Sitting below the Ave River in northern Portugal, the Trofa municipality is charmingly rural. Its cobbled lanes lead onto irrigated farmland, plough lines baking in the Portuguese heat. Visitors will certainly take kindly to its historic architecture — parish churches in white-walled neighbourhoods.
Trofa is north of Portugal’s second-largest city, Porto, a northern jewel famous for its wines and urban looks.
Right by the Ave river and less than 8 miles from the Atlantic ocean (next stop New York) is Flor do Ave, a traditional Portuguese restaurant that celebrates over 30 years of business.
Gleaming with Portuguese Culture
This is a family business founded in 1983. As the story goes Avelino Azuedo and his two sons started small, in a one-room restaurant with a capacity of about one hundred people.
A decade later, they began to expand. Sticking to traditional Portuguese food, they expanded their menu to include hearty delicacies. (To this day, the restaurant’s specialty remains roast suckling pork.)
With a renewed capacity of 400 seats, Flor do Ave now serves a bi-national clientele — both local Portuguese and visitors from Spain. They’re at the top of their game, with some reviews congratulating them for being the best restaurant in the north of the region.
With an increase in business comes inevitable change. The restaurant now needed an easy stress-free solution to handle their high rate of footfall.
Figure 1. Specialties served at Flor do Ave, Portugal
It’s Quicker by Car
Most of Flor do Ave’s diners arrive by car. Since this restaurant looks onto a two-lane road, this is primarily how guests make it to the restaurant’s sliding glass doors.
Flor do Ave was looking for a software solution that would adapt well to their customer’s needs. That is, most customers travelling by car were not just passing by — these were people that had likely travelled for long distances to try out the restaurant’s specialty cuisine.
The restaurant partly operates on a reservations policy, displaying their phone number on their dedicated webpage, but also makes room for customers who want a quick bite to eat.
Open for walk-in customers, the restaurant usually faces queues when overly busy. However, we learned that they would prefer to let customers go while they wait.
With pleasant green spaces nearby (the Parque de Nossa Senhora do Desterro, for instance), the restaurant was happy enough to let customers relax while they wait.
Figure 2. Bridge in Porto by deepskyobject via Flickr
Why Flor do Ave Chose Carbonara App
It’s simple: Carbonara App is completely free, easy to use, and quick to implement. Who could say no to that?
Suited to Flor do Ave’s customer’s tastes, Carbonara App is for restaurants that want to serve their guests in the best way possible — and Flor do Ave found just that.
The Flor do Ave team had chosen Carbonara App because it was best suited for bustling restaurant environments. Realising that Carbonara App presented a cost-free solution, Flor do Ave knew immediately that they had nothing to lose.
As such, the app failed to disappoint.
Flor do Ave had soon found that Carbonara App’s ready-to-use format worked best for them. “Best software on the market” the Flor do Ave team said cheerfully in a commendable review: “All easy to implement, adapting to the customer’s needs is great and responds to all needs.”
Based on Flor do Ave’s constructive feedback, we were able to improve Carbonara App’s queue management features. Find out more and contact us.
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