Starting a burger bar in any major city is no easy task. When striving for success, the owners of Barrels always had one goal in mind: Serve the best burgers money can buy and provide the best atmosphere available anywhere in Stockholm.
As it turns out, they turned their business into a success story — now, they are running three locations in the city and have widely received top reviews from critics.
However, their success in fulfilling customer tastes brought an unexpected issue: long queues of hungry people lining up outside, waiting for a table to savour their tasty Swedish beef burgers and locally crafted beer.
The Barrels team worked hard to create an inviting and welcoming atmosphere, to make guests feel right at home, and serve top-quality burgers that made people come back for more. But problems with queue management harmed their restaurant kitchen workflow; it made everyone’s job a lot tougher . . .
Figure 1. Barrels: “Our goal is to serve Stockholm’s best burgers in the nicest burger atmosphere” via Barrels’ website
How Barrels Transformed Their Restaurant Kitchen Workflow
Recently, we spoke to Johan, manager of Barrels City. Tackling changes in his restaurant kitchen workflow, Johan started using Carbonara App to manage the restaurant’s long queues. He was happy to share his experience with us.
Before using the app, the Barrels team used a pen-and-paper waitlist to manage the queue. This meant it was always a hassle to handwrite everything down, from keeping physical records to losing customer details due to misspellings and common mistakes.
During Barrel’s busiest hours, customer information suddenly disappeared due to problems with using a pen-and-paper list, and getting a hold of customers was very a time-consuming experience, restricting the restaurant’s overall efficiency.
Only there’s good news: In 2020, Barrels started using the Carbonara App — and managing queues suddenly got a lot easier.
Figure 2. Barrels transformed their restaurant kitchen workflow with the Carbonara app – via Barrels’ website
Supporting Barrels’ Restaurant Kitchen Workflow — No Stress, Just Check
“Before I had to remember everything,” Johan explained; “now I can track everything on my phone.”
Carbonara App makes things easier, and at Barrels, the fact that the whole team has access to the waitlist via their phone makes restaurant kitchen workflow less stressful.
With device sync features, everyone is a collaborator. Using an app, Johan found that Barrels’ ability to handle guests was faster and permitted everyone to be up-to-date with what was happening on the restaurant floor.
No longer did staff have to physically return to the front door time and time again to check a physical waitlist. If someone suddenly forgot a customer’s details, it wasn’t a problem anymore: the information was already there, saved and in their pocket.
Barrels Sends SMS Text Reminders to Boost Restaurant Kitchen Workflow
SMS waitlist texts made a real difference for Johan. Now he and his team were able to communicate with his guests without having to look for them or call them on the phone. This saved Barrels’ restaurant kitchen workflow — giving Johan and his team more time to spend attending to customers.
When we asked him how his guests reacted to waitlist texts, he said that people appreciated them — in fact, they liked to text back too. They could stay informed in real-time on their table’s progress. Carbonara App’s two-way communication features meant that guest management was practical, useful, and made sense to everyone.
Johann was very pleased to let our app help Barrels improve its restaurant kitchen workflow. “Extremely helpful,” he said, recommending Carbonara App for all walk-in venues.
Finally, Johann closed our conversation with a smile. He said that Carbonara App is “a simple tool that helps a lot. It offers functionalities that can really improve the workflow”. Why not try it out and let us help you improve your restaurant kitchen workflow today!
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