Hungry for a new project, Jess Blackstone got together with Mat Appleton and transformed her Highbury art studio into a deli. Before long, that deli became a coffee shop – and Fink’s Salt & Sweet was thriving. So much so, in fact, that it expanded to another location. Then another. And then another.
In the decade since Fink’s first opened its doors, Jess and Mat have expanded their operations to encompass four locations across North and East London. “The business has more than doubled in size since joining Square”, Jess told us. Each of their locations offers something different, from coffee and sandwiches to boozy brunches or Italian cuisine with full table service.
We chatted with this enterprising duo about how Square helped them achieve such phenomenal growth over the years.
Key challenges and how Square offered solutions
- Limited reporting: In order to meet the needs of their customers, Jess and Mat needed a top-down view of their performance data across multiple sites – a reality that caused friction with previous providers. “We had reached the limits of the reporting system that we used before. In terms of detail, we’d sort of maxed out. When you factored in the multi-site elements, it was getting messy.” With Square, the duo can get quick and easy access to the data they need at a much more granular level. This enables them to better track customer trends across the whole business and respond to demand in a much more agile way.
- Scalability: As Fink’s grew and operations spread across multiple locations, its needs became more complex. Not only did the duo need to make substantial capital investments, but they also needed to track the performance of each location in real time wherever they were. Square’s easy-to-use dashboard provides easy access to the data they need to make operational decisions across one or more sites.
- Operating expenses: A business cannot enjoy the kind of phenomenal growth that Fink’s has seen without healthy cash flow. Square has helped the duo to keep operating costs manageable and provides outstanding value for money. “The truth is that we had a really great deal before”, Jess admits. “And Square matched it. But compared to other POS systems that we looked at, the free stuff in Square, I think, would be charged at £60 or £70 a month per site.”
Fink’s’ implementation and training journey
Square’s suite of POS solutions is precision engineered to offer simplicity for users and transparency for customers. Teams across all of Fink’s sites found the simple and intuitive interface quick and easy to get to grips with.
What’s more, their customers responded positively to the Square Register’s dual screen, helping them to feel more involved in the transaction. All of this led to a frictionless implementation without costly transaction fees.
Square’s impact on business operations
In the space of a decade, Fink’s has been able to expand its footprint across London without compromising its identity. “It’s so important to us that growth should never be prioritised over keeping that spark”, said Matt. “We want each site to feel cool and independent rather than icky and chain-y.”
Square has put them in the driver’s seat with solutions that are built around their needs. Let’s take a look at how adopting Square has affected their operations:
Improved customer experience
While each of Jess and Matt’s locations has its own personality, they all have one thing in common – the customer experience comes first. For this dynamic duo, a delicate balance needs to be found between efficiency and humanity. Customers shouldn’t be kept waiting needlessly in the queue, but neither should they feel rushed out of the door.
“We’re never going to be the type of place that prioritises shaving a few milliseconds off of a transaction. That just means that the customer isn’t also getting a moment of humanity in there. So it’s important to us that the systems are as tight as possible, so that we can then spend time having those interactions. We wanted a system that was quicker and more customer-friendly. So things like the customer-facing screens, things like a really easy interface; it just makes the workflow better. It makes it better for the customers. It makes everyone happier.”
Efficient operations
Square POS has a simple interface that makes it intuitive for both staff and customers, providing a frictionless checkout experience and keeping queues moving even at the busiest times.
Efficient operations can be difficult to maintain across multiple sites. While other solutions can keep data from individual sites siloed, Square provides top-down reporting from anywhere with an internet connection. This allows Mat and Jess to identify issues at any of their sites in real time. If a till is operating in offline mode, it may point to a loss of connectivity at one of the sites. Rather than simply showing hour-by-hour sales, the granular detail of Square’s reporting has informed food production across the sites. Likewise, this reporting has allowed the duo to pull items from their menus that consistently underperform and replace them with more popular ones.
This reduces waste, increases revenues, and keeps operations lean and agile.
Keeping costs manageable
Square’s reasonable transaction fees and host of free capabilities provide lasting value for money. Moreover, its centralised reporting allows Jess and Mat to find cost efficiencies that can prevent wasteful expenditure while increasing revenues. “The ability to watch and interact with the multiple sites live from my phone, I believe, has saved us and made us, like, a tremendous amount of money”, they told us.
Exponential growth
The vision and ambition that Jess and Mat share have fuelled Fink’s’ exponential growth. By helping them boost efficiency, save money, increase revenue and track performance across multiple sites in real time, Square’s suite of solutions has helped to guide, support and inform the duo on the path to growth.
