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Giardino Gourmet Salads upgrades POS system

The goal was to implement a technology that would enable loyalty and online ordering while providing enterprise level management to efficiently and proactively support their franchisees.

March 10, 2016

Giardino Gourmet Salads is upgrading its point-of-sale solution via ParTech and Retail Data Systems, according to a company press release. The goal was to implement a technology that would enable loyalty and online ordering, while providing enterprise level management to efficiently and proactively support  franchisees, said Kenny Lugo, founder of Giardino Gourmet Salads.

"We were planning to franchise from the start and never wanted Giardino Gourmet Salads to be a mom-and-pop restaurant, so implementing a scalable technology platform was a priority," he said. "At an industry event, we spoke with loyalty and mobile ordering providers who both highly recommended Brink for our business model. From these interactions and our relationship with RDS, we knew PAR was the right partner for us and that using Brink POS to its fullest potential would give us a pulse on our business from anywhere, supporting our aggressive growth plans."

The cloud-based architecture of PAR Brink POS optimizes enterprise operation management across the brand, without the need for a back-office computer, said Karen Sammon, president and CEO of PAR. The implementation of Brink POS has eliminated the need to manage menu changes from each store location, saving valuable time and resources, according to the release. As a franchisor, Giardino Gourmet Salads will have access to reports and real-time data including labor and sales on individual locations chain wide to help franchisees make informed, proactive decisions to drive revenue, she said.

Also, Giardino Gourmet Salads is one of the first restaurants to deploy the Punchh mobile loyalty platform that was recently integrated into Brink with the latest software release. The Punchh-powered apps will help the brand drive loyalty and guest engagement and provide powerful analytical tools to grow the business and better understand the full network of its customers,  Sammon said.

"It is a true example of partnership between PAR, RDS, and our integration partners to provide Giardino Gourmet Salads with a POS solution that will support their business and drive their brand growth," Sammon said. “The selection of PAR Brink POS by Giardino Gourmet Salads, a company that has been included on FastCasual.com’s Top 100 Movers and Shakers list for the past three years, further strengthens our position in the market as the POS solution for the growing fast casual operator."

Giardino Gourmet Salads expects to have 14 stores open by the spring of 2016.