Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. — Simbe, a market leader in retail shelf digitization, has formed a strategic partnership with DeCicco & Sons, a family-owned New York grocery chain. The partnership brings Simbe’s Store Intelligence™ platform to DeCicco’s flagship Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., location, which opened in March 2025, as well as additional stores in Eastchester and Larchmont. Simbe’s platform delivers real-time, storewide visibility into pricing accuracy, product availability and inventory placement — supporting greater operational precision and in-store execution. “At DeCicco & Sons, we’ve always prided ourselves on providing the finest selection …
Product Spotlight
Newton, Mass. — Paytronix, an Access Group company, and the leader in guest engagement for restaurants and convenience stores, has appointed technology industry veteran Nonita Verma as its new general manager. A seasoned executive with over two decades of leadership experience, Verma brings a proven track record of scaling global platforms and driving hyper-growth. Verma’s appointment, along with changes to Paytronix’s executive team, will help accelerate its growth and provide its customers with a flexible, industry-leading guest engagement platform that meets their challenges. Verma previously served as a chief strategy …
Emerging Energy Technologies
— By James Walton — Emerging trends & technologies in energy management that retail and restaurant businesses need to know about. Energy management is critical to any multi-site business. Rising energy costs and inefficiency directly affect the bottom line and sustainability goals. Businesses should constantly be looking for ways to improve their energy management practices. In recent years, significant technological advancements have revolutionized how energy is managed and consumed. These emerging energy management technologies deliver more efficiency and offer greater control and visibility into a business’s energy usage. Let us …
New York City — Bikky, a customer data platform built exclusively for multi-unit restaurants, has partnered with with Playa Bowls, the nation’s leading acai shop, serving superfruit bowls, smoothies, juices and more with sustainability and community in mind. Playa Bowls started as a makeshift pop-up in Belmar, N.J., in front of a pizzeria. The brand expanded from a single blender and a small cart to more than 300 U.S. locations in just 11 years. With ambitious plans to add another 90 shops in 2025 and a need to improve its …
Fort Worth, Texas — PVI, a Watts brand, introduces enhanced Conquest® compact, condensing, semi-instantaneous, firetube water heaters that have improved thermal efficiency, optimized pump placement and superior return on investment (ROI). The new Conquest offers commercial facility owners and managers three key benefits: • Enhanced Thermal Efficiency: The upgraded straight firetube heat exchanger design increases the Conquest’s thermal efficiency to an impressive 98% across all inputs, making it one of the most energy-efficient models available. • Optimized Pump Placement: The pump is now strategically positioned at the front and side of …
Restaurant Technologies Appoints Chief Financial Officer
Minneapolis — Restaurant Technologies has named Matthew Micowski as its newest chief financial officer (CFO), succeeding Bob Weil who has held the position since 2007 and has transitioned to a strategic advisor position within the organization. Micowski brings over two decades of strategic financial leadership across the technology and healthcare industries, most recently serving as the senior vice president and CFO at NAMSA since 2021. “Matthew’s record of successfully accelerating growth, driving operational transformation and proactively setting companies up for future success made him stand out in a highly competitive …
Charlotte, N.C. — Lowe’s has launched Mylow Companion, an AI tool aimed at improving customer service and speeding associate onboarding. Purpose-built for associate sales floor devices, the app provides fast access to product details, project advice and inventory information. The launch to all associates across Lowe’s more than 1,700 stores marks the first time a retailer has successfully implemented this kind of technology at scale. Associate expertise is uniquely valuable for home improvement retailers, as customers ask daily about a variety of complex projects and thousands of different products. Mylow …
Boston — Toast has introduced ToastIQ, an intelligence engine delivering timely prompts, personalized recommendations and automated workflows designed to transform daily restaurant operations. Built natively into Toast’s end-to-end platform, ToastIQ draws on insights from millions of transactions and interactions across 130,000+ locations and fuses Toast’s deep hospitality expertise and integrated platform with AI, historical patterns and proprietary insights. As it evolves, ToastIQ will enable every role — from server to general manager to chef — to operate faster, smarter and more efficiently. Key features include: For servers: • Menu Upsells: …
— By Dana Krug — The future of retail: technology-forward, customer-centric and efficient. For years, consumer behavior has been the driving force behind the rapid growth of omnichannel retail. Today, this trend has become more pronounced than ever, with 73% of shoppers regularly engaging with multiple channels throughout their buying journey. The pandemic further accelerated this shift, making curbside pickup and other omnichannel conveniences a standard expectation rather than a luxury. Now, the future of retail is being shaped by the evolving preferences of Gen Z and millennial shoppers, who …
Greenville, S.C. — ServiceChannel, a leading platform for the procurement and delivery of facilities services, has introduced a new online ecosystem that offers multi-site customers and service providers access to a network of facilities management tools, services and solution providers. The ServiceChannel Partner Ecosystem contains a vetted directory of the company’s strategic partners and their offerings. Current members of the ecosystem include partners in key areas such as remote monitoring (IoT), field service management, asset collection, facilities management consulting, payment solutions and technology implementation. “We’re deeply committed to investing in …