At this week’s National Restaurant Association show in Chicago, Lightspeed Commerce is showing a restaurant PoS and commerce platform that brings cloud technology to the hospitality industry.

“After the unprecedented challenges the industry has faced over the past two years, Lightspeed is thrilled to return to McCormick Place to spend time with our customers and partners with a brand new commerce platform,” said hospitality general manager Peter Dougherty. “We’re ready to wow the industry with what Lightspeed Restaurant can do.”

Lightspeed Restaurant brings the power of integrations and cloud technology to the hospitality industry, with integrated inventory, payments, analytics and online ordering, as well as simplified workflows and interfaces in the PoS and back-office software.

Canadian firm Lightspeed has its hospitality commerce technology on display in Chicago, with industry experts doing live demos of features that help streamline operations and run smarter restaurants, such as order anywhere, automated inventory and payments.

Dougherty was also on the NRA show mainstage with Terrace Bay Hotel owner Jarred Drown and food and beverage and front-of-house director Sam Barton to discuss the mounting challenges of food and labour costs and how technology can help manage costs and automate tasks.

Terrace Bay is leveraging Lightspeed Restaurant to streamline shifts and simplify operations.

“With integrated payments for Lightspeed Restaurant, it’s just that little bit extra that helps the server handle that fifth table they might have,” said Drown. “It helps the flow and helps you turn the tables faster.”

He also finds working with a fast, efficient cloud-based system has saved him time: “I like being able to change things in the back office and then seeing those updates immediately without bogging down the system,” he said.

Lightspeed’s one-stop commerce platform helps merchants innovate to simplify, scale and provide customer experiences. The cloud commerce platform transforms and unifies online and physical operations, multichannel sales, expansion to new locations, global payments, financial and connection to supplier networks.

Founded in Montréal, Canada, in 2005, Lightspeed is dual-listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange. With teams across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, the company serves retail, hospitality and golf businesses in more than 100 countries.