Eric Caron, Sr. Director of Digital Products @ Caribou Coffee

09/12/2025 23 min

Listen "Eric Caron, Sr. Director of Digital Products @ Caribou Coffee"

Episode Synopsis

Today on 🍔Restaurant 🤖Tech 📈Trends we sit down with Eric Caron, Senior Director of Digital Products at Caribou Coffee, a brand with 800+ locations, a fast-growing drive-thru footprint, and a LOT happening in digital.📺 WATCH AND LEARN 📺👉 How Caribou rebuilt its tech foundation - from reproducible data and controlled testing to a unified Flutter app and lightning-fast Stripe checkout👉 Why the brand draws a hard line between helpful AI (smarter ops) and creepy AI (facial recognition, over-automation)👉 What Caribou’s two store formats mean for digital ordering, loyalty, and creating the right guest experience, whether it’s a "just give me caffeine" day or a "stay for the moment" visit➕ PLUS: Eric breaks down where menu boards, loyalty, and personalization are headed and why "just because you can doesn’t mean you should" is the guiding principle for tech at Caribou.Thank you Eric for the honest look at how a major coffee brand is modernizing without losing the human touch. 🚀