LevelUp, Onosys Get Together on New Order-Ahead System

September 11, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

The concept of mobile order-ahead has really taken off in the last few months, as more restaurants take a page out of Starbucks’ book and open up opportunities for patrons to place orders for food and drink well before arriving at the restaurant. Now, a new move from LevelUp and Onosys is making this concept more available to other restaurants, a point that will likely be enthusiastically received.

Under the terms of the agreement, reports note, Onosys’ line of tools—already at work in places like Outback Steakhouse, among others—will be made available to LevelUp and its partner properties. That’s going to really open up the field of potential Onosys users, and should bring mobile order-ahead options to many more restaurants.

Given that LevelUp already has a monthly active user base of around one million as it is, it could be a big jump for Onosys. It’s also likely to be a shot in the arm for the restaurants themselves, which will get some additional exposure as part of the Onosys order-ahead network.

Onosys chief revenue officer David DiPasquale noted “This partnership underscores Onosys’ commitment to the success of our restaurant partners by effectively extending brand availability to millions of potential new customers who can now order directly. At the same time, LevelUp and its partner network benefit by offering consumers more choices and increased engagement.”

Offering Onosys products has already proven useful for many restaurants, so it’s not surprising to see there would be an interest in bringing those products to other operations. Restaurants are businesses acutely sensitive to competition by nature; when there are so many potential substitute goods, often within an area of a few square miles, customers can go where they get the greatest perceived value at any time. Granted, value’s different for everybody, but offering mobile order-ahead is increasingly table-stakes for restaurants. Seeing a boost in the total number of places offering the service is reasonable in response.

Soon, mobile order-ahead options, along with mobile payment options to cover that order in advance, might be a part of just about every dining experience. That will come with issues of its own—like will restaurants cut back on wait staff with customers placing their own orders?—but those are issues that only bear consideration right now.