How Fricken grew a family recipe into a food truck and restaurant business with Square
Marvin and Mo Saad, Fricken, Canberra
A Sunday dinner staple turned into a fried chicken favourite
Brothers Mo and Marvin grew up eating their mum’s fried chicken every Sunday. It wasn’t until later in their lives that they considered sharing the secret recipe with more than their immediate family and friends. In 2019, the brothers decided to open a food truck business on the side while keeping their full-time corporate jobs. ‘We had a good product … a genuine interest and a personal attachment to the product. We came up with a catchy name, and I think that’s actually quite a big part of our success’, says Mo.
The name Fricken was born out of a combination of ‘fried’ and ‘chicken’, and the same friends and family who enjoyed their mum’s recipe now worked in the food truck, serving chicken at festivals and pop-up events. Both the delicious chicken and tongue-in-cheek name gained them a steady fan base, and Mo and Marvin opened a second food truck and their first physical location.
‘Mum’s proudest moment would be seeing us where we are now. It started with just a conversation, then we opened up the truck, then a brick and mortar’.
– Mo Saad
– owner, Fricken
‘We definitely wanted to go with an integrated solution like Square. We had a list of checkboxes of what we needed out of a POS, and Square ticked all those for us’.
– Mo Saad
Using Square from
day one
From Fricken’s first day open as a food truck, Square Point of Sale helped Mo and Marvin take orders and process payments. Mo says that the intuitive Square interface helped them get through the steady stream of customers quickly right from the get go. The software was easy to use with limited training required, which was great for Fricken’s early days when their family and friends were first helping out.
Another feature that Mo says has been integral when they started to use Square Register is the ability to take payments offline. According to Mo, ‘It was quite a key feature for food truck operation’s early days. We had the ability to take offline payments, and we’ve used that a couple of times when we had network dropouts. The payments would queue up and, at the end of the day, you just process, process, process’.
‘Sometimes you just lose power temporarily, and if you’re based off an iPad or a phone, you can still keep going because the Square Reader is also battery operated. You can still take orders even though you lost power’.
– Mo Saad
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Taking payments on the go or at the restaurant
Square was a great choice for Mo and Marvin’s food truck operation. They chose Square because they wanted an integrated solution that was flexible. They could run a till from their truck but also have people order from their phones, or they could open up a second station on the fly. They especially liked the ability for customers to place orders online through Square Online Ordering so they didn’t need to wait.
When they opened a second truck and a physical restaurant, it made sense to keep Square. While they used Square Terminal in their food truck, at the restaurant they upgraded to the Square Register. With the customer-facing display, customers could see and confirm what they ordered before they paid, which Mo says reduced errors and refunds by around 80%.
Letting customers order themselves via QR codes also helped streamline operations and even increased revenue since customers could see additional items and add them to their orders. Mo says, ‘We sold a lot more add-ons with the QR codes over in-person orders, just because sometimes customers would not know that you could add a hash brown to a burger, for example.’ In the first half of 2023, Fricken’s average ticket size was over 20% higher for customers who used self-serve ordering.
‘Square allows you to be at the forefront of technology. Customers can order on their phones as they arrive or order by QR code’.
– Mo Saad
Growing from one location to three – and keeping track of them all
It didn’t take long for Mo and Marvin to look into purchasing a second food truck to expand their business. Taking out a Square Loan helped the brothers do just that, says Mo. ‘It was amazing to see it approved in such a quick turnaround and to get the funds into the bank account so we can just place the order for the truck and get on with the operations’. They didn’t have to spend days going back and forth with a bank, and in just a month’s time they had a second food truck.
In addition to the two food trucks, Fricken now has a physical location in Canberra too. Since the brothers can’t be at all three locations at once, they rely on Square Dashboard to monitor performance and to help make business decisions. Mo talks about a recent decision not to sell desserts over lunchtime. ‘One of the desserts is a deep-fried dessert, which we have a dedicated fryer for. We noticed it wasn’t selling great over weekday lunchtimes, so we were able to remove it off the menu for those hours’. Not running the fryer during lunch helped Fricken save on energy and effort.
‘With Square we can actually see how each location’s performing, and if we can find any efficiencies or optimisations, we’ll do so from that data’.
– Mo Saad
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Please note that Fricken was compensated for their time by Square.
* All loans are issued by Square AU Pty Ltd. (ABN 38 167 106 176). Valid Australian bank account is required. Actual fee depends upon payment card processing history, loan amount and other eligibility factors. A minimum payment of 1/18 of the initial loan balance is required every 60 days, and full loan repayment is required within 18 months. Loan eligibility is not guaranteed. Eligibility criteria include consistent and continuous payment card processing through Square. All loans are subject to credit approval. Terms and conditions apply.
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