Building a business from scratch isn’t the only path to entrepreneurship. Sometimes buying a business can open doors you never expected. That’s what happened to husband-and-wife team Allan and Celine Bacani, owners of Lee’s Donuts in Vancouver.
When Allan saw the business for sale online, he knew that the iconic Granville Island doughnut shop, founded in 1979, had potential. As the son of local entrepreneurs – his family had owned a butcher shop in the public market since the early 1980s – spotting a good opportunity came naturally, especially when it involved a familiar brand being advertised. “We’ve been patrons of [Lee’s Donuts] for as long as I can remember, buying doughnuts for breaks,” he says.
“I quickly emailed the landlord asking for foot traffic counts and did some quick math. Shortly after, I told Celine about it, and I said, ‘I think this could be a really good opportunity for us.’” After a quick discussion at home, they sent a letter of intent to purchase the business.
Under their ownership, Lee’s Donuts has been transformed into a modern, high-volume operation with a focused menu, multiple locations, offsite activations and soon-to-be franchises. The shop regularly attracts crowds looking for a fresh treat (or a dozen of them), from classics like the glazed honey dip doughnut to seasonal flavours like coffee cake.
To keep up with the increased demand and prepare for franchising, the team needed a simple POS system that was able to handle speed, volume and multiple locations without friction. That’s what brought Allan and Celine to Square.
A heritage brand in need of new tech and workflows
Allan and Celine inherited an iconic brand when they purchased it in 2017. But, with it came legacy systems in need of a refresh.
First, there was the cash and Interac payment infrastructure, which had barely changed since 1979. While the setup was familiar, it wasn’t the most efficient – from lost time and slower throughput at the register to cash reconciliation taking 30 minutes a day. “We wanted to push transaction counts higher, so we needed a system that was robust enough to drive volume,” says Allan.
Then there was the menu, which featured made-to-order items like crepes, which slowed lines. Every time a customer ordered one, a team member would be pulled from the doughnut line for seven minutes to prepare it. “It’s called Lee’s Donuts, but they also had crepes, muffins and cookies,” adds Celine.
The challenge? Preserve what customers loved about the brand while supporting goals like serving even more people on and offsite. “We needed a system that was super agile that we could just take anywhere with us,” says Celine.
In order to grow, Allan and Celine needed a modern payment flow that could speed up lines and support a high-margin, grab-and-go service. It was key that the setup was intuitive enough to use without hours of training and easy to teach to future franchisees. It had to support the creation of a rinse-and-repeat playbook, offer robust reporting and help maintain control over brand standards, product quality and pricing across stores and 50+ offsite events each year.
Without those pieces in place, Lee’s Donuts would be held back from its growth ambitions by operational drag, as well as be stifled in its ability to prove out-of-market concepts quickly and consistently – like the time the team celebrated the brand’s 45th anniversary with a massive block party complete with live bands, B-boy competition and branded beer.
How Lee’s Donuts used Square to scale from local icon to franchise brand
Lee’s Donuts turned to Square to modernize operations, from replacing traditional cash registers with sleek POS hardware that works right out of the box to building fast, repeatable workflows across functions and securing financing.
Throughput and consistency at the counter
The first order of business was streamlining the menu to focus on doughnuts as its hero product and increase the number of transactions per hour. “We knew very quickly that we needed a product to grab off the counter, put in a bag and move onto the next,” says Allan.
Square Register became the main counter setup, while Square Terminal was a team favourite to keep checkout speedy anywhere. “We were so thankful when the mobile units came out because they were all integrated and cost-effective,” says Allan. “They are the most economically sound product for us.”
Agile events and offsite activations
Square’s offline payments feature means keeping lines moving during an outage, whether the team is working offsite at an event or filling bright yellow boxes with dozens of doughnuts in the shop.
Franchise readiness and control
With payments taken care of, the team worked on building a franchise-ready operations system. Square for Franchises gave Lee’s Donuts a central hub for multi-location reporting, pricing governance and product control.
Leadership can standardize menus, prices and initiatives across locations, from launching a new doughnut flavour to rolling out a price increase or launching a gift card program. And the team can dive into performance data from a central dashboard. “We came in with very specific requests and requirements to operate as a franchisor and Square was able to hear us out and address them,” says Celine.
Cash flow and speed to act
Square Loans provided the capital needed to move forward without compromising cash flow with a loan offer based on sales performance. “Cash flow is everything and when you’re trying to expand a business at the same time, it can get really challenging and sometimes things get tight,” says Celine. “There was no real red tape [with Square Loans] because all of it was based on our track record, and it was helpful for us because we were able to get funds right away.”
People operations that scale
On the people management side, Square Shifts replaced manual scheduling in spreadsheets. Managers track hours and build schedules with a few clicks, and team members can easily see when there’s an available shift up-for-grabs. The ability to clock in and out from any POS device streamlines payroll prep. “It makes it so much easier for everyone,” says Allan.
A repeatable system ready for national expansion
Lee’s Donuts turned to Square to find operational efficiencies – a goal that has been achieved with Square’s ecosystem of tools. “Square was pretty instrumental in helping us achieve that, because we narrowed down our product offerings to just doughnuts and increased traffic counts too. We had fun marketing, we were driving more business and people to the door, and we had to serve them in a timely manner,” says Celine.
The new payment flow helps the team move through lines faster and keep up with this demand. Customers can quickly tap their card, grab their doughnuts and go. Training new team members or franchisees is quicker too thanks to Square’s user-friendly interface. And with less time spent on cash reconciliation every day, the team has gained valuable time back.
“Intuative solutions such as Square are so important when you’re in the process of an upward trajectory to streamline all the efforts and not create any bottlenecks,” says Celine.
Protecting sales during periods of unpredictable connectivity has also given Allan and Celine peace of mind that payments won’t be lost. Square’s offline payments mode “really saved our sales on certain days,” notes Allan. “The team can get a little bit flustered when that happens, and, of course, it’s unexpected, but they’ve come to rely on the fact that if something were to happen, Square still has our back and our sales can get transacted.”
Most of all, Lee’s Donuts is now equipped with a repeatable system that keeps things consistent across any new shops or pop-ups, and preserves the legacy of its brand.
The brand’s first foray outside of Granville Island – an outpost in Langley – gave the team the confidence to start planning national expansion. “We were really nervous about how we were going to transact in a different city, in a different space and then we had proof of concept,” says Celine.
What’s next? Become Canada’s next favourite doughnut by rolling out the complete franchise suite using Square tools to maintain control and consistency at scale, and grow the brand’s footprint outside British Columbia.
The team is also working on an eCommerce website with Square Online, which will allow customers to showcase their love for Lee’s Donuts with merch. That love is mutual and with a solid operational foundation, the team can pour back into the community through fun events that bring people together, from block parties to art shows, while creating the type of core memories that have kept the business going since 1979.
“This brand was here before us and it’s gonna look a little different when we pass the torch. But while we’re here we have a mission to go beyond doughnuts and really serve the community in a meaningful way,” says Celine.
“Square gives us a system we can duplicate. That is how we grow the brand for the people building it with us.”
