The Salad Project Co-founder James Dare looks at his Square reports every day to spot trends and areas ripe for improvement. His managers use reporting to check the previous day’s sales, plan their day and what needs to be made fresh, and get the restaurants ready for opening.
When you ask The Salad Project co-founders James Dare and Florian de Chezelles what they think of Square, they’ll happily tell you it’s saved them countless times and helped grow their business in London from one restaurant to four in just three years. Having adopted Square from day one, they quickly reel off the ways the software and hardware have proved invaluable in every facet of their operations – easy-to-access reporting and analytics, seamless third-party integration, and fast and straightforward menu updates, to name but a few.
Find out how Square has helped them transform Londoners’ opinions of salads and made running a food business easy.
Square has been a real game changer. As The Salad Project grows, Square grows with us. ”
James Dare → co-founder of The Salad Project
Key challenges for The Salad Project and how Square offered solutions
Like any new entrepreneurs, Dare and de Chezelles had a wish list of things they wanted to achieve when they opened their first Salad Project restaurant in 2021. Chief among them was a payment system that not only took fast, secure payments from customers but also looked great and matched their restaurant aesthetic. Square fit the bill on both counts and the pair have relied on the system to deliver a great customer experience ever since.
To meet its challenges and support growth, The Salad Project needed:
- Easy access to daily sales reports to understand which products sold best
- A system where they could easily run more than one location from a single dashboard
- Good-looking hardware that would fit with their brand
- A system that offered easy team management and allows managers to access key insights
- A cost-effective system that saves money
- Seamless third-party integration with other business apps
- A fast and fantastic customer experience
How Square offered solutions
Sales reports
Square lets you see your sales data in real time so you always know what’s going on in your business. Through the Square dashboard you can keep tabs on peak selling times, how your best sellers are faring and identify menu items that might need more promotion.
Multilocation management through a single app
Square lets you manage and monitor your business through the Square dashboard, whether you have a single location or 20.
Aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-use hardware
Square’s payment terminals and portable devices are sleek yet functional and blend seamlessly with their surroundings. Accept contactless or chip and pin credit and debit card payments with Square Terminal and Square Reader.
A scalable payment platform
Square lets you add locations and devices and monitor them from anywhere as your business expands. Use it to manage your team, reach customers and keep an eye on your cash flow to run your business seamlessly.
Team management access and reporting
Through the Square dashboard you can manage your entire team. Set permissions so your managers can create reports to track best sellers and busiest periods for accurate sales forecasting and staffing needs.
One simple, cost-saving fee structure
Square has simple, transparent payment processing fees so there are no hidden charges and no unpleasant surprises. The straightforward per-transaction fee structure means you always know what you’re paying.
Third-party app integration
Through Square Marketplace you can integrate your Square services with all your favourite business apps.
How The Salad Project has powered its business with Square from the start
When James and Florian quit their corporate jobs to follow their dream of opening a restaurant, they had a very defined idea of what they wanted it to look like. Key on their wish list was the need for a payment system that would allow them to take payments effortlessly but would also look good in their restaurants. Square ticked all the boxes and has been instrumental in helping them grow from one site to four, with more planned.
“Square has an amazing compatibility with third-party software and from the beginning we wanted to connect and sync deliveries”, says James. “It does this amazingly well and continues to offer us products that are useful to us as a business.”
The positive impact of Square on The Salad Project’s daily operations
James and Florian are so happy with the way Square has helped their business that they recommend it to anyone they think will benefit.
I would and do 100% recommend Square to other businesses. We can’t ever imagine changing from them. ”
James Dare → co-founder of The Salad Project
Invaluable sales data
Being able to track sales data daily has been a game changer for James and Florian, giving them insights into the business that they’ve never had before. Every morning their general managers pull the sales data from the day before, create reports and send them to their bosses so they can see what’s trending and what needs improvement.
The duo have used the data to grow their original restaurant in Spitalfields by 300% since they first opened, with culinary director Clem accessing the reports to make seasonal menu changes based on what customers are buying and what they’re not.
Excellent customer experience
There’s no doubt The Salad Project is proving a hit with Londoners who can’t believe healthy food can be so fresh and amazing. But the customer experience goes beyond serving great salad for Florian and James, who want every part of their visit to be memorable for the right reasons. Square’s easy and fast payment services mean that even when it’s busy and customers have to queue, their orders are dealt with efficiently and they go away happy.
Dare reveals: “Our teams work incredibly hard as one unit to provide an excellent experience for our customers. It’s always been important that our customers receive a five-star dining experience when they get their lunch and that’s what we’ve achieved.”
Reduced admin time with easy menu uploading and switches
With multiple sites to run and more in the pipeline, there’s a lot of menu items to manage but Dare and de Chezelles love being able to upload new dishes to the Square dashboard which then go live across every restaurant. It has saved them valuable admin time and made running their restaurants much more efficient.
Multilocation management
With five locations and more than 100 staff, Dare and de Chezelles rely heavily on Square’s ability to manage their restaurants and teams all in one place. As well as downloading data from individual stores and uploading menus, they can manage their teams, combine data into actionable reports and keep track of their bottom line even when they’re at home.
Minimal fees
The transparent fee structure was one of the key benefits that really attracted Florian and James when they chose Square. There are no hidden fees – just one simple, per-transaction fee structure which makes it easy for them to see how much they are being charged. There are also no termination charges, hefty monthly fees or expensive hardware to buy that they would have had with other legacy-style systems, making business financial planning much easier.
Do you need fast, easy and cost-effective systems to run your restaurant or takeaway? Get started and learn about Square’s intuitive POS and payment devices.
