Finding growth in today’s ever-evolving restaurant landscape is a complex challenge that requires more than great food and great service. With so many challenges restaurant brands face today – including high operating costs, a lackluster labor pool, and retaining superstar customers –successfully growing your restaurant operations also demands strategic technological investments and finding the right technology partner.
A proven technological investment restaurant brands must leverage throughout daily operations is modern point-of-sale systems. These essential solutions play key roles in streamlining restaurant operations, enhancing overall customer experiences, and facilitating growth. Furthermore, modern cloud-based POS systems empower restaurant brands to make more informed decisions and adapt to evolving market trends.
Fast-casual restaurant brands like Big Chicken and MAD Greens have recently embraced transformative investments in POS systems and implemented PAR Brink POS to unlock their growth. Brink is a fully configurable, best-in-class restaurant cloud POS that ensures both brands do not compromise on efficiency, stability, innovation, and most importantly, the ability to scale. By leveraging Brink, Big Chicken was able to launch 18 new locations with another 300+ under franchise development. MAD Greens, on the other hand, was able to triple in size with new locations in the Arizona, Colorado, and Texas markets.
Let’s take a closer look at how PAR Brink played a pivotal role in both brands’ growth stories:
A Strategic Partnership
As important as finding a POS that boasts the proper features and capabilities, it is just as important to ensure it comes equipped with the right partnership. Big Chicken and MAD Greens embraced this strategy and sought a POS partner that would drive their growth and enhance their operations. By partnering with PAR Technology, both brands are gaining a truly collaborative, supportive, and expert partner who will help tackle current operational challenges while looking to the future. According to Josh Halpern, CEO of Big Chicken, “It became crystal clear to us that PAR was the best solution for us. What we were really looking for was who was going to drive the machine and who was going to be in that driver’s seat with us to grow the engine forward. We felt PAR was the best fit for Big Chicken and it has been a good partnership ever since.”
Open Access to Brinks API
Having open access to Brink’s API was a table-stakes requirement for both Big Chicken and MAD Greens. Per Jason Mcearchern, CIO of Big Chicken, and Nick D’Antonio, VP of IT at MAD Greens, Brink’s open API was a key deciding factor for both brands as it provides them with the ability to tailor their tech stacks and integrate with desired third-party solutions without extra complications. The ability to seamlessly integrate with third-party partners ultimately future-proofs Big Chicken and MAD Greens’ operations, ensuring they can integrate with the solutions needed for today and preparing them for the future. “One of the bigger deciding factors on partnering with PAR was the open API and the open solutions,” said Mcearchern. “We wanted an open solution that helps us partner with what makes sense to Big Chicken today and what could make sense tomorrow.”
Additionally, having a seamless connection to third-party systems allows Big Chicken and MAD Greens to connect all their data with PAR Brink, enabling more informed, data-driven business decisions. Per D’Antonio, Brink’s open API “has allowed [MAD Greens] to do a lot of stuff over the years that we would never have been able to do without that, whether it’s with business intelligence, data warehousing, or even just being able to leverage other partners.”
Ease of Use and Configurability
Both Big Chicken and MAD Greens have found immense value in the Brink’s ease of use and configurability. Especially as growing restaurants, these crucial POS features guarantee both brands can seamlessly and effortlessly implement the system across every location. “With Brink’s standardized configuration, we can really just take our point-of-sale terminal, point it to the new location, and it’s up and running,” said D’Antonio. Brink’s user-friendly and configurable interface is paramount for Big Chicken and MAD Greens, ensuring they can grow at their own pace without interference from their tech stack.
Moreover, managing multiple menus across multiple locations is one of the most prominent challenges for multi-unit restaurants. Brink’s flexible permissions and simple user interface empower Big Chicken and MAD Greens to effortlessly overcome this obstacle, allowing them to manage and configure their diverse menus tailored to their exact requests. Whether it is to one, several, or all locations, Brink allows both brands to schedule and publish updates to menus, prices, and layouts in real-time.
Partnering with PAR Technology and implementing Brink POS across all locations has been a game-changer for Big Chicken and MAD Greens. The strategic decision to leverage Brink has enabled both brands to expand at their own pace, hit new KPIs, and position themselves for the growth they were seeking.
