San Francisco Soup Co. Improves Business Efficiency with Cloud-Based Software

11/9/2016
San Francisco Soup Co. was founded in 1999 as a healthy quick service restaurant (QSR). Over the years, the menu has expanded to include made-to-order sandwiches, custom-tossed salads and grain bowls, and breakfast items, in addition to our well-loved, handcrafted soups and stews. We are dedicated to making delicious, globally-inspired, healthy dishes using fresh, seasonal, local produce that is organic whenever possible.  We also aim to be sustainable in everything we do.

With 17 locations in the Bay Area, San Francisco Soup Co. was in need of a point-of-sale (POS) system that was designed for a multi-unit restaurant concept with enterprise management.  It was important that we could integrate our POS system with our 3rd party purchasing and inventory system partners so that we could get accurate information for cost of goods sold (COGS) at each of our restaurants.  We also needed a system that was efficient to manage price changes and scale with us as we grow.

After an extensive search, we decided to implement PAR Technology’s Cloud-Based Brink POS Software.  We piloted the software in just one store for one month. Then we began to roll-out the software to about 2-3 stores each week thereafter.

With the cloud-based software, our managers are able to better manage their stores by accessing information and generating reports at any time and from any place. They can check on their inventory, sales for the day, kitchen performance, all from home if they need to.  Making changes to our menu is also a more seamless operation. Rather than having to make changes to our menu at each store and online, we make the changes once and push them to the corresponding locations and order channels – a huge improvement and time saver for our team that has also drastically reduced the occurrence of errors.

As a QSR, we have also been able to increase our speed of service with the new solution, a critical component to our success. Additionally, we have implemented a Loyalty Program for our guests through a 3rd party application which integrates with our POS. The integration was simple and we now communicate and offer relevant rewards for various buying behaviors such as visits, special occasion promotions and menu specials – providing us valuable insight into our guests to continuously improve the way we serve them.

Implementing a new POS system can be a daunting endeavor.  The Brink Software and the PAR team made it relatively easy and the support we were given was a tremendous help.  PAR helped us figure out the best way to configure Brink’s powerful and flexible software to best fit our operations and best serve our guests, then worked with us to get the entire menu programmed, tested and implemented brand wide. 

Steve Sarver is co-owner and founder of San Francisco Soup Company, which he started in 1999.  He enjoys the challenge of using technology to improve his business.  But, most of all, he enjoys developing new recipes with his culinary team.
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