HungerRush

10/23/2026

Halloween 2026 lands on a Saturday. That means two big pizza nights, not one. 🎃🍕

Last year, pizza orders jumped 20% on Halloween while most other dinner categories dropped (DoorDash U.S. ordering data). Is your shop ready for Friday the 30th and Saturday the 31st?

Our 7-step Halloween game plan covers your menu, schedule, third-party orders, big party tickets, and delivery.

Get it here:

Halloween is pizza’s biggest night of the year. Here's how to do it right. Every pizza operator knows the feeling. By the time the first trick-or-treaters hit the sidewalk on October 31, your make line is three deep, and it doesn't slow down until the parties wind down hours later. This year, Hall...

04/29/2026

A POS without built-in text marketing is like a margarita without tequila. It's basically just a glass full of lime juice and salt.

Long gone are the days when a restaurant POS was a sleek cash register.

Nearly every customer interaction passes through a modern POS in some form, accumulating a continuous record of guest behavior.

When guest communication tools like text marketing are built in to that environment to create a unified marketing engine, marketing messages can be defined by what guests have actually done rather than by static assumptions.

If marketing tools need to be bolted on to that environment...lime juice and salt.

And did you know that text messages have a 95-99% read rate?

For more delicious stats and more about how a modern POS can take advantage of customer behavior data to drive growth, check out this article on SourceForge.

https://hubs.li/Q04dWPxB0

Your Restaurant POS Should Drive the Growth of Your Restaurant Marketing - Software

04/24/2026

You probably noticed that your garlic clam pizza is more popular in some locations than in others. But how do you manage menus efficiently with local variation in play?

HungerRush menu manager is designed to support both ends of the multi-location menu spectrum: brands with highly standardized menus across every location and those with meaningful variation between regions, markets, or store formats.

Read more about above-store menu management on SourceForge:
https://hubs.li/Q04dngjM0

Multi-Location Menu Management: How Top Brands Drive Growth with Unified Control - Software

04/22/2026

"We consistently see that the biggest drivers of guest dissatisfaction aren't price alone."

"According to HungerRush data, it's things like long wait times, inaccurate orders, or poor customer service. Fixing those issues can have just as much impact on how guests perceive value as a discount could."
— Shannon Chirone, SVP of Marketing, HungerRush

A new era of value wars in QSR is heating up, but slashing prices isn't the only answer.

As The Food Institute reports, fast-food chains are navigating one of the most complex economic environments in recent memory, with lower-income consumers pulling back and even middle-class diners spending more intentionally.

According to HungerRush data, 51% of guests choose QSRs for convenience. The brands that come out ahead won't just be the ones with the cheapest menu items. They'll be the ones that get the fundamentals right: fast, accurate orders and great guest experiences, every time.

Many thanks to The Food Institute and Kelly Beaton for including us in her research!

Read the full article from The Food Institute:

Lower income consumers are pulling back from fast food as years of price hikes push QSRs past their affordability threshold. Brands are scrambling to win them back with sharper value plays.

04/21/2026

Operators running modern all-in-one systems are no longer choosing between depth and convenience. They’re getting both. Thinking about upgrading your POS? Here are some things to consider.

https://facebook.com/58630788977_1445126264317985

Beyond Connected: What the Best All-in-One Restaurant Systems Already Support - Software

04/20/2026

Is it time to renew your POS contract? Before you do, here are a few questions worth asking.

Does your POS scale?

Your system should grow with you — not force you to rebuild menus and workflows every time you open a new store.

Does your POS improve accuracy?

Does it handle complex modifiers, a high volume of online orders, delivery, and driver dispatch without slowing you down or causing mistakes?

Does your POS integrate?

Is your team drowning in tablets? If everything lives in separate systems, that’s a workaround that doesn’t really work.

Does your POS give you visibility?

Can you see at-a-glance what’s happening across all of your stores and can you trust the numbers you’re seeing?

Does your POS make you more visible?

The customer data YOU ALREADY HAVE should flow seamlessly into a complete marketing and loyalty system.

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, your POS isn’t a partner — it’s a problem, and it may be time to consider a refresh.

Looking for a real POS partner? HungerRush is the POS partner behind every great guest experience. Get in touch.

04/12/2026

"A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk's leap toward immortality."
— Clifton Fadiman

If you believe you are what you eat, then National Grilled Cheese Day is the perfect moment to shave off (...or unwrap...) a slice of immortality, melt it between two pieces of bread, and digest the divine.

And tomato soup?

Like Batman and Robin, Lucy and Ethel, Mario and Luigi, Frodo and Samwise, Han and Chewy, Michael and Dwight, Penny and Brain, Wayne and Garth, Rumi Mira Zoey and Bobby, The Dude and Walter, Pooh and Piglet, Jay and Silent Bob, Fry and Bender, or Wallace and Gromit ( — who were, yes, highly attuned to the lunar immortality of cheese)...

While not officially "required" for a proper National Grilled Cheese Day celebration, that steady bowl of tomato soup is the classic lawful-good force multiplier. The OG 10xer.

And is now a good time to talk about sourdough being bread's own leap toward immortality as well? Making a grilled cheese on sourdough and dipping it in tomato soup is basically like discovering Mario's infinite lives staircase.

If you're reading this on April 12th, today is the day to make an Artemis-like leap toward your own immortality.

Looking for other days to celebrate your favorite foods?

Check out the full HungerRush National Food Day Calendar for more food holidays worth celebrating:
https://hubs.li/Q04bpX6-0

04/02/2026

"My mule don't like people laughin'. Gets the crazy notion that people are laughin' at him."

Burritos are no laughing matter....especially on NATIONAL BURRITO DAY!

The word "burrito" means "little donkey" in Spanish, and while the origins of that name are long debated, there's no doubt that the tightly wrapped bundle of goodness does resemble the bedrolls carried by mules and donkeys in the desert-rambling days of yore.

The burrito traces its origins to northern Mexican cooking. They were likely born in Sonora, a wheat-growing region where flour tortillas were the default, and were smaller than the overstuffed, foil-wrapped cathedral of fillings that emerged in San Francisco's Mission District in the 1960s.

These days you can tell a burrito by its regional dialect. In Tucson, it is a "burro" and filled with machaca. In Texas, it rolls up at high noon, smothered in enchilada sauce, squinting a challenge for you to quick draw your fork. In New Mexico, you might be asked, "red or green?" In San Diego, there might be shrimp in it. In San Francisco, it is nearly the size of an actual donkey. Rice? No rice? Just veggies? Mushrooms? Salmon?!?

Like many dishes we have come to wrap our arms around, the burrito is no longer just one thing. The large flour tortilla is a canvas upon which cooks of different cultures and different cities have been painting for over a century.

And while we may laugh together over our burritos, we at HungerRush strongly recommend not laughing at them. Because while you might understand that we were just playin' around, the burrito just doesn't get it.

If you are a slinger of burritos, today is your day!

Looking for more food holidays to celebrate?

We have you covered. We put together a comprehensive National Food Day Calendar worth bookmarking: https://hubs.li/Q049sM0j0

04/01/2026

Keep on your toes out there today!

Shannon Chirone, SVP of Marketing at HungerRush, goes on the record about the marketing siren song that is April 1st.

"April Fools' Day is one of the most enticing and treacherous dates on the marketing calendar. When marketing concepts on April Fools' work, they can generate enormous organic buzz and genuine brand affinity. When they don’t, they can seriously damage brand reputation."

tl;dr: The best April Fools' Day concepts make consumers feel like they're in on the joke. We're looking at you, 7-Eleven Tiny Gulp.

Thanks to Mike Snider for letting us in on the fun!

Read the full story in USA TODAY:

April Fools' Day, which is Wednesday, April 1, likely began in the 15th century. But now it's become more of marketing mischief by big brands.