Brighter than prizes, the beaches of Florida welcome thousands upon thousands of visitors every year. With its vibrant nightlife and culture, it is no wonder the south-east corner of the United States is one of the most loved parts of the world. One such tourist haven is also among the oldest western settlements on the continent.
Visitors from all over come to Saint Augustine — an east-coast city that takes pride of place among America’s most historic — to walk cheerfully in its brick-lined streets, to enjoy its colorful colonial architecture, and relish in its flavorsome restaurants along the bayfront area facing the Atlantic ocean.
Rest assured, this old city offers new things to try. At the seafront, seafood is a common specialty, but visitors will have to journey further inward into the city’s heart to find something truly unique.
For more information on how restaurants with a large customer base are handling demand, restaurateurs can always reach out to our team. Contact us to learn more.
A Trip To Bar Harbor
Every year swaths of tourists land on the shores of Saint Augustine. Many warm words pass between both the community and the tourists that visit this American hotspot. The city’s tourist board invites visitors from across the globe, celebrating the big appeal of Saint Augustine’s environs.
Among these many visitors was a unique group who had a passion for delicious cheesecake, chocolates, and local wines. Many years ago, this group went on a trip together to Bar Harbor Maine, where they passed the time enjoying sweet-tongued conversations with one another, eating exquisite food from their own campfire, and most importantly, falling in love with their own life-affirming homegrown delicious desserts, which brought both promise and potential to their evenings together.
They found that Bar Harbor had much to offer: local surroundings such as Frenchman’s Bay, for instance, had filled their thoughts with delight. This simple group of friends — who had originally come to see, taste, and learn more about Bar Harbor — left with a deepened sense of love for the locale, enriching their sense of newness, of love, of unity for the sweetness of local life, readily available for all to taste at the water’s edge.
By 2019, the Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company materialized in a seaside village, which hugged the edge of Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor Maine. The venue offered many amazing French styled cheesecakes and charcuterie boards, overflowing with top-level hospitality, including a selection of European chocolates and distinctive local wines.
People began to come from around the world to sit for a while in this quaintly intimate and serene open-air city setting, enjoying fresh pine-covered walls, creating a sense of depth for some, while others simply enjoyed the unique and ambient seaside atmosphere.
Finally, by Christmas 2020, the Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company kissed the morning “Hello”, and opened their doors to the cool, warm air surroundings of Saint Augustine, Florida.
The team’s second location opened to great fanfare, with both laughter and love, captivating people who came far and wide to arrive at 6 Cordova Street, Saint Augustine.
Here, visitors got to experience the type of unique cheesecake that offered them a momentary escape from daily life, to relish in personal memories — of grandma’s thanksgiving table, for example, sprinkled with the taste of pumpkin praline.
This was a common experience for customers. Often, the gingerbread and sweet sugar cookie cheesecake summoned up childhood memories of Christmas morning, filled with all the food that warmed customer hearts.
Conversion to the Cheesecake Company
Entering the courtyard at 6 Cordova Street, the majesty of the Love Tree — a natural phenomenon that has a sable palm growing from the heart of a Florida live oak tree — often moves the hearts of guests. This is love at a higher elevation.
To the unsuspecting eye, the building at 6 Cordova Street, could easily be mistaken as a beach hut or someone’s home, complete with a wood-gabled porch and open-air gardens. Upon entering, however, guests feel surprised and suddenly find themselves in the elegant, richly displayed rooms with chocolate walls, soft jazz playing in the background, and fine China among the ornaments.
Cheesecake is, of course, the delicacy here — and it is popular. Boasting hundreds of positive Google reviews online, the cosy environment and unique menu invites returning guests to wind down time and time again.
Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company did not arrive in St. Augustine with worldly expectations of success — only with a desire to serve with love and affection, offering customers an invitation to excellence. Upon opening, they were immediately flooded with high numbers of eager people ready to eat.
With an average 700 guests coming through their doors every week, it was clear from the beginning that the Cheesecake Company needed an adequate guest management system to get a grip on high demand.
The Pen-and-Paper Dilemma
Experiencing a need to add a seamlessness to their waitlist and reservation service, the team desired a personal service. With excellence as their forerunner, Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company found a common connection with Carbonara App, hoping to maintain their high quality of hospitality, the basis of their company.
The Cheesecake Company started off running an ad hoc service with a pen and notebook to create guest table reservations. Before collaborating with Carbonara App, the team were jotting and scribbling down names on paper, serving whoever happened to come in first.
However, this soon created a well-known problem.
“So [when we] had a big crowd,” the Cheesecake Company team said, “people couldn’t get through to put their name on the list”. A physical guestlist had its limitations: one of which is that guests stepping in from the street are actually there to request a table, to book for a later time.
An Ocean Breeze With Carbonara App
One of the key reasons Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company loves Carbonara App is because it makes their reservations and waitlist system flexible. As such, guests have a constant line of communication.
In their own words, “being able to notify the customer [about their reservation]” and to receive messages back has created a supportive system for the restaurant, achieving multiple results, that
- Stamp down on reservation no-shows
- Promote high table turnover
- Increase overall guest satisfaction
Guest messaging features, allowing restaurant teams to communicate with upcoming guests via smartphone SMS or WhatsApp, are part of what makes Carbonara App a great experience for its users. The Cheesecake Company commended the ease of use of these features, sharing the thought that attending to guests via text was like messaging an old friend. In short, more a pleasure, less a chore.
In fact, the owner of the Cheesecake Company found that the app’s messaging features outpaced their expectations — especially when customers wanted to change or alter their table booking. All it required was a few taps on a smartphone.
Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company Commends Carbonara App
So all in all what would Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company say to new venues hoping to find an easy-to-use restaurant management platform available right now for free?
Go for it, they said, and try Carbonara App — “there’s no risk.” It’s “straightforward, and no learning curve” needed.
Thank you Bar Harbor Cheesecake Company!
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Restaurants across the world are currently enjoying the cost-free benefits of Carbonara App. Download in a matter of seconds. It’s an app available in various European languages, with users in Italy, France, and Spain.
