In the close-knit community of McMinnville, Oregon, Baker St Cafe has quickly become a local favorite. Owner Fon Khunsamart built the Thai cafe around a simple idea: serving Thai food the way her family eats at home.
Born in Thailand and raised in a family connected to the restaurant industry, Khunsamart opened Baker St Cafe to share the flavors and traditions passed down through generations of her family. She runs the cafe alongside her husband, Thomas Gilstrap, blending authentic Thai cooking with the kind of community-driven hospitality that keeps customers coming back.
“We always joke about it with our family,” Khunsamart said. “We say, ‘We’re just gonna cook the way we eat at home. If someone doesn’t like our food, we’ll just eat it every day anyway’.”
That approach has resonated with locals. In just two years, the restaurant has earned nearly 600 Google reviews — with an average 4.9-star rating — and served over 5,300 unique customers. That’s roughly one in seven people in McMinnville. The restaurant also earned a Thai SELECT certification from the Thai government, one of only nine restaurants in Oregon recognized for serving authentic Thai cuisine.
The challenge: Keeping regular customers ordering direct
As the business grew, so did a familiar challenge for local restaurants. Although Baker St Cafe had built a loyal following in McMinnville, the bigger issue was staying connected to customers once they left.
“We have over 5,300 unique customers, but we see many of them defaulting to delivery apps for reorders rather than coming to us directly,” Gilstrap explained. “That is lost margin on every order.”
Baker St Cafe was competing in an environment where third-party apps had become the default for convenience, even for customers who already know and love the business. Third-party delivery platforms can charge commission fees ranging from 20% to 40% per order, making direct ordering channels increasingly important. “We see a lot of people that live locally ordering on third-party platforms right away rather than trying to order directly with us,” said Gilstrap.
Digital visibility was another hurdle. As a newer restaurant competing against longer-established businesses, Baker St Cafe had to work hard to stay top of mind online and continue building trust with new customers.
At the same time, the cafe’s digital business was growing quickly. About 20% of orders were coming through digital channels, including online ordering and kiosk sales. The family wanted a way to make that experience feel more direct, more local, and less dependent on third-party platforms.
The solution: Turning regulars into followers
The search led them to Neighborhoods on Cash App, a network between Cash App and Square designed to give local businesses their own branded storefront so they can build direct relationships with customers without relying on third-party platforms.
With Neighborhoods, Baker St Cafe got its own branded ordering profile that customers can access on the web and inside Cash App. Customers can order ahead, reorder, earn rewards, and follow businesses they love, while the cafe reaches followers directly through updates, offers, and campaigns.
For Gilstrap, one of the biggest appeals was recapturing repeat business from customers who already knew and loved the restaurant.
“Neighborhoods give us a way to keep those customers coming back and ordering direct — and with 20% of our orders already coming through digital channels, we know the demand is there.”
The platform also opened a new discovery channel.
“With the Cash App ordering profile integrated directly into Google, it makes it easy for customers to discover us, order, and reorder without ever touching a third-party app,” Gilstrap said. “We already have one in five transactions coming through Cash App, so the audience is already there.”
The ordering experience also felt more seamless for customers. Gilstrap noticed that regulars were increasingly using the Neighborhoods ordering profile as a faster way to reorder from the cafe.
“I think it’s more [about] conversion,” Gilstrap noted. “People who are already our fans don’t need to go through our website and click all the buttons. They just go straight to our profile.”
The impact: Stronger relationships with regulars
Baker St Cafe is still early in its Neighborhoods on Cash App journey, and the restaurant is already seeing signs its most engaged customers embrace the platform.
Nearly all of the cafe’s followers on Neighborhoods have made a purchase, and those followers are visiting more often than other customers. For Gilstrap, that reinforces the idea that direct customer relationships matter just as much online as they do inside the restaurant.
These are not passive social media followers. These are our most engaged local customers who want to hear from us and keep coming back.”
Thomas Gilstrap → Co-Owner
The family also sees Neighborhoods as an opportunity to compete against third-party ordering platforms while keeping more of each transaction in-house. Neighborhoods offers a 1% payment processing rate for in-app orders, regardless of payment method, with no additional marketplace commissions or monthly fees. For a restaurant handling a high volume of digital orders, that difference is meaningful.
“The 1% processing rate on online orders is huge for us,” said Gilstrap. “When you are doing over $46,000 a month, that saving [compared to what third-party platforms charge] adds up fast. And as more customers join and follow us, we are able to offset some of those higher processing costs on digital orders with the 1% rate on Cash App volume.”
Square allows Baker St Cafe to focus on what matters most: the food
Behind the scenes, Square serves as the operational backbone as Baker St Cafe grows. Square tools, including Square Register, Square Kiosk, and Websites, help the family manage more than 5,700 monthly transactions across in-person and digital orders. “As a family-run restaurant, you need technology that just works.”
“For me, I’m just focused on making food and I don’t have to worry about anything,” she said.
For Gilstrap, a steady cadence of new Square features helps the restaurant stay current as more of its customers order and interact with the business online. “Square is always launching new exciting products like Neighborhoods, which we love. It keeps us moving forward rather than feeling stuck on old technology.”
Gilstrap also sees the potential for Neighborhoods on Cash App to become even more valuable.
“We are excited for more businesses to join and the Neighborhoods rewards to grow and give locals more of an incentive to shop locally.”
