Ep. 01

Exploring Innovations in Restaurant Industry Payroll: A Deep Dive with David Alvarado

TAL CLARK | JULY 15th, 2025

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to the All New Instant Payments Podcast. I’m your host, Tal Clark. I’m currently the CEO of Instant Financial, a fintech company that’s modernizing payments and payroll for hourly workers and their employers.

I’ve worked in the payments industry for 30 years at companies like Fiserv and Money Network, and I’m excited you’re tuning in today. If you like what you hear, please do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review or suggest a guess. Today is our very first episode, so I want to welcome all our listeners here today.

This podcast will feature payments and payroll leaders to discuss some of their challenges and what technology and processes they’re using to improve their workplace and the lives of their workforce. And David, as we were just talking, you are our very first guest and you serve a dual purpose. We’re going to be talking with David Alvarado.

David is currently Instant Financial’s VPSL. So yes, I’m his boss, so this should be fun. We’re having David on to work out some of the kinks and do a trial run on all of our podcast equipment and processes.

But more importantly, we’re having David on because he’s a phenomenal leader in the payment space. With over 30 years in the restaurant industry, David’s journey started at his family’s Mexican restaurant in Michigan and led to senior leadership roles, including global VP at Bloomin Brands. He’s an expert in everything from operations and finance to supply chain and brand protection.

Now at Instant, David helps restaurant operators to streamline payroll and create workplaces where employees thrive. He lives in Tampa with his family and three dogs. David, welcome again.

How are things in Tampa today?

Thank you, Tal. It’s an honor to be here. Things are well in Tampa.

It’s a beautiful summer and looking forward to going into the holiday weekend. And it’s a big honor again to be here and to discuss a little bit about the insights that I’m going to bring as it relates to the hospitality industry. You know, as you mentioned, cut my teeth there.

So I kind of saw what it was like in the old days with paper money and how we did it with those processes and how things have evolved and really why it became such a passion for me to share this type of technology with all of my fellow restauranteurs.

Well, that’s good. And we’ll let’s definitely get into that. But let’s back up a little bit.

I read your background a little bit. And to start with, I had no idea that your family had a Mexican restaurant in Michigan. So, tell me a little bit more about that and growing up in that environment and maybe what you learned that helps you today.

Yeah, absolutely. So, working in a family restaurant, somebody doesn’t show up, you run out of groceries, you need to go to the store. It’s all family that takes care of it.

So, my parents were at work, they worked all day, they worked all shifts. We went to work on weekends or at night. And unfortunately, when employees didn’t show up for whatever reason, it was the family that had to respond.

So, working in a family environment really gave me an appreciation for quality white glove service of taking care of our guests, because our name was on the sign. So, I took a lot of pride in that.

What was the name of the business?

It was actually, it was Alvarado’s Mexican Restaurant. So, we had some of the best Mexican food in Lansing, Michigan.

Does it still exist today?

No, my parents, it was more of a vehicle for them to get us through school and into college. And as soon as me and my brothers were done with high school, we didn’t really have any interest in taking over the family business. We wanted to move on to other things.

So, my parents retired and that was the end of Alvarado’s Mexican Restaurant.

That’s crazy. But I’m sure you’ve got some good recipes. You have never cooked me any, but you’ll have to going forward.

My freezer is full of all of my parents’ recipes from the restaurant. So, whenever I want a burrito, I can just go in there, defrost some stuff and whip it up. It’s one of the great pleasures my parents passed along to me.

Obviously, it was a work ethic and a great food.

Outstanding. So, you were in the family business, family restaurant, worked, helped out there. What age did you sort of leave that environment?

Yeah. So, working for my parents and when I started to separate, to kind of leave home a little bit, think about what the next steps were. It really started around prom and senior in high school.

I needed to make $75, Tal, to buy prom tickets. And I didn’t want to ask my parents. I wanted to make my own money.

So, they were opening a restaurant down the road that I’d never heard of. It was called Outback Steakhouse. And I asked a couple people, hey, do you know anything about Outback?

And they said, there’s a whole bunch of them in Florida. And they’re really busy. So, I was like, I’m going to go work there so I can make my $75 and I can buy a prom ticket.

I went and applied. And that day that I applied and got hired turned out to be day one of a 23 year journey. And all the experience that I had gotten at my parents’ restaurant, 100% translated to Outback Steakhouse.

Except working at Outback, I didn’t feel the pain that I felt with the family restaurant. When something was wrong at the family restaurant, that was our problem. When I worked at a chain restaurant, and it was corporately managed, and they have systems for everything, it was the business’ problem to figure out what they were going to do.

And they had policies and procedures to handle all of that. So to be working in a family environment to a corporate environment was super refreshing for me. And it actually reinvigorated me because I saw for the first time that you could be in the hospitality industry and actually have fun versus it being a family burden like it was for our family.

Sure, it was a means to an end, but working at Outback, that was a delight and I ended up making enough money for prom tickets. And that was kind of the kickoff of my formal restaurant career.

Well, that’s great. That’s great. And so we’ll talk us through a little bit more on that 23 years.

So you obviously didn’t start at the top, right? You started, did you start in Lansing? You started at Outback in Lansing?

Okay, you started in Lansing. So walk us through your 23 years at Outback and Bloomin Brands.

Yeah. So, you know, started as a busboy, obviously, just doing the regular old thing. But after I graduated and I was going to college, I started serving, I started bartending.

I honestly got a little bored of that. And I talked to the general manager and I said, can I go learn the back of the house? Can I learn how you guys cook all your food and your procedures?

And he said, sure, Dave, I’ll go make you a prep cook. So I went and became a prep cook. I wasn’t very good.

I was really slow. They gave me a hard time, but I did get better. But really the precipice was, I was bored easily.

So I wanted to be constantly challenged. So when I was done with the front of the house and I went to the back, they were like, oh, you can do this. And then I mastered that and they said, oh, you can do this job, then this job.

And eventually what happened is I worked my way through every single position in the restaurant. And when I came to work while I was going to college, I would literally look at my calendar and be like, oh, I’m cooking today or I’m bartending today or I’m serving today. So they gave me that schedule that kept me excited.

And that’s why I stayed there so long. Eventually Outback really started to grow tall, as you know. And they approached me and said, you know, Outback’s gonna be a really big company one day.

We really think you should join. Well, it was the greatest conversation that I ever had because I loved the company. I was excited about it, the growth.

And I was passionate about food and the hospitality business and taking care of people. So I decided I was going to come on board, which then kind of kicked off my management career. So much like everyone else, you have to start at the bottom.

I started as an assistant kitchen manager, you know, undesirable shifts, working long hours. But you kind of work your way up to a kitchen manager and did all that and I was successful. And that’s when I moved to become a multi-unit manager.

That was really the difference. I had sold at one restaurant and I wanted to share my experience with everyone else. And that’s when I got moved to a regional opportunity, overseeing 28 restaurants in Michigan, Northern Ohio and Eastern Canada.

That was fun because Outback was a domestic company and we were growing and now we were growing internationally. And I was the kind of the guy that was spearheading that, training these restaurateurs from Canada, getting their market ready to open. And eventually, that part laid to me being global.

So this little guy from Lansing, Michigan, all of a sudden I’m in Canada, I’m in Mexico, I’m in Southeast Asia, just having a great time in operations.

Well, that’s great. And so at some point you moved, you took over the global brand or the global training, our global operations for some of the restaurants, and then you moved to Tampa, right, at some point?

Yeah. So being in Michigan, that’s where I had the operational experience that I just went through. I eventually got transferred to Tampa, which is where I’m at today, where I went to go work at the corporate office, where I took on different types of responsibilities that ultimately culminated with being the global vice president of quality assurance, food safety, and regulatory compliance.

So for people who aren’t in the restaurant industry, that means hot food, hot, cold food, cold, wash your hands, and make sure you follow all of your laws. So I was the guy making sure that everybody was doing what they needed to be doing, and it was very gratifying, because I already understood the food, and to me, I wanted to serve food safely to our guests that trust us. So yeah, it was a great experience, Tal, because I got to see the operation side, I got to see the corporate side, and that gave me a panoramic view of the restaurant business, about what was broken, what was working, what we needed, what types of things we were looking for for innovation from the industry to solve problems that we thought we just had to deal with.

Yeah, well, that’s great, and that’s a great background. And I know during part of that time, too, Bloomin was very supportive of veterans and veteran’s causes, and you did a lot of travel with that. We don’t want to spend a ton of time there, but obviously, as a veteran, I’m very appreciative of what they’ve done, and some of the work you did there.

So just give us just a minute or so on that, and how you enjoy that.

Yeah, it’s one of the highlights of my life, and thank you for your service. But I had the pleasure of working with Central Command here in Tampa, and over the course of 10 years, we fed a quarter million of our service members. And this included going to places like Kandahar, Bagram, Kabul, the Sunni Triangle, Djibouti, all transit centers going in and out of the Middle East.

So it’s a big source of pride for me because when we started our first year in 2002, we flew into Kandahar in the middle of the night and we fed 5,000 Marines.

That’s amazing.

By the last trip, 10 years later, it was three weeks and we fed 40,000. So they were very appreciative. And me going over there was just our way, Tal, of saying thank you to them because we appreciate what they do and they’re not forgotten.

So it was definitely a highlight and I was glad I was able to participate.

That’s amazing. And I can tell you that there’s never a Marine that’s going to turn down a good steak, especially in those situations and places. So that’s an amazing thing that you guys are doing.

So they came back for two steaks, Tal. Two steaks? So they’d eat their one steak, they’d come right back in the line and get another steak.

A ribeye, David, or a filet?

They had ribeyes. We had prime ribeyes and prime New York strips.

Wow.

That’s what we served them. So we served them steaks, we served them cheesecakes, we served them Bloomin Onions. We had servers that we brought from the states to actually walk around the dining facility and deliver Bloomin Onions as an appetizer.

Trying to mimic the restaurant, just trying to make it feel a little bit more at home.

That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well, clearly at one point, you had a great career there and you know the restaurant space.

You learned it from the bottom up, both from a family business and then from working with a large entity like Bloomin. And then you had the opportunity. I mean, you still consider yourself today, I think, in the restaurant business.

That’s what you do for us, is you help us focus on the restaurant business and make sure we know what we need to know about what we’re delivering. But what was that transition like for you? What was it that sort of encouraged you to make the transition at the time that you moved over to Aston?

Yeah, I’m very, I’m really glad you asked me that question, Tal. So just like everyone else in their life, they start to think about what’s next. One of the things that we always had a problem with at Bloomin Brands was tips in cash management.

Every year, we were trying to figure out how do we eliminate cash in the restaurants? How do we make it easier for the operators? How do we reduce the cost of armored car?

And they started to look at, well, let’s put it on check. Well, that robs employees of instant gratification. Let’s put more money in the restaurants and reduce armored car.

Let’s save money that way. All we did was push the burden on the operations to manage more cash. And managing cash at an operations level is hard, Tal.

It’s hard to count up that type of money, okay? So it didn’t work. We’re like, hey, this is the status quo.

This is the norm. Everyday people will come to work. We will procure cash either going to the store or armored car.

We will become the bank for the employee. We will convert that credit card tip to cash and give it to them. It’s a very noisy process.

So that is when I met Instant Financial and the founders. They explained to me what they were doing and how they were doing it. And I immediately had a connection of the technology and the service at Instant Financial and what they could do for the casual dining industry.

Casual fine dining everybody, okay? But for me, it was a rapid connection. I could now take a solution to the industry that has done nothing but create problems.

And I can help them to eliminate the noise. How? We’re getting rid of the noise around cash procurement and distribution.

We’re streamlining operations. We’re digitizing the process. We’re getting out of manual logs and paper.

And everything now has a complete audit trail. So leaving Bloomin, knowing that there was this industry opportunity, meeting Instant Financial, that was a perfect marriage for me to join Instant Financial and to go to all of my friends in the restaurant industry and introduce digital tips and digital payments to them. And it has been received overwhelmingly, Tal, for the pure fact that we are eliminating a major pain point in the hospitality industry.

So for me, I was excited to come to Instant because of the innovation. I was excited to come to Instant because I knew what we could do for the industry. And three, I like, as I mentioned earlier, I get bored easily.

So with this type of technology and what we were going to do, that is something I knew I could be excited about for a very long time. So that’s how I ended up at Instant.

That’s great. So you saw the opportunity to improve the environment you were in at the time, which is Bloomin, but also sort of expand that reach by joining Instant into other restaurant businesses. And from that perspective, David, I think you probably, you were a trailblazer in sort of improving access for a large number of people, not just at Bloomin, but all across the restaurant space.

And there’s a safety aspect there too, right? We all know that in days past, waitstaff walking out of the restaurants in certain locations with a bunch of cash from their tips, was just not a great environment. We’ve all heard those stories.

So I think you did a service not only for Bloomin because you were there, but when you left, you were able to do that service and spread it to others. So let me ask you this, as you’re out there today, you’re talking to a number of restaurant leaders. You’re still engaged with friends that you’ve had for 20, 25 years or even longer in the restaurant space.

What do you see as far as the challenges that are out there, that may be challenges to acceptance to some of the solutions that are out there, and what is it that we can do to overcome that, and the challenges maybe that haven’t been addressed by us or others in the industry yet that can be addressed?

Yeah, so, the major challenge behind the hospitality industry, whether it’s fine dining, casual dining or fast food, Tal, is the low operating margin. The average operating margin of a restaurant, a casual dining restaurant, is between 3 and 5 percent. Okay?

That’s not a lot of wiggle room if something goes wrong in your month. Casual dining chains that, you know, are big enterprise, like Bloomin or Buffalo Wild Wings, their profit margin might be a little higher, maybe 12 to 15 percent. Okay?

So you’re fighting for everything you have in the restaurant industry to make money. One or two bad days, and you went from slightly profitable to no profit whatsoever. So when you’re dealing with small margins, you’re constantly looking for opportunities to save money, to be more productive, okay?

Now, for instant, and what we do with tips, I’m not going into a restaurant tour and saying, hey, I know you served this steak, and you love serving this steak. I can replace it with a cheaper steak and lower quality, okay? That’s not what we’re doing.

We’re eliminating their problem and giving them a solution that is free. So in their mind, they’re going, I’m trying to save money, I’m trying to remove noise, Instant Financial and Digital Payments help me to move along that path, okay? So now my 3 to 5 percent, maybe I move it up to 3.5 percent, maybe I move it to 4.

So as a restaurateur, you are constantly looking for these little things to get you to the next point.

Okay.

So, for a controller, a president, they’re going to have different reasons as to why they would want to do something like this. A president, Tal, is going to be thinking about motion, time, efficiencies, how can I get my people to focus less on important tasks and go focus on more important tasks. So with digital payments, an operator is going to go, if I can displace cash, that’s more efficient.

Somebody at the office who’s always about saving money is going, hey, if I can displace this cost via armored car and it’s provided to me by a free service, you know, that adds up. So the big pain point, Tal, is the low margin. So when you have things that cost money or take away from your business, you want to eliminate those things.

And that’s where Instant Financial is well suited for that.

Okay.

People who want to jump on that train, they are taking advantage of those efficiencies right now. I’m saving money on armored car. I’m saving money sending people to the bank.

I’m saving money on envelopes. The laggards, Tal, the people who will not adopt this, those are the ones that are going to take the longer time in the industry to get on this. And I don’t mean that disrespectfully, but they are a laggard.

They have not adopted something that is now generally accepted by everyone else. And they are not capturing the efficiencies or the productivity that goes along with that. So, Tal, moving forward, nobody has been burned by technology more than the hospitality industry.

Once it is proven out, people will gravitate towards it. But the thing that’s going to stop restaurateurs from joint jumping on technology, whether it’s Instant Pay, Payments, Earned Wage Access, it’s going to be their own personal hesitation, Tal. It’s a philosophical difference, not a business difference.

I got you. Well, and that’s all very interesting. And let me circle back to something that you mentioned earlier.

Your role was quality control, essentially, right? How did you tie the people equation into that, right? Because we’re talking about people right now.

We’re talking about making sure they have access. In addition to the ROI for the business, right? It’s a dual benefit, right?

There’s not many things that do that. But when you started thinking about quality control back in the day, you said hot food, hot cold food, cold, and what was the other one?

Wash your hands.

So how does employee satisfaction fold into that, right? I mean, I would think that if you’ve got employees that are working in a situation, high morale, feeling good about coming to work, showing up on time, then those things are a lot easier to manage than if you have employees that may be not in a good situation, or at least don’t feel personally in a good situation. Did you consider that when you were thinking about quality in the restaurants?

Absolutely. So anytime you have happy employees, people who stay longer, you’re going to have a more consistent product and a more consistent staff. I don’t think anybody can argue with that, Tal.

With the implementation of digital payments, instant earned wage access, whatever the case may be, we are merely enabling that employee with funds that they may need at that particular moment.

In regards to quality control, which was your role there, right? And the role that high employee satisfaction and morale has on that.

Yeah, Tal. So when you hire a person, you’re hiring the whole person. So if they’re stressed about bills, money, whatever the case may be, that person is bringing all those problems to work as well.

So if you can enable an employee with Instant Pay or cash when they need it, small amounts of liquidity, you’re helping to pull that person’s feet out of the mud. You’re allowing them to get a tank of gas, a bag of groceries, okay? You’re helping them to alleviate their mind.

So you’re becoming a partner. So yes, employees are happier because now the relationship has changed with the business. I can go to work, I can get paid, and I can go do what I need to go do.

So the business is helping the employee. And if you’re helping the employee, what are you gonna get? They’re gonna wanna stay there longer, there’s gonna be loyalty.

They’re gonna wanna do a better job for you. So with tips, I saw it as taking care of a problem, noise in the industry, but when it came to earned wage access and giving people a portion of their money that otherwise would not have it, that means a lot. It means so much in this day and age that if there’s two fast food restaurants and one pays 25 cents more an hour, this one pays 12.50, this one pays 12.25, if an employee is deciding where to work and this one that is cheaper per hour pays daily, employees are going to take that job.

Why? I can work there and get my money daily, so I can go take care of my life and pay my bills. It is not suitable for me to go work at the other place.

Yeah, they pay me 25 cents more an hour, but I don’t get that till two weeks later. That’s too late for me. Now I missed my bill.

Now I have late fees. So yeah, again, laggards will be slow to adopt allowing employees to have instant access to their cash immediately after their shift. But the people who do adopt it and are doing right to their employees, they will see the benefits.

So the quicker you do it, the quicker you’ll see the benefits. And again-

Well, let me ask you this, David, because it’s sort of hard for us to understand sometimes, and you’ve been in their shoes, so I’m gonna ask you the question. You know, when we’re talking about a solution that provides access every day, and as an employer, it doesn’t cost you anything to implement from a financial perspective. Maybe a few hours worth of time, but nothing significant compared to other HCM projects.

And we know that 83% plus of your employees won’t this access. You know, it’s hard to see a downside. What is it do you think that’s holding us back and being able to communicate or holding employers back from rapidly adopting this in all cases?

I mean, we’re missing something or we just got to figure out how to continue to educate and train and get them there, right? What are you thinking there?

Yeah, so Tal, I think we had the early adopters, okay? And then we had the fast followers, and that’s kind of where we’re at now. Again, going back to the laggers, why haven’t they done it?

The early adopters, I want something new. I want to be on this. I want to be on the tip of the spear.

The fast followers, let’s make sure they didn’t blow themselves up first, and then I’ll get on it. But the laggers, the people who haven’t adopted this amazing benefit for their employees, it usually falls down to philosophical and fear, and it’s fear of the unknown, Tal. I’ve had these conversations where I say, hey, let’s do earned wage access.

Oh, we’ve talked about it. Okay. How did that go?

Well, we had one person say we should do it, and then we had another person say, well, our employees are going to destroy themselves. Then the conversation ended and we never went any further than that. I’m like, that’s great feedback.

Can I tell you what I think? Enabling an employee with their earned funds before payday, small amounts of liquidity so that they can go handle life. I said, that’s giving them what they need so that they can be happy.

Enabling somebody with instant pay does not make a responsible person irresponsible.

Absolutely.

All it does is take them out of the predatory network, Tal, and access their cash when they need it. So Tal, when we needed money as an hourly, you borrow from friends and family, okay? That dries up quick.

Then maybe you do some credit, maybe you don’t have access to credit, okay? But then after that, you’re heading into predatory lending and payday loan lenders. So there’s not a lot of places for people who are unbanked, underbanked, and don’t have a lot of credit, for them to get money when they need it.

So in this environment, people who have not adopted un-wage access, it’s usually because they think their employees are going to destroy themselves. Well, they’re not. People who are irresponsible, Tal, they’re going to find a way to destroy themselves no matter what, okay?

But for the majority of the people, we’re merely enabling them with small amounts of liquidity so that they can handle their life. So that’s what I see as the barrier to the last group of people adopting this.

Yeah, it makes all the sense in the world, and we continue to work on what we can control, which is communication and product and process improvements and doing the things the best we can to make sure everyone is aware of the benefits and the downside of not doing it, right? And putting the data together. So I’m happy that you’re helping us carry that message out there, David, and hopefully we get the whole world’s covered up with this before long.

We’ll see. So what do you think as far as we go forward and just look holistically at the space that we’re in, what we’re doing today, maybe what others are doing today? What do you think is out there that we haven’t considered that the restaurant industry needs in regards to a couple of things, a broad category, financial wellness, right?

And I always say that financial wellness starts with access, right? Which is what we’re covering. But after that, there’s other tools that enable financial wellness.

We’ve got some of those now in our marketplace and some other things that we’re doing. But what’s next? I mean, what do you think is next as you look out maybe five years if we’re evolving?

We don’t really give away all our secret sauce either, David. But what do you think the restaurant tours would like to see?

Yeah. So from a restaurant tour standpoint, especially the hospitality industry, they’re looking for more tools to be efficient. In the past 25 years, Tal, a lot of the tools that are being used in the hospitality industry, were actually designed for other industries.

They were designed for manufacturing, they were designed for cruise ships. We grabbed the supply chain products from other industries, and then we tried to fit it into hospitality, and it doesn’t work. So, I believe we need good technology people creating restaurant-specific technologies for our operators.

Restaurant people need their lives simplified, and we need to enable them with technology that is very simple to use, and almost touchless at a point if we could, and remove all the friction. Now, I apply that to everything, Tal. That could be payments, the way we pay our employees, it could be the way we pay our vendors, but we’ve moved a long way in how we pay our vendors.

They don’t get paid instantly. Usually, there’s terms and things associated with that. But, anytime you look for something in hospitality to drive it forward, I think that’s what the business needs and the consumer.

As an example, I would like to be able to make a reservation at a restaurant. I would like to be able to pay my bill through the exact same interface that I made that reservation. I would also be able to leave feedback on how my meal was.

Maybe open table, hopefully, they’ll listen to this podcast. Or Rezzy.

That’s my point. So, I just named like three different companies and be like, well, if you ask me the restaurant operator, I want all of that, but I want it in one place. And that’s what’s gonna happen.

There’s gonna be all these onesies and twosies companies that pop up to fill this void, but then bigger companies that will come in and they’ll consolidate and they’ll be able to offer multiple offerings. So, technology, be kind to the restaurant industry, give them tools that they can use and that are customized to it. But we need to need more guest facing on how we get reservations, how we make payments, and how we give feedback.

Those three points touch the guest. They need to be handled in one step and one system versus it being disparate, if you ask me.

That’s a great answer. Well, look, David, I would be remiss, there’s in the news lately, there’s been a lot of talk about tax, no tax, on tips. And Instant has figured prominently in that as we pull together some data points from our users that was pick up and widely used by the media and others.

But I haven’t talked to you about it, I don’t think. So how do you see the no tax on tips and the need for that?

I’m a fan.

Okay.

I believe anytime somebody can keep more of their money, I think that’s great. Okay. That’s my personal opinion.

As I have talked to people in the industry, the opinions vary. Some people feel the way I do, hey, they’re already making such a small wage. Let’s not tax the money that they’re already getting.

Let them keep it. Not a big deal. Okay.

And then I see the other side of the coin where I don’t see it. I hear about it, which the other side is bitterness and jealousy, which is I don’t want them to have that because I don’t get that. So I’m very cautious about who I talk to about, you know, tax on tips.

But me personally, I think it’s a great thing. This class of people, we don’t need to be taxing them more. They need their money.

Let them keep more of what they make. So I’m all in favor of no tax on tips. But I can see the other side where people are jealous and they don’t really like it.

Well, let’s hope that anybody that is not for it, it’s not for a political reason or a jealous reason, but there’s something more logical or business-wise that points to that, because it appears that from an employee perspective, that it would be nothing but positive and I don’t see a negative impact there. So we shall see how that all works out. Well, look, David, is there anything else that you’d like to share that we haven’t talked about at all before we get ready to start?

No, I think it was a pleasure to spend some time with you and to talk about the restaurant industry, some of the ugly stuff, how we’ve worked together between the hospitality industry and the financial payments industry to kind of streamline things. But no, I think we covered everything. I’m really excited to see what the future holds when it comes to payments and how we grow in the hospitality industry and other markets.

Because Tal, ten years ago, nobody was thinking about this. Nobody was talking about this. So what are we all going to be excited about in ten years?

There you go. That’s great. Well, David, I want to thank you for being the first guest on the Instant Payments podcast.

It’s been great. You’re a great leader in this industry who truly understands all the opportunities and challenges since you’ve lived them yourself. So it’s great to hear your insight.

For our audience, you can learn more about David’s company at instant.co. I should say our company at instant.co or finding him as David P. Alvarado on LinkedIn, which you’ll also find in the show notes as well.

Thank you all for tuning in to this conversation today. If you like this episode of the Instant Payments podcast, don’t forget to subscribe or suggest another guest. David, thank you again and thank you to all our listeners and viewers.