To get a real taste of Portugal’s second largest city, visitors can explore its back streets, which wind and stir through the land like conduits leading to the sea. For on the banks of the Atlantic ocean, Porto’s seaside districts offer great opportunities to discover the city’s most-prized gems, often overlooked by the droves of foody tourists that visit it every year.
Head down to the Matosinhos municipality, an area criss-crossed with red-tiled buildings, to find an excitingly vibrant restaurant scene. Seafood markets regularly crop up along the shoreline, and restaurants celebrate a harbourside heritage, serving fresh-water produce to surprise all culinary aficionados.
Yet down a straight-edged city street, one restaurant retains a traditional pose among its bay peers. We recently spoke with their team to find out how they’ve fared over years of steady business.
Taking On Traditions
Sabor Típico, a stone’s throw from the city’s docks, is a traditional Portuguese restaurant open since 2015. Well-prepared comfort food is the restaurant’s tagline. Portuguese favourites are available such as savoury grilled meats with eggs in any style.
Mixes of typical meals are also on offer, blending seafood with the hearty tastes of the Portuguese mainland. Take the Veal steak with prawns, for instance, combining the tender with the crunchy. Not to forget crowd pleasers too: the lambinhos de porco con bacon e ovo (pork tenderloins with bacon and eggs) is sure to stir any human heart.
Since 2015 the restaurant’s traditional setup has proved a hit, a frequent favourite, among Porto’s populace. That is to say, the team have manned a steady ship in the city’s waters as an average 1,300 covers come in every week. Overseeing such steady sales, Sabor Típico trialled out restaurant technology — and to their surprise stuck with it.
Open For Business
Open day and night during the week (Monday—Friday 11:30am—3pm; 6pm—11pm) Sabor Típico’s midday menu of soups and light salads and luxurious evenings of banquet meals have brought customers back time and again. This has meant processing frequent customer reservations.
“Before Carbonara App,” the team was happy to tell us, “we used to manage reservations with [software], but walk-in management was done with pen and paper”.
The team found that implementing a software option was a good idea. It boosted the overall efficiency of their service mechanisms and brought the restaurant better turnover rates.
However, one problem quickly became apparent: the cost.
“We didn’t have many problems with [our previous system]. What pushed [us] to switch to Carbonara [App] was that it was [other companies] make you pay high commissions and costs.”
The challenge Sabor Típico faced was this: to find a reservations management system that was both high quality and cost-effective. Crucially, Sabor Típico could not risk a cheaper alternative to detract on quality. The team needed the same benefits — if not more — to operate efficiently and productively.
To their joy, they found all this and more in the Carbonara App.
Resculpting Reservations
Since Carbonara App is a low-cost option, Sabor Típico knew immediately they had to give it a go.
However, Sabor Típico were pleased to discover more. “It is also quite appealing to communicate with the customer through the platform. This is where we get to know who we are talking to, and what reservation we are referring to.”
Sabor Típico referred, of course, to Carbonara App’s nifty guest communication features. Making a reservation has never been easier, with instant text confirmations, reminders, and a messaging service.
Everything is Easy with Carbonara App
When we asked what the app’s most important feature was for Sabor Típico, they said: “free customer data collection”.
Digital technology has made every restaurateurs’ life easy. Using online reservations (and even QR code features) Carbonara App empowers restaurants to let customers do all the form-filling for them, cutting down on time-consuming work-cycles and tasks, including hours spent on collecting guest information.
In the end, Sabor Típico were extremely glad to find that Carbonara App was an available option — and all the while save money. Consequently we’re very glad to have them as a user. Thank you to the Sabor Típico team!
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Before you go, read much more about other Carbonara App users in the Portuguese provinces. Our article, “Flor do Ave in Portugal is King of Traditional Cuisine” tells the story of another happy restaurant in the north municipality of the city.
If you liked this article make sure to let us know what you think — contact us today to learn more about how restaurants can set up the app in less than five minutes.
New to Carbonara App? Download the app now on the App store or Google play.
