Yes, chef! Behind the scenes of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s checkless payment technology

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.

For years, famed restaurateur Danny Meyer has wanted to reinvent the way diners pay their bills. He’s dreamed of a world in which patrons can pay for their meals and simply walk out of an eatery without asking and waiting for the check.

Meyer’s vision for frictionless payments found its way to Frank Bisignano, who served as CEO of Fiserv, the financial services technology provider, until becoming commissioner of the Social Security Administration earlier this year. By 2020, the two executives hatched an idea for a checkless solution that would enable diners to settle their restaurant tabs without taking out a credit card or phone. It then fell to Krystle Mobayeni, a senior vice president and head of restaurants at Fiserv, and Kelly Macpherson, chief technology officer of Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG), to build the software and systems that would bring their bosses’ idea to life. The result is a system called Checkless Payments, which the companies announced last week at the National Restaurant Association Show.

It isn’t unusual for the top executive at a company to be the driver of innovation, especially at entrepreneurial or founder-led organizations. Nearly half the respondents to a 2024 Fast Company survey of its Most Innovative Companies honorees said their CEO was in charge of innovation, and 60% said their top innovation executive reported directly to the CEO.

INNOVATOR IN CHIEF

Since founding Manhattan’s Union Square Café in 1985, Meyer has been a force in the hospitality industry. He was an early adopter of online reservations and has served on OpenTable’s advisory board. USHG, where Meyer is executive chairman, has expanded beyond restaurants to include Hospitality Quotient, a consulting and professional development arm. In 2017, he launched Enlightened Hospitality Investments, a private equity fund that backs businesses that share his values around taking care of employees and customers. “I’ve made a career out of driving some people crazy, but in a nice way,” Meyer says. “If [an innovation] was easy, it would’ve been done already.”

With Checkless Payments, Meyer challenged the USHG and Fiserv teams to develop a solution that was elegant enough for fine-dining establishments. He didn’t want patrons to have to take out their phones to scan a QR code to pay; nor was it practical to set up sensors or other hardware that are part of checkout-free experiences at Amazon Go stores and other retailers. And he didn’t want a “walled garden” that would require customers to use only one kind of credit card or mobile operating system. He also wanted a system that could eventually be extended to other aspects of hospitality, enabling dinners to, say, alert the coat check room or valet that they are getting ready to leave the restaurant, letting them retrieve their belongings or car without waiting.

Checkless transactions can benefit not just diners but restaurants, too. Meyer notes that the cumulative time servers and diners spend could instead be used to “turn” tables—restaurant-speak for setting, seating, serving, and clearing a table. And Fiserv’s Mobayeni says restaurants can use the checkless enrollment process for deeper customer engagement. “They can let guests know there’s a featured menu item or they have a special wine,” she says. She envisions a day when diners might use the platform to place their first drink order in advance, which also helps the restaurant operate more efficiently.

IT’S NOT “DINE AND DASH”

USHG’s Macpherson admits that diners may need some coaching on the new system, which was piloted at Manhatta, the group’s fine-dining restaurant in New York’s financial district. “Even when I was using it there was this stigma of ‘dining and dashing,’” she says. Servers, too, will have to adopt a new etiquette. Says Meyer: “If I’m a guest, here’s what I’d want my server to say at some point: ‘I know you’re part of the [Checkless Payments] program, and I hope I’m going to have a chance to thank you and say goodbye, but you’re welcome to leave any time you want.’” USHG will begin rolling out the program at additional restaurants this summer.

Fiserv, which last year reported revenue of more than $20 billion, will then make Checkless Payments available to customers of its new Clover Hospitality point-of-sale system for upscale restaurants.

I asked Macpherson what it is like to work for an executive chairman who is also an innovator with a reputation for high quality. “It’s inspirational and exciting,” she says. “Danny is a beacon in the industry, pushing us and challenging us to think bigger. I like thinking big, too. How can we do what people might say is the impossible?”

ARE YOU AN INNOVATOR IN CHIEF?

Are you a CEO or executive chairman who leads innovation at your organization? Do your employees find your status as “innovator in chief” inspiring, or do you drive people crazy—in a nice way? Send your thoughts to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com.  

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