Digital Ordering Presents A $70 Billion Growth Opportunity For Restaurants

The next generation of leading restaurant stocks will likely be the ones that take advantage of the huge opportunity in digital ordering. According to Pacific Crest analyst Chris O’Cull, digital ordering represents around a $70 billion growth opportunity within the next five years.

“We are witnessing this same kind of exponential growth [Moore’s Law] in the restaurant industry with the rise of digital ordering: enabling customers to place orders from their own devices for faster, more accurate and more personal service,” NoahGlass, Olo Founder and CEO explains.

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Pacific Crest believes that a tipping point in restaurant delivery is still a couple of years away, but on-demand delivery providers will eventually set up an economical infrastructure that makes delivery pricing viable for restaurant chains.

Pacific Crest names BJ’s Restaurants, Inc. BJRI, Buffalo Wild Wings BWLD and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Inc. RRGB as three stocks that could meaningfully benefit from digital ordering. In addition, O’Cull notes that Darden Restaurants, Inc. DRI’s new Olive Garden catering delivery could contribute meaningfully to same-restaurant sales.

In addition to Olive Garden catering, O’Cull says that Panera Bread Co PNRA is also one of the few restaurants developing small order delivery infrastructure.

While services like GrubHub Inc GRUB and Yelp Inc YELP may seem to be in prime positioning to capitalize on this shift, Pacific Crest believes that it will be difficult for those two companies because of restaurants delivering themselves and because of competition from services like Uber, Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and messaging services.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.