Top Restaurants Startups in 2026

AI-powered growth system for independent business owners - starting with restaurants.

We work alongside our restaurant partners every day, sharing in the ebbs and flows of their business while helping them achieve their dreams. We provide marketing and financing that work with their business and are truly pay-for-performance. We help them increase revenue, traffic, and customer engagement. Importantly, our services do not require the merchant to discount or give away their products.

Born in DC and raised the Mediterranean way, CAVA is a vibrant culinary brand focused on real food with thoughtful ingredients, gutsy flavors, and a whole lot of variety. With a growing fast-casual restaurant presence and a correlated line of chef-crafted dips + spreads, we’re empowering all eaters to create the meal they’ve been craving and dig right in.

Founded in 2000, we are the world's largest online travel research company, empowering users to plan and enjoy the ideal trip. Our travel research platform aggregates reviews and opinions of members about destinations, accommodations (including hotels, B&Bs, specialty lodging and vacation rentals), restaurants and activities throughout the world through our brand. We provide the the ultimate travel companion in 49 markets and 28 languages.

From our unique family culture to our focus on personal development, a career with Focus Brands is anything but ordinary. We rely on the specialized attributes and experiences each of our associates has to offer, and we remain focused on providing individuals with continuous opportunities to grow their skills, develop their talents and unlock their potential as part of a collaborative and supportive team.

CloudKitchens is a real estate company that provides smart kitchens for delivery-only restaurants. They provide infrastructure and software that enables food operators to open delivery-only locations with minimal capital expenditure and time. It was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States.

"VOICEplug Order" enables frictionless voice-based food ordering for restaurants. The product seamlessly integrates with restaurant websites, apps, and systems (phone system, drive-through, kiosks, etc.) so that they can start voice interactions and transactions with customers. Customers can search items with multiple filters, sort and compare options, place orders for multiple items simultaneously with customized options, make payments, track orders, provide feedback, and more.

Tabbed is building a frictionless payments layer for hospitality that removes the most broken part of dining: closing the check. Tabbed connects diners and restaurants through a location-aware platform that automatically discovers checks, syncs directly with point-of-sale systems, and enables one-tap or fully automatic payment. No QR codes, no waiting for staff, and no disruption to existing restaurant workflows. For diners, Tabbed makes paying effortless. Open the app, dine as usual, and leave when ready—Tabbed handles the rest. For restaurants, Tabbed integrates directly into existing POS systems, ensuring checks are securely linked to guests and payments are captured reliably, even in fast-paced or high-volume environments. Under the hood, Tabbed solves complex coordination across location, payments, and POS systems to deliver a consistent, reliable experience across venues. The result is faster table turns, improved guest satisfaction, and a modern dining experience that feels seamless from start to finish. Tabbed’s goal is to become the default way people pay in hospitality—ambient, invisible, and trusted—while giving restaurants better insight into their guests and operations without changing how they work.

Jevan is the AI native restaurant-tech: we predict customer demand down to the day and hour, then turn that into concrete inventory, staffing, and ordering decisions, replacing guesswork that costs the industry roughly $157B a year in food waste and eats deep into razor-thin margins. Our recommendation engine helps diners choose items off the menu, boosting satisfaction and turnover, and driving revenue in turn. and turnover rate.

SHIN STARR aims to create, operate and franchise Korean cuisine based quick-service restaurant (QSR) and fresh casual dining restaurants built around our proprietary autonomous kitchen platform, SPACE+ Technology™. Our goal is to serve freshly-cooked food with more efficiency, ease and comfort. Because our solution allows food shop owners to multi-task and consume less space, this reduces costs in labor and floor space which are barriers for Korean kitchens to scale rapidly. Our mission is optimize the use of time and cost in preparing fresh Korean cuisine, (and beyond). We are dedicated to building a safer, reliable, autonomous culinary environment by integrating robotic technology and AI software. Our ultimate goal is to expand our solutions to explore all types of cuisines, not only Korean, that can enjoy the benefits of autonomous technologies: 1. Advantages of an autonomous kitchen (e.g. restaurant location) - Cost efficiency improves in terms of labor and floor space - Energy efficiency from smart thermal control and automatic shut-off - Multi-tasking rises from autonomous cooking and cleaning features - AI Chef from smart menu selection and AI software programs - Consistency in terms of quality control of food preparing and taste - Safety and health improves as cooking injuries are likely to decrease - More hygienic and healthy as human interaction decreases - Workflow improves by speed and less vulnerable from fatigue - Personalized database of recipes and cooking methods 2. Advantages of an autonomous kitchen (food truck) - Significant cost efficiency rises as a result of a single driver could operate vehicle and manage multiple tasks (e.g. cooking, cleaning) - Cook-en-route is possible, whereby more focus could be placed on navigating 'hot' locations to increase in sales - Food delivery and take-out orders could become efficient; for example, patrons could place orders thru mobile app and be notified when their food order is ready for pick-up