Most restaurant technology conversations focus on software. Alissa Partee wants operators to think about cooking oil.
As CEO of Restaurant Technologies, Partee leads a company that serves more than 45,000 restaurant locations across the country. During her conversation with Shawn Walchef on Digital Hospitality at the National Restaurant Association Show, she explained why one of the restaurant industry’s biggest operational headaches is often one of its least discussed.
Restaurant Technologies automates cooking oil management, delivering more than two million pounds of fresh oil and collecting more than one million pounds of used oil every day.
“We want to make sure you’re using less oil,” Partee said.
The company’s technology monitors oil levels in real time, schedules deliveries automatically, and helps restaurants maximize the life of their oil. The goal is not simply convenience. It is helping operators save time, reduce waste, and eliminate a task that many employees still handle manually.
The Restaurant Challenge
But Partee believes the biggest challenge is not the technology itself.
“Restaurants have a hard time stopping, pausing, and changing,” she said.
Like many restaurant operators, teams are often focused on the next shift, the next rush, and the next problem. Even when better solutions exist, finding the time to evaluate them can be difficult.
That mindset shaped Restaurant Technologies’ approach to growth. Rather than forcing change, the company focuses on making adoption as easy as possible through onboarding, support, and systems built around each restaurant’s operation.
Building The Right Way
Partee’s leadership philosophy follows a similar path. After joining the company as Chief People Officer six years ago, she worked her way through operations before becoming CEO. The lesson she learned from longtime CEO Jeff Giesel was simple: never lose sight of the frontline employees serving customers every day.
As she looks ahead, Partee’s goals are straightforward. Help more restaurants operate efficiently. Continue investing in employees. Keep growing.
Because sometimes the biggest innovations in restaurants are not the ones guests see.
They’re the ones quietly solving problems behind the scenes.
