Foodics Launches Table Talks, A New Hospitality Forum Spotlighting The Real Data Behind Restaurant Growth In The Region

Foodics, the leading restaurant management and payments technology platform in MENA, has announced the launch of Table Talks by Foodics, a new community-led initiative designed to bring together restaurant founders, operators, creators, and hospitality professionals for candid, insight-driven conversations about building and scaling successful restaurant businesses.

Built as an intimate, invite-only dinner series, Table Talks moves beyond traditional panel formats to create space for honest dialogue inside the environments where hospitality brands are actively being built. Each edition will spotlight a founder’s journey alongside real operational insights, bridging storytelling with data-backed business reality.

The inaugural edition took place at Lila Molino in Alserkal Avenue on Thursday 18th June and featured chef and entrepreneur Shaw Lash, founder of Lila Taqueria and Lila Molino. Guests gathered inside the concept’s working production kitchen for an evening focused on entrepreneurship, craft, and the realities of scaling independent hospitality brands.

Shaw Lash’s journey has become one of Dubai’s most compelling modern hospitality stories. After leaving a corporate career, she launched Lila Taqueria in 2023, a wood-fired taqueria built around heirloom Mexican corn and traditional techniques. She went on to expand the concept with Lila Molino in 2024, an all-day dining space, coffee roastery, concept store, and in-house masa production unit, followed by Tacos Caminos in 2025. With Foodics supporting operations across every stage of growth, the brands have evolved into a thriving independent restaurant group built on consistency, craft, and operational discipline.

As part of the inaugural Table Talks session, Foodics shared exclusive insights into Shaw Lash’s growth journey, showcasing how technology has supported the evolution of the business from a single restaurant into a three-brand, five-location group in just three years. Since launching Lila Taqueria in 2023, followed by Lila Molino in 2024 and Tacos Caminos in 2025, the group has processed more than 85,000 orders through the Foodics platform.

During the event it was highlighted how access to real-time operational and customer data has enabled smarter decision-making and sustainable growth, with Lila Molino recording a 98% year-on-year increase in orders between 2024 and 2025 from a single location alone. This growth has been supported by Foodics’ integrated platform, which connects POS, sub-cashier stations and delivery app orders into a single system, providing a complete view of business performance.

Attendees also gained insight into customer purchasing behaviour through the brand’s top-performing menu items, with Chips, Salsas & Guacamole serving as a key entry-point dish, while signature favourites continue to drive repeat visits. Some menu items saw demand increase by more than 400% in a single month, highlighting the value of data-led menu optimisation. Today, Lila Molino accounts for over 54% of the group’s lifetime orders, demonstrating how operational discipline and technology can drive growth beyond physical expansion.

“Table Talks was created to bring our community together and uncover the stories behind successful hospitality brands and the decisions that drive their growth. Shaw’s journey highlights that scaling a restaurant business, while it all starts with a great concept, requires operational discipline, consistency, and the ability to make informed decisions at every stage. By sharing these experiences openly, we hope to create meaningful conversations and practical learning opportunities for the wider industry,” says Belal Zahran, Chief Revenue Officer of Foodics.

“Through this initiative, we want to highlight the real mechanics of growth in hospitality, the decisions, the systems, and the numbers that sit behind the guest experience.” He adds.

The launch of Table Talks reflects Foodics’ broader commitment to supporting the hospitality ecosystem beyond technology, by fostering knowledge-sharing and bringing together the people shaping the future of dining in the region.

Table Talks by Foodics will continue as a recurring series, convening hospitality founders and operators every few months for open, honest industry conversations.

To discover more about Foodics, please visit https://www.foodics.com/.