The real ROI of hospitality tech: Lessons from Blaze Pizza’s CTO

Hospitality tech isn’t about having the shiniest gadget. It’s about making moments that make customers come back.

Few understand that balance better than Blaze Pizza’s CTO Chris Demery. In a recent episode of What’s Cooking? Chris shared how he’s reshaping Blaze’s tech stack, not by chasing trends, but by solving real operational challenges.

In this blog post, we break down his perspective on implementing technology at scale, the human side of innovation, and what it really takes to get measurable ROI from hospitality tech.

Hospitality tech with purpose

It’s never been easier to get lost in the noise. The restaurant industry has been flooded with new tools, mobile ordering, loyalty apps, AI-powered scheduling, you name it. But here’s the truth not many will admit: not every innovation actually moves the needle.

Blaze Pizza’s approach flips the narrative. Instead of starting with “What’s the latest technology we can use?” they start with “What’s the biggest problem we need to solve?”

Because tech can either simplify or complicate operations. The difference lies in whether you deploy it with purpose.

Chris explains it best, “When I go in and look at a new piece of technology, I have to look at surrounding technology in order to say, can I reduce cost in another area in order to pay for this new, better thing that will support operations or support the guest experience? So the first thing I tell all my franchisees, new or old, is that my job is to protect the middle of their P&L while also driving traffic and profitability.”

This is hospitality tech with intent. Every investment has to do one of two things:

• Drive guest traffic.
• Increase margins.

That focus prevents what so many restaurants fall into — technology for technology’s sake.

Test, prove, scale: Mindset for implementing tech at scale

Chris treats innovation like a series of small, calculated experiments. This tech rollout formula is simple but powerful: test, prove, scale.

A new ordering system? Try it in one store.

An AI-based scheduling tool? Pilot it in five.

If it works, only then scale to twenty or a hundred locations.

This process ensures every tool is ready for scale and truly adds value. It’s the same philosophy startups use to test ideas before pouring resources into them, and it’s shockingly rare in hospitality.

As Chris puts it, “The trick with technology is you almost have to build out the whole solution before you can go into one restaurant. But typically, we build about 80% or we build or buy about 80% to 90% of a solution, put it in one restaurant, then five, then we try to get to 15 to 20. As I mentioned earlier, you don't really know the full solution until you're probably in 100 locations or what you're going to have to change about the solution you've proposed.”

That mindset protects against wasted investments and ensures every tool delivers real ROI before it rolls out system-wide.

The human side of tech and why buy-in matters

Even the smartest tools can fail if people don’t believe in them. That’s why Blaze’s rollout model isn’t just about proving ROI but building trust with the teams who use the tech every day.

Chris emphasises the importance of hands-on collaboration:

“As I've rolled out new technology solutions, what I found is you need to be in the restaurant with the operators, experiencing what you thought they were going to do with your technology versus what they actually do with your technology. [...] We're in the restaurant business. We're not in the technology business. So that's one of the most important things I could tell any other CIO or CTO or somebody in charge of IT. Work with the operators first.”

Technology can look perfect on paper, but restaurants don’t live on paper. They live in the heat of the kitchen, in the rush of the dinner crowd, and in the moments when staff are juggling ten things at once. 

That’s what Blaze Pizza gets right. Hospitality is, at its core, a people business, and that mindset is exactly what separates tech that sticks from tech that just gathers dust.

The bottom line

Hospitality tech done right doesn’t replace people. It empowers them.

When you take control of your operations, support your staff, and invest in the right tech, the ROI shows up everywhere: smoother shifts, happier guests, and yes, healthier margins.

That’s the kind of technology that lasts, and that’s the kind Blaze Pizza is quietly perfecting.

🎧 Listen to the full episode of What’s Cooking? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube to hear Chris Demery and Conor Sheridan dive deeper into the mindset behind scaling technology that truly works.