The coast connecting the French Riviera to northern Italy is vibrant with communities by the sea. Look across the national borders and see the long stretches of beach blend the two nations into one. Visitors will find a range of restaurants facing the waters, open for business and welcoming anyone who happens to pass by on the occasional stones and white sands.
One such establishment is named Il Porteghetto, situated near cliff rocks where the sea foam rolls in regularly, foaming like frothed milk in Italian coffee.
This is a restaurant steeped in the local history of the Via Aurelia region. Following in the footsteps of Roman ancestors who walked these same routes in ancient days, Il Porteghetto is in the Cervo Liguria — cervo, which literally means “to serve” in Latin.
The restaurant began as a small establishment to cater for the influx of tourists that Italy witnessed after the Second World War. To this day, it remains as passionate as ever about the first-class service it provides for customers across the world.
Visitors, however, might be hard-pressed to find Il Porteghetto. Walking the winding cliff edge paths of this region, a large blue sign emerges from the fringes.
On a concrete landing, mopeds and bicycles are stationed willy-nilly — a handy stop-off point for the adventurous, who descend a level to reach the coastal location of Il Porteghetto.
This wonderful establishment recently began using Carbonara App — and their team loves it! We talked to them all about their experience with the app, including their most favourite features.
A Menu Fit For Seafarers
Il Porteghetto is in the best place to serve locally crafted, homegrown foods. Looking across vast bodies of water, visitors are pleased to find food coming directly from their locale’s doorstep. The scenic location is an added bonus; sitting in outdoor seats, customers can listen to the whispers of the sea while they wait.
All Il Porteghetto’s ingredients come from nearby Liguria, but the way the restaurant crafts and cooks their local goods is something unique. A chef breaks away from regional traditions to create unique, innovative, and exciting seafood. Go for the salmon in ground pistachio nuts, served with lively greens, and you’ll never look back.
Il Porteghetto’s superb location and stylish take on local ingredients has ensured its place in many a guest’s heart. With so many coming through their doors, the team decided they needed a new reservations system to help assist demand.
The Problems With Alternative Reservation Software
To start off, Il Porteghetto decided to sample another reservation management system to assist them in handling guest reservations.
However, this sample, provided by an upmarket table reservations system, soon soured.
“The main problem,” Mary the owner of Il Porteghetto told us, “was that the [system] wasn’t in Italian”. As such the team had to navigate features in English, which stubbed any sense of convenience they could reasonably gain from its services.
Also, Mary continued, “there wasn’t any customer service that could help [us] when needed”. Working with a system in a foreign language was one problem; the fact that there was little customer support was another.
However, to Il Porteghetto’s delight, an able solution was available.
Carbonara App: Love at First Use
Searching the internet for an alternative option Il Porteghetto’s team stumbled across Carbonara App. “It was love at first use,” Mary said, downloading and setting up the smartphone app in less than five minutes.
First came Carbonara App’s language features, a godsend in Il Porteghetto’s circumstances. Carbonara App is available in:
- Italian
- English
- Spanish
- French
- Portuguese
Now Il Porteghetto enjoys the benefits of a free reservations system — without the language barriers!
Second, Carbonara App users always have a good word to say about the team behind the software. With a customer service team that is always willing to help at short notice, no restaurant is ever left behind.
Why Guest Messaging Features Are Great
Il Porteghetto commended Carbonara App’s guest messaging features. These provide new customers with automated confirmations of their imminent visit, both reinforcing a sense of security and authority over their upcoming dinner date. Plus, they’re super easy to set up; any restaurant can use instant restaurant SMS confirmations in three easy steps.
- Receive a guest booking, logging a guest’s details electronically
- Allow the system to send an instant confirmation to the phone number provided
- Adapt text messages with a template feature to coincide with the mood of your venue
If restaurants like to use WhatsApp, there is good news: Carbonara App users also enjoy the benefits of WhatsApp integration.
Mary was more than enthusiastic about these features, which fitted perfectly into Il Porteghetto’s excellent guest services. Mary told us that previously the restaurant had received regular calls from customers inquiring about forgotten reservation details, i.e. times, dates. Now Carbonara App provides instant confirmations that give customers everything they need to know.
In one instance, Carbonara App even helped save Il Porteghetto’s skin. One guest had arrived at the host stand claiming they had a reservation for the same day. However, the frail nature of human recollection got in the way: the team were unaware of this booking. So, to resolve the issue, they consulted Carbonara App, particularly its guest messaging features, and found, in actual fact, that the reservation was for the following day.
Thanks to Carbonara App, Il Porteghetto now avoids tricky situations with their customers. No more disputes about reservation dates: it is all handily stored in the smartphone system. In one fell swoop the team now saves loads of time on handling day-to-day reservations, even avoiding arguments when it comes to rare disagreements about reservation dates.
Improving the Il Porteghetto Customer Experience
With less operational problems to deal with, Il Porteghetto can now focus on improving their relationships with guests. Everything counts, and restaurant life is now much easier with a handy cost-free app.
So would Mary and her team recommend Carbonara App to other restaurants starting out?
“Totally,” the team at Il Porteghetto agreed, “always thanks to the messaging function; customers can be in touch with the restaurant to say they’re late, to cancel or make changes to their reservation”.
Our massive thanks to the Il Porteghetto team!
Hungry for more stories from Italy? Check out some of our user testimonials in Turin: “Tropi & Co Use Excellent Hospitality Management App in Turin Italy”.
