It all started with five menu items, a colourful food truck and a desire to bring the residents of Vancouver, Canada together through tasty food and good vibes. Now Chickpea has made OpenTable’s 2024 list of top healthiest Canadian restaurants – a sign that its reputation is expanding along with its footprint.
When couple Jordana and Itamar Shani launched Chickpea in 2016, they didn’t expect the overwhelming positive response that ensued. Three food trucks and a brick-and-mortar restaurant later, the Mediterranean-inspired plant-based eatery attracts omnivores and vegans alike.
Chickpea serves a wide mix of diners across channels, from professionals on their lunch break lining up at a food truck for quick bites to go to groups of 20 stopping by the restaurant to share family-style platters and offices looking for catering.
“I like that on any given day, there’s a table of really cute old grandmas catching up and there’s some business folk sitting right next to them and maybe there’s a hip young couple on a date and everybody’s dressed differently and speaking different languages,” says Jordana, co-owner of Chickpea.
The menu, which features handhelds like stuffed pitas and platters stacked with veggies, hummus and salads, is constantly evolving based on inspiration and customer feedback. Fresh herbs, Mediterranean spices and flavour-packed sauces bring it all together – and since Chickpea accommodates almost every dietary need, orders are highly customizable.
This kind of dynamic service means Chickpea has to lean on the right tech to handle operations. Enter Square, which powers every aspect of the business, from its loyalty program to its paperless kitchen workflows.
Our experience of working with Square is life changing, very user-friendly, innovative and futuristic.”
Itamar Shani → Co-Owner of Chickpea
Managing multiple service streams with speed and flexibility
Running dine-in, food trucks, delivery, pickup and catering requires more than pen-and-paper systems. Before Square, the Chickpea team relied on printed tickets, which led to constant printer issues. “It would always have some sort of problem. All my life was spent around the printer,” says Itamar. “It produced lots of panicked phone calls during Saturday brunch,” adds Jordana.
Shareable dining adds to the complexity. Tapas like chickpea fries and baba ganoush are easy to share – and they should be easy to split too. “The majority of the people order one platter for two people and they want to have the ability to share that plate,” says Jordana, who notes that around one out of three Chickpea guests require item-splitting at checkout.
With multiple service streams, there’s no time to switch between platforms or spend weeks training staff – many of whom speak English as a second or third language – to use the point-of-sale (POS) system.
The Chickpea team needed a single, flexible solution to effectively serve customers, make menu changes on the fly – from rotating beers to new weekly specials – and replace paper chaos with something clearer and faster.
It had to come with a UI simple enough to be used by anyone, anywhere while being able to support the brand’s long-term goals, like growing first-party ordering to reduce reliance on high-fee delivery apps.
How Square helps Chickpea streamline multi-channel operations
Square’s multi-location POS gives the Chickpea team everything it needs to keep service running smoothly, whether family members are pitching in to help or a new staffer is learning the ropes. “We’re a family business,” says Jordana. “My mom does a lot of the office work, my dad sometimes helps with different deliveries, and our kids and nieces are around all the time. They help bus dishes, and they love being in the kitchen and helping with all kinds of things. We watch everyone grow up in our restaurant and Square is very intuitive for them to use, which is very cool to see.”
First, there’s the option to use different types of hardware based on the setting. Square Handheld comes in handy when serving long lines of customers at festivals or neighbourhood events, while printer-equipped devices like Square Terminal work well in the restaurant, where guests expect printed receipts.
Square Handheld is very user friendly and easy to use. It is just built in a way that it initiates you to the next steps and gives you the next option. There are not a million buttons, there are two options.”
Itamar Shani → Co-Owner of Chickpea
In the dining room, servers can see the floor plan, take orders, input modifiers and accept payments from a single device – complete with the ability to split the bill by guest or items in seconds. In the kitchen, Square KDS eliminates the need for paper with a digital display that shows all orders in real-time and routes them to the right prep stations in order of priority, whether they came from the Chickpea website, a delivery app or the dining room.
Square Loyalty shines downtown at lunchtime, where food truck regulars can quickly opt into Chickpea’s loyalty program right at the POS. On the catering front, Square Invoices lets the team easily send quotes and get paid for big orders like high-volume office burritos or event platters. “We’re using every product that Square can offer right now,” says Itamar.
The team is currently leveraging Square Online to shift more takeout orders to the Chickpea website. Direct orders will be priced the same or better than orders placed on apps like Uber Eats to encourage customers to cut the middleman. The idea is also to capture more data and tie offers to Square Loyalty.
Future-proofing Chickpea with one connected system
By streamlining front of house, back of house and every channel in between, Square’s restaurant technology gives the Chickpea team the freedom to move fast and stay agile. For example, when inspiration strikes and a new recipe is born, the multi-location POS lets Jordana and Itamar update the menu from a single device and automatically syncs data across the board.
“Square is great because Ita is a creative mad scientist who’s always doing a million things, adding new ideas, changing things up — and Square keeps up with him. That’s why we appreciate it so much,” says Jordana.
Tableside orders and payments keep lines moving without requiring trips back to a terminal, helping the team to handle more volume while delivering the friendly service Chickpea is known for. Item-splitting reduces friction and elevates the customer experience even further. Data from Restaurants Canada shows diners aged 18-24 are more likely to split the bill with family and friends (32%) and order shareable dishes (23%), making item-splitting payment features a must-have. “The ability for us to do split items is life-changing, especially in Canada, where you have to,” says Itamar.
Meanwhile, Square KDS has eliminated printer-driven frustrations and order errors. And since Square’s intuitive interface is easy to grasp by anyone, regardless of the language they grew up speaking or their level of tech saviness, training is more efficient.
It’s so intuitive that training time was cut in half.”
Jordana Shani → Co-Owner of Chickpea
With their operational foundation in place through Square, the Chickpea team can now get more strategic as it builds direct demand through Square Online and combines it with Square Loyalty to create data-driven, targeted offers. More sales, fewer third-party fees and stronger margins. “I focused on opening the business and right now we are levelling up,” says Itamar.
What does the next level entail for Chickpea? Another food truck, a sister restaurant that stays true to the “happy and chaotic” essence of the first one – and an enduring focus on staying connected to the vibrant community of people that make up the Chickpea clientele.
