West of Barnsley in north England resides a village chock-full of flowers and gardening fans. Cawthorne, the village in question, is host to some of England’s most famous green spots, residing in the middle of Leeds and Sheffield.
The Cawthorne Club is one such place that prides itself on its location — deep amid verdant plants, a neighbour to everything from multi-shaded rhododendrons to native vegetables. Inside, it’s a busy high-styled club.
This eventful space is a bit out of the way for your usual clientele. Instead, Cawthorne usually attracts visitors from far and wide. The restaurant shares the same street as a popular gardening centre, and sits opposite a huge local museum — Cannon Hall, a Georgian manor replete with lush foliage and enchanting views.
Don’t let the Club’s rustic exteriors fool you. Its interior embraces a modern style — warm colours, smooth surfaces, and gloss finishes — to fit its affluent clientele. The specialty here is the club’s drink selection, with food choices to cater to every taste bud.
Recently, we talked to Cawthorne Club to find out how they were getting on with a traditional pen-and-paper system. This is what we found out.
Figure 1. Cawthorne Club
Visitors to Cannon Hall
This is a famous gardener’s treasure trove. The visitors who travel out to Cawthorne are typically a more middlebrow crowd — enthusiasts, including families on day outings.
Rich surroundings serve as the backdrop to the Club, and the green location is a serious matter for both locals and visitors.
For three centuries Cannon Hall has boasted some of the north country’s most luscious gardens. The English love their green spaces —and Cawthorne Club’s locale is steeped in the region’s history, even a visiting spot for national celebrities throughout the ages.
In the eighteenth-century, the game-changing English landscaper Lancelot “Capable” Brown made a visit and provided recommendations, style-wise, to Cannon Hall’s owners. His keen eye for flowers clearly had a positive effect: Over two hundred years later the landscape still boasts some of the best in the region.
So, visitors here have an appreciation for the historic.
Cannon Hall’s massive car park means hundreds of visitors come here on the weekends. With this many visitors, a fully licenced restaurant needs to fulfil a heavy customer demand.
Figure 2. Cannon Hall by KillamarshianUK via Flickr
Problems with Pen-and-paper
Previously, the Cawthorne Club used a pen-and-paper reservation system to deal with popular demand. As a common choice for villagers and visitors beyond, the Club quickly found that a pen-and-paper system began to falter.
A pen-and-paper system requires steady staff intervention. Sean at Cawthorne Club told us about the frequent phone calls from guests. Loads of customers wanted to make reservations over the phone. As a result, the Club’s frequently ringing landline was hammering down on his team’s workflow.
Logging reservations, the Cawthorne Club followed the same tire-worn rhythms of the industry: gathering details, writing down names and numbers. Staff could have been doing something else.
When staff greet customers, they can’t be doing two things at the same time — that is, recording details and simultaneously processing whoever’s coming through the door. This led to frequent mistakes and poor handwriting in Cawthorne Club’s logbook. Not good for a restaurant that needed to maintain a high-styled image.
Figure 3. Cawthorne by Jeremy Atkinson via Flickr
A Food and Wine Specialty
Fortunately, Cawthorne Club fell back on one of their restaurant’s strengths: great customer service.
The restaurant offers a certain specialism when it comes to greeting customers. A rich tapas and wine selection that kept guests happy. Customers were able to overlook anything that went wrong with their pre-bookings because the staff was always ready to serve up top-quality dishes.
Nevertheless, Cawthorne Club needed a watertight solution to efficiently manage their pre-bookings. They found one in a free restaurant app.
Integrating an App for Club Reservations
[bctt tweet=” ‘A great online app that allows customers to book and reserve tables with the need for staff intervention. Free and easy to set up. Great customer service too!’ – Sean Benson at Cawthorne Club.”]
Sean told us that, in his team’s experience, Carbonara App was “excellent”.
He made special mention of the app’s simple design: “A great online app that allows customers to book and reserve tables without the need for staff intervention. Free and easy to set up. Great customer service too!”
A table management screen with easily identifiable buttons and tools had allowed his staff to speedily log customer details whenever they made a booking with the Club.
Now the team can efficiently deal with an influx of customers who have driven all the way to Cawthorne.
Also, Sean felt it was worth mentioning the speed of the app. Carbonara App invites users to employ specialist reservation techniques, such as knowing how to deal with restaurant no-shows. This being so, an app for restaurant reservations helps keep operations running smoothly.
Sean’s team felt the effects immediately. “Simple, quick, and easy”, he said, gladly — including “great support” from the app’s team.
To use Carbonara App, all you need is a smartphone. A user becomes an expert in seconds — contact us today, and discover how restaurants like Cawthorne Club improved their guestlist management and increased their efficiency in a matter of days.
