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"PAR's Brink POS was the first product we deployed due to the simplicity of the user interface and the flexibility of the design. We also liked the unit-level reporting suite for a single unit manager, the fact that it was cloud-based, and that it was affordable."
Tim Carter, Salsarita’s CFO
Tech and Marketing Challenges
- Adapt to / communicate with customers around pandemic challenges and changes in 14 states
- Move from a national marketing model to a customizable yet consistently on-brand omnichannel presence
- Streamline communications between multiple tech systems with individual logins
Tech Integrations and Solutions
- PAR: Punchh Loyalty, Brink POS, Data Central, PAR Payment Services
- Other: Olo (online ordering), isolved People Cloud (HR and payroll), Service Management Group (customer feedback), Sage Intacct (cloud accounting)
Tech Integrations Results
- Ability to pivot quickly in response to ever-evolving changes in the pandemic landscape
- Data-driven marketing campaigns and localized branding
- Single-input hiring and employee management system
Salsarita’s Fresh Mexican Grill—a build-your-own casual Mexican restaurant franchise—offers dine-in, take-out, and drive-thru service, online ordering, third-party delivery, curbside pickup, and catering along with a mobile rewards app across 85 locations in 14 states.
Over the past few years, the company has unified its tech stack through the PAR suite of products including a customer loyalty and marketing system (Punchh), point of sale (Brink POS), back-office efficiency (Data Central), and a robust payment processor (PAR Payment Services).
As a result, Salsarita’s has been able to segment their audience, geo-target and differentiate local marketing campaigns, foster customer confidence and loyalty, and increase profitability and efficiency.
The flexibility to personalize and geo-target marketing campaigns has also been a huge plus, drastically reducing the number of unsubscribes at the same time as increasing sales and average order value.
With a number of unique menus to manage across multiple channels, Brink POS also allowed Salsarita’s to make changes on the fly-without complex workarounds or coding.
Kelly Cooke, Salsarita’s CMO, credits Brink POS and Punchh as positioning Salsarita’s for substantial success even as the Covid-19 pandemic erupted.
“We wouldn’t be where we are now without these tech partners,” she says. Without PAR systems in place, Cooke recognizes that Salsarita’s would not have been as agile as they were in communicating fast-changing menu, dining, or pickup/delivery options to their customers as public health mandates kept evolving in each of their 14 states of operation. The flexibility to personalize and geo-target marketing campaigns has also been a huge plus, drastically reducing the number of unsubscribes at the same time as increasing sales and average order value.
Data Central and ParPay completed the PAR stack in early 2022. With Data Central’s real-time, at-a-glance inventory control, as well as automation of previously laborious manual processes, locations run more efficiently and cost- effectively across the board. ParPay allows Salsarita’s to foster greater customer confidence by meeting expectations around digital payments, including mobile wallet, tap-to-pay, and chip-and-pin. The ability to add easy tipping options to POS pin pads gives guests an ability to express appreciation and improves the employees’ take-home pay— giving Salsarita’s a needed edge in the current labor market.
“Plus, when the technology is designed well, people take to it really quickly,” Carter notes. On the customer side, it has allowed Salsarita’s to adapt to the various ways people want to access their services. On the back end, franchisees are much more receptive to technology upgrades.
“They used to think of this as corporate impositions,” Carter says, “but the pandemic has evolved everyone’s appetite for tech solutions.” Franchisees are increasingly asking for help in doing things faster and better, a desire largely induced by the plethora of new challenges stemming from an ever- changing Covid-economy.
