Restaurant tech company Par Technology could become a dominant force after acquiring guest engagement platform Punchh, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Wednesday.
“This company has the potential to really dominate in enterprise-class restaurants that offer the holy grail of technology in this industry, which is essentially unified commerce,” said Shaich, who comes to Par as a board observer. to “Mad Money”. “”
“With this acquisition we’re screwing them together,” said Shaich. “The reality is that this is one of the most powerful opportunities there is in restaurant technology.”
Par announced last week it would buy Punchh for $ 500 million. Since then, par shares have risen roughly 25%.
The stock has grown in importance in recent years as the New Hartford, New York-based company turned its attention to hiring strong people and improving its offering of corporate products, CEO Savneet Singh said in a joint interview.
“For the past 18 months to two years we have mostly focused our capital allocation on software and then really rebuilt the entire management team at Google companies [and] Uber, “he said.
The company’s latest move is for restaurants to be juggling customers who are placing more orders through services like Uber Eats due to the pandemic, while taking some in-store orders at the same time. Shaich said Par’s platform can help restaurant operators centralize their systems.
“What Par is now offering is the potential for an integrated system that is plug-and-play and works far more effectively,” he said. “Having a system at the heart of the system throughout the restaurant. This is what we were looking for when building digital systems.”
Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, White Castle and Arby’s are among the customers of Par.