Amar Narain, CIO & VP Information Technology @ Pizza Pizza
Fri Feb 06 2026
🍕☁️ FROM DUMB TERMINALS TO CLOUD-NATIVE AI 🤖
Most restaurant tech leaders talk about digital transformation.
Very few have actually lived every era of it.
On today’s 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends, I sat down with Amar Narain, CIO & VP Information Technology at Pizza Pizza Limited. He's spent 20 years inside the same brand modernizing it step by step.
We’re talking:
• Unix + dumb terminals
• multiple full-stack rewrites
• cloud-native rebuilds
• fully custom POS / digital / call center
• and now AI agents
All while supporting 800+ restaurants and 20M+ orders a year.
Amar's experience is real-world, “don’t break the business” execution.
📺WATCH AND LEARN📺
👉 Why Pizza Pizza builds and doesn't buy its POS, apps, and call center stack and how owning the codebase lets them move faster and avoid vendor lock-in
👉 How driver tracking + SMS alerts improved delivery ETAs, reduced wait time at the door, and increased driver throughput
👉 Amar’s practical take on conversational AI for call centers: it must be as good as a human AND cheaper per interaction
👉 How they’re layering AI personalization into web + mobile so frequent guests see what they’re most likely to order first
👉 His no-BS modernization framework for legacy brands:
reduce friction --> align to business goals --> automate
➕ PLUS: Amar’s thoughts on analytics, cloud transitions, and the operational realities most vendors never see from the store level.
If you’re a CIO, CTO, or operator sitting on legacy tech wondering where to start, this episode is a masterclass.
Thanks Amar for sharing the playbook. 🍕📞☁️
#RestaurantTech #CIO #Cloud #AI #POS #Delivery #HospitalityTech
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🍕☁️ FROM DUMB TERMINALS TO CLOUD-NATIVE AI 🤖 Most restaurant tech leaders talk about digital transformation. Very few have actually lived every era of it. On today’s 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends, I sat down with Amar Narain, CIO & VP Information Technology at Pizza Pizza Limited. He's spent 20 years inside the same brand modernizing it step by step. We’re talking: • Unix + dumb terminals • multiple full-stack rewrites • cloud-native rebuilds • fully custom POS / digital / call center • and now AI agents All while supporting 800+ restaurants and 20M+ orders a year. Amar's experience is real-world, “don’t break the business” execution. 📺WATCH AND LEARN📺 👉 Why Pizza Pizza builds and doesn't buy its POS, apps, and call center stack and how owning the codebase lets them move faster and avoid vendor lock-in 👉 How driver tracking + SMS alerts improved delivery ETAs, reduced wait time at the door, and increased driver throughput 👉 Amar’s practical take on conversational AI for call centers: it must be as good as a human AND cheaper per interaction 👉 How they’re layering AI personalization into web + mobile so frequent guests see what they’re most likely to order first 👉 His no-BS modernization framework for legacy brands: reduce friction --> align to business goals --> automate ➕ PLUS: Amar’s thoughts on analytics, cloud transitions, and the operational realities most vendors never see from the store level. If you’re a CIO, CTO, or operator sitting on legacy tech wondering where to start, this episode is a masterclass. Thanks Amar for sharing the playbook. 🍕📞☁️ #RestaurantTech #CIO #Cloud #AI #POS #Delivery #HospitalityTech