Making pasta quick, delicious, and affordable
“With Italian culture, food is just so important. Food and family are like the two cornerstones.”
– Lorenzo Fantarella, Co-owner, Pasta Prego
From best friends to business partners, Lorenzo Fantarella and Isaac Varano grew up in families that not only made a lot of pasta, but also ate a lot of pasta. This includes an annual sauce day, where their extended family would get together and crush hundreds of tomatoes, cook them up, and bottle them to be used throughout the year.
Fast forward to May 2023, and the pair now run their own takeaway pasta joint Pasta Prego, serving up customisable, made-to-order pasta at an affordable price point.
“We actually use my nonno’s recipe for the Italian pork and fennel here, which my dad’s proud of. They come in here and boss us around and tell us the proper way to do it.”
– Isaac Varano, Co-owner, Pasta Prego
Lorenzo & Isaac,
Co-owners, Pasta Prego
“Combining food and business, they’re my two favourite things, so for me it was an easy decision.”
– Lorenzo Fantarella
Lorenzo and Isaac always wanted to start their own business. Soon they started to notice a gap in the market for affordable takeaway pasta. “Sometimes a plate of pasta can be $40 and I’ll have it and think, that’s really nice, but I think I can make the same sort of tasting pasta for a much cheaper price,” says Isaac.
Despite aiming to create an affordable product, the pair knew that quality couldn’t be sacrificed. Luckily they had plenty of family recipes (some of which they’ve tweaked), but they didn’t want everything to sit in a bain-marie for hours. Instead, at Pasta Prego, every order is individually cooked in a pan to give it that extra caramelisation and infusion of flavour. It’s so good that Lorenzo has his favourite Chicken alla Vodka almost every day.
“We’re really pedantic about quality. we’d rather take a little bit extra on a meal and it be 100%. Our one thing is ‘would I love to eat that?’ You don’t want to hand out a meal that you wouldn’t love to eat,” says Isaac.
With tools to connect all parts of their business, and data to help them make decisions, see how Square has helped them speed up service and make crucial decisions.
A customisable point of sale that flexes for any business
At Pasta Prego, you can customise every part of your pasta – the sauce you want, the size, the type of pasta (like penne or gnocchi), even adding or removing ingredients (in case you hate mushrooms or want extra bacon). The way the menu flows is exactly how it appears for their front of house staff in Square point of sale.
- Add modifiers and variations that can add or remove ingredients, just the way your customer wants it
- Square Online links directly to your point of sale, allowing online orders for pick up, and for you to make a change once and for it to be reflected both in-person and online
- Square Shifts lets you create rosters and for your staff to clock in on the point of sale
- Easy set up allows you to create and edit items from your phone, computer or Square hardware in minutes
- An intuitive interface makes staff training a breeze
Square Point of Sale
Square Online
Square Shifts
“It’s so intuitive that we leave our staff to figure it out on their own. And they do.”
– Lorenzo Fantarella
Live data, available 24/7 for informed business decisions
Square gives Pasta Prego real time data to help make business decisions, from the number of a certain dish sold to when their busy periods are. For Pasta Prego, this means they know exactly how many meatballs have sold, so they know exactly how many to prep.
- Data can be cut by day, week, or whatever period you want
- Drill into the different variations of the same item, e.g. how many large carbonaras have sold vs regular
- See your busy periods and schedule your staff accordingly
“We need staffing to come in half an hour later in summer because we have a later rush, and we can see that by our sales data.”
– Lorenzo Fantarella
Square Dashboard
Square Analytics
“What we do on a weekly basis is pull the data and work out our prep from there.”
– Isaac Varano
One source of truth for your kitchen
As a fast paced takeaway venue, speed and accuracy are super important for Pasta Prego. Square Kitchen Display System (KDS) pulls orders from in-person, online, and from delivery partners like Uber Eats all into the one digital bump screen, making it easy to stay on top of orders.
- Customise your KDS with the font size that’s right for your kitchen, and turn orders red if they’re not completed by a certain time
- Integrate with third party delivery services and pull those orders into your KDS to have one source of information for your kitchen
- Choose the screen size the suits your kitchen’s needs
“It eliminates front of house handing back of house dockets, and having to rearrange dockets. Sometimes dockets go missing or they’ll fall, and it’s busy, you don’t notice, someone’s been sitting out there for 20 minutes. We don’t lose the dockets anymore because it’s on the screen. We know how long they’ve been waiting.”
– Isaac Varano
Square Kitchen Display System
Square for Restaurants POS
Make orders easy for your staff and your customers
Pasta Prego set up their point of sale hardware the night before they opened. It’s that straightforward with Square Register – you get a fully integrated point of sale and payments system out of the box, which means you’re ready to process transactions in minutes.
- Reduce incorrect orders with a dedicated customer display – your customer gets full transparency on their order as your staff are entering it in
- Choose to have the customer display docked to the Square Register, or sitting on your counter – whichever suits your business
- Get started in minutes with Square’s point of sale software built in
Learn more about:
Square Register
“We honestly didn’t know how powerful Square was when we got it. We still don’t know how powerful it is. We’re still learning things every day, and I think that’s the best part about it.”
— Lorenzo Fantarella, Co-owner, Pasta Prego
We’re here for you
Visit these additional Square resources for more information or get in touch with questions.