-lingual support: Speak to your customers in their language - English, Spanish, Chinese, and more languages seamlessly supported with no additional work required from restaurant partners. Voice Cloning, Accents, and Personality: Restaurant owners can clone their own voice or create the perfect voice to represent their brand - down to personality traits, regional dialects, accents, and vernacular. Accuracy: Proven accuracy even when handling the most complex orders and customer requests over voice and text. Order and payment confirmation eliminates erroneous orders placed to the kitchen. Upselling: Intuitive upselling at just the right moment in every conversation, leading to increased AOV. Escalation: Every Palona AI conversation is monitored by a managerial AI that helps quickly identify customer issues and escalate conversations to human representatives. Secure payment: Fully compliant payment that keeps customer information secure, including integration with existing payment systems. Loyalty and coupon support: Palona Restaurant AI not only connects to existing loyalty and coupon offers, but also dynamically introduces them to customer conversations to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and sales. 'With Restaurant AI, we're bringing Palona's powerful and delightful Agent experience to the most complex menu categories in food service,' said Maria Zhang, CEO and co-founder of Palona. 'Our pilot with Pizza My Heart showed us just how impactful an intelligent agent could be when it understands every nuance of a menu, remembers past orders, and engages customers like a real team member. Now, with more nationwide restaurant brands on board, we're scaling that service to a much broader audience.' Fast Casual and Quick Serve orders aren't simple—they're highly customized, frequently modified mid-conversation, and packed with regional variations and unique brand flair. Palona is trained to master this complexity, integrating real-time cart memory, conversational modifiers, and on-brand tone-of-voice specific to each restaurant. It supports voice and text interactions, offering customers a frictionless way to place their orders while engaging with an AI that feels like part of the crew. The technology also integrates seamlessly with all major POS systems, ensuring that no restaurant owner needs to do complex integrations in order to get their AI up and running quickly. The system is designed to be low risk and easy to pilot in just a few steps: upload your menu, customize your on-brand agent, and forward your phone calls - done. 'When I started CaliBBQ, I wanted to build a personal relationship with every one of my customers - it's part of what I love about owning a restaurant,' said Shawn Walchef, founder of CaliBBQ. 'As any business grows, it's so hard to scale that kind of relationship building, which is what makes Palona so powerful. Now, when a customer calls CaliBBQ, they're not talking to some call center in another country - they're talking to ShawnAI. I used Palona not only to match our customer service and our brand values, but to literally replicate my own voice. Whether it's one or one thousand customers, they have a conversation with me, using my own voice, giving them the best hospitality experience possible.' 'When I first heard my voice as our ordering AI, I honestly couldn't believe it,' said Lee Kindell, founder of MOTO Pizza. 'We live and breathe technology every day in our business but, at our heart, we're restauranteurs and care about the customer experience above all else. Palona's ability to provide such incredible service to every single customer, across multiple languages and all in my voice, is so above and beyond any AI solution I've seen in-market. It blew me away.' Palona has achieved industry-leading accuracy for its AI agents through innovative benchmarking and order simulation technology that continuously tests, evaluates, and improves the agent's performance. Palona's Restaurant AI leverages the most powerful AI capabilities, adapting to each restaurant's unique identity, including its tone, menu, and clientele. About Palona Palona AI builds emotionally intelligent, multimodal AI agents designed to help consumer-facing businesses grow, scale relationships, and stay on brand. The company's solutions are already transforming sales, ordering, and customer engagement for top brands like Wyze, MINDZERO, Pizza My Heart, CaliBBQ, Kobunga Grill, Pleasure Pizza, and MOTO Pizza. With the launch of Restaurant AI, Palona is now bringing its signature mix of EQ, personalization, and performance to one of the most beloved categories in food service.