Best-in-Class, All-in-One: How Embargo Turns First-Party Data into Real Revenue with Fryderyk (Frederick) Szydlowski

Tech on Toast, The Hospitality Tech Podcast

This week, Chris sits down with Frederick Szydlowski, Co-founder of Embargo, to unpack how an all-in-one, best-in-class approach to loyalty, ordering and CRM can actually move the P&L—without burying teams in complexity.

Freddy’s story runs from professional basketball in Poland to JOE & THE JUICE on King’s Road, to building one of the UK’s highest-rated food & drink apps (4.9★).

We dig into why hospitality still loves loyalty but hates complexity, why first-party data beats data scrapbooks, and how Embargo’s product philosophy (own the journey end-to-end) drives adoption, repeat visits and higher direct sales, operators are reporting ~60% higher delivery volume via their own channels versus marketplaces.

We also cover Embargo’s expanding toolkit (web & table ordering, kiosks, payments), rapid onboarding (often live in 5–10 minutes per channel), and how their new AI models turn weather, behaviour and lookalike patterns into recommended campaigns you can run in minutes, not months.

Brought to you by Lightspeed. This festive season, let your tech do the heavy lifting. Close the year strong with Lightspeed Restaurant.