Hana Tanaka
News Editor
Hana edits The Pass, our daily news-plus-analysis column. She covers vendor launches, model releases, regulatory moves, and the deals that don't quite make the M&A column.
Five years on the hospitality desk at a national daily before joining us — and a previous life cooking on the line in Tokyo, which means she will catch when a vendor's "AI menu engineering" demo is using a recipe that no kitchen would actually serve.
Hana also runs our daily morning newsletter, which is the version of the site most readers see first.
More articles from Hana Tanaka
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Toast Quietly Renamed Sous Chef. The Pilot Was the Point.
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Three things we saw at Bar & Restaurant Expo Day 2
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UK hospitality April-1 cliff edge: NLW £12.71, RHL relief ends, 2,076 closures projected
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The reservation wars enter Round 4: setting up OpenTable's April 16 deadline
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Starbucks hit with BIPA class action: the AI-surveillance bill comes due
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EU AI Continent Action Plan delivers; Digital Omnibus still in trilogue
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OpenTable's 'system of record' takes effect — and the WA AG is already looking
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Bloomberg Businessweek covers OpenTable: Debby Soo's Q&A and why 'restaurants hated us'
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NRA Show Preview: COFE+ Robot Café and the Voice-AI Floor Plan No One Got Quite Right
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Texas Roadhouse Hands the Keys to a CKE Finance Lifer — and That Tells You Something About Where Steakhouse Margins Go Next
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The EU Just Quietly Proposed Pushing the AI Act's High-Risk Deadline 16 Months — Here's What It Means for Hospitality Operators
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The Starbucks Strike Hits the Empire State Building — and the Fair Workweek Math Just Got More Expensive
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BJ's Restaurants Pulls a Red Robin CFO — Casual-Dining's Finance Talent Market Is Cannibalizing Itself
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El Pollo Loco Brings In a Potbelly CEO and a Dutch Bros CMO — Which Tells You the Activist Playbook Is Working
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Six Weeks In: Starbucks' Open-Ended Strike Just Hit the Seattle Headquarters
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Starbucks Hires Its Tech Chief From Amazon — and Amazon's Loss Is Hospitality's Lesson
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Denny's Goes Private at $620M: The First Domino in 2026's Casual-Dining Reset
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OpenTable's 2026 Dining Trends Report: U.S. Dining +8%, 10× Per Month Planned
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US Foods and PFG Walk Away — and US Foods Adds $1.25B Buyback Cover
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Thanksgiving 2025: OpenTable Reservations +13% YoY as Diners Skip Home Cooking
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UK Autumn Budget Hits Hospitality with 76% Rateable-Value Jump for Hotels
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Italy's AI Law 132/2025 Takes Effect — €774,685 Max Fines and the EU's First AI Criminal Offense
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Hotel Earnings Preview: Hyatt Layoffs and What to Listen For
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Marriott Goes All-In on AI in Loyalty — 50% of EMEA Travelers Now Plan Trips with AI
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The Week of Earnings: What to Watch from Chipotle, Starbucks, Sysco and Brinker
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Westminster Shrugs: The September 3 Hospitality-Tax Debate and What It Didn't Deliver
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FSTEC Week: The AI-Demystification Agenda and What the Operator C-Suite Is Actually Buying
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Food Away From Home Cools to a 3.7% YoY Climb. The 'AI Premium' Theory Dies a Little.
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Lightspeed Ships Lightspeed AI at NRF — A Verbal Cockpit for the SMB Restaurant
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Freddy's Sells to Rhone for ~$700M. The QSR-Burger Exit Window Reopens.
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EU AI Act GPAI Obligations Kicked In Aug 2. September Is When Hospitality SaaS Realizes.
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US Foods Made an Offer. Performance Food Group Said No.
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PFG's Full Year Landed Soft on EPS but Loud on Independent Volume
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Elo Joins Zebra, Re-Enters Foodservice At NRF With Wallaby SCO
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UK Hospitality Has Shed 84,000 Jobs Since the Budget — UKHospitality Sounds the Alarm
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Resy's Real Roadmap: Amex Is Building a Dining Operating System, Not a Booking App
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Minimum-Wage Day: The Bill Finally Comes for the AI Roadmap
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'123456': How an AI Hiring Bot Exposed 64 Million McDonald's Applicants
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The Broadline Two-Step: Sysco Watches as US Foods Circles PFG
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The EU Just Shipped a 70-Page Memo to Your CTO
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The MLK Day Tape: How Restaurant Tech Trades Through a Holiday Lull
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E20X 2025: Levee Sweeps with AI Agents for Hotel Frontlines
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Touchstone 1 (Née Hotel Internet Services) Rebrands at HITEC
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Sierra Just Raised $950M at $15B. Every Hospitality CIO Should Reprice Their Voice-AI RFP
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Airbnb Says Nearly 60% of Its Engineer-Authored Code Is Now AI-Written. F&B Should Care
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Toast On Fortune's Most Admired — A Vanity Headline With a Real Read-Through
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SEC v. Saniger: The First Criminal AI-Washing Case Lands on the Restaurant Tech Industry's Desk
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Burgerbots Opens in Los Gatos at $18 a Burger and 27-Second Assembly
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Toast Sets a Feb 12 Q4 Date. Three Lines Will Move the Tape.
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Wonder Hires CTO Antonio Silveira Amid a 90-Location Expansion Sprint
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DoorDash Is Not a Delivery Company Anymore
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Apex OrderHQ Array Series: Smart Lockers as the Last-Mile Bottleneck
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PAR Buys Delaget. The Restaurant Tech Roll-Up Has Begun.
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CES 2025 Opens. The Food-Tech Floor Is Bigger Than Last Year.
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Inauguration Day: What Trump's First Hours Mean for Restaurant Labor
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Davos's AI Conversation Was About Everything Except Hospitality
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EU AI Act's Prohibited Practices Take Effect Next Monday. Are You Ready?
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ElevenLabs Hits $3.3B at ~37x ARR. Voice-AI's Bubble Argument, Tested.
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DoorDash Buys Deliveroo for £2.9B and a UK Foothold
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The Hospitality Acquisition Nobody Predicted: SevenRooms Goes to DoorDash for $1.2B
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US Foods Just Had a Quietly Excellent Quarter
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Why the Next 30 Days Will Reset the Restaurant-AI Pecking Order
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PAR Technology Snaps Up GoSkip in $4.8M Asset Deal
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Miso Robotics Rides the GTC Wave With Nvidia Isaac Sim Integration
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Lightspeed Slashes FY25 Outlook, Blames Consumer Pullback
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Lightspeed's Capital Markets Day: A Three-Year Plan to Prove SaaS in Hospitality Is Investable
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January 2026 Operator Roundup: Five Things We Couldn't Confirm
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Dutch Bros Just Logged Its 19th Straight Year of Positive Same-Shop Sales. The Loyalty Number Is the One That Matters.
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Brussels Missed a Deadline. Your Voice Agent Has Six Months.
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Sweetgreen guides to negative comps but doubles the Infinite Kitchen footprint — automation is now defense
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The largest Freddy's franchisee just got larger — JRI buys HCI
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Brussels Just Told Voice Agents to Wear Name Tags
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Cracker Barrel's Q2 was bad. The tariff line was worse.
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California's FAST Act, Nearly Two Years In: AB 1228 Is an Automation Accelerant
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