Instead of taking a sigh of relief after finishing his final college project, Christian Murcia rolled up his sleeves. As a new graduate, he worked to turn Crepes Bonaparte — a hypothetical business plan at the time — into a multilocation crepe company with his now wife and business partner, Danielle. They clocked countless late nights and busy weekends. And it’s paid off. Today Crepes Bonaparte is ranked among QSR Magazine’s list of America’s Top 20 Food Trucks. It’s recognized for signature menu items, including the HazelBerryAna® (strawberries, bananas, Nutella, whipped cream, and a chocolate drizzle) and California Sunrise (bacon, avocado, tomatoes, cheddar, and a cage-free scrambled egg).
The Murcia’s adopted a slow, organic growth model to scale successfully over the last 16 years. “We started with one food truck, a couple of years later we added a second truck. Quite a few years later we opened our restaurant in Fullerton as our first brick and mortar. Almost two years ago, we opened inside Whittier Brewing Company,” Danielle Murcia told Square. She also credits their menu to their success. “Because we can do breakfast, lunch, or dessert, it gives us a lot of flexibility in being able to serve at a lot of different types of events all day,” she explained.
Crepes Bonaparte’s food trucks — named Gaston and Pierre — often operate at farmers markets in the mornings, at office buildings for lunch, and at apartment communities for dinner service. On the weekends, the team caters to all kinds of baby showers and birthday parties. That’s in addition to the steady stream of customers that visit each brick-and-mortar location. Serving up excellence to as many guests as possible is the norm. But, with rising labor costs in California, they needed a way to continue offering a competitive price. Not only did they want to cut back on labor costs, but creating a positive environment for staff while delighting customers was equally critical. Enter the Square Kiosk.
The challenge: Accepting incoming orders while battling a noisy environment
Located inside a brewery, the Crepes Bonaparte Whittier location is one of multiple food vendors. Crowds of customers create an excited buzz that echoes off the walls. When live music isn’t playing, songs blast on the radio and contribute to the high-energy atmosphere. However, Murcia explained the team had to stop taking phone orders at that location because they couldn’t hear the phone ring. The environment was impacting the staff and the guest experience, as well as the business’ sales potential.
Staff also ran into communication challenges at the food trucks due to customers having to shout their orders up to folks who work inside. If a staff member misunderstood an order, customers’ satisfaction levels could drop. Plus, correcting any mistakes adds stress on staff and the business’s bottom line. So when Murcia started to see more kiosks out in the wild as a customer herself, she decided it was an opportunity worth investigating.
The solution: Giving customers more control and streamlining orders for staff with integrated technology
Today Crepes Bonaparte uses Square Kiosk, a self-ordering solution at its Whittier location and its food trucks. How does it work? Square Kiosk can be mounted on a wall or countertop, or stand upright via a floor stand. Adding the iPad-driven device to the Crepes Bonaparte technology stack has allowed customers to browse the menu, input their orders, and make any modifications independently, without having to battle noise levels.
The staff doesn’t miss a beat either. When a customer places an order through the Square Kiosk, it automatically routes to Crepes Bonaparte’s Square Kitchen Display System for a staff member to see and manage. The team also prints physical tickets with Square Terminal. “We used to use a different printer that was attached, but part of the reason I switched is because it allowed me to have two devices,” Murcia explained. “The customer uses the kiosk, and the terminal acts as our ticket printer, but it also acts as a backup method if our staff does need to take an order. If it’s a really busy event, we’ll do both simultaneously.”
Bottom-line benefits: Effectively managing labor costs and inventory management
With Square Kiosk, Crepes Bonaparte can run with just one staff member instead of two during certain shifts. In addition to helping with labor costs during those times, key features have helped the Crepes Bonaparte team quickly navigate inventory challenges with ease.
For example, Murcia explained that due to limited storage space, it’s not unusual to sell out of menu items at the food trucks, whether it’s a flavor of lemonade or a menu item. Before implementing Square Kiosk, Crepes Bonaparte relied on third-party kiosk software, which sent inventory information to Murcia via a personal text message. It required her to manually mark items out of stock on the kiosk so customers couldn’t continue to order.
“Now that we use Square Kiosk, I’ve been able to transfer that responsibility. If we sell out of something, the shift lead can either use the Square KDS or the Square Terminal to mark that item out of stock,” she said.
While the Square Kiosk functionality allows Crepes Bonaparte to make customer-facing menu updates quickly, custom settings also prevent inventory challenges before they start. “I love, love, love that you can say, ‘Mark it out of stock until this time,’ because that works really well for the food trucks,” said Murcia. “They’ll say, ‘Okay, mark this out of stock until 2 p.m. today,’ and that means the item will be out of stock for the lunch shift. But once the food truck restocks and goes out for dinner, that item is available again. It will automatically pop back up on the kiosk for customers to order.”
Empowering staff to delight customers with every order
In addition to streamlining the order flow, adding Square Kiosk has given the Crepes Bonaparte team more time to focus on providing the best experience for customers. For instance, both the food trucks and restaurants are designed so the food is made upfront, allowing customers to watch cooking in action. “People will see the chef and think, ‘Oh, I want that one.’ So now they’ve already seen the whole process and then they can just go order it themselves,” explained Murcia. After ordering at a kiosk, one customer made a point to tell Murcia how helpful it was to be able to note her gluten-free dietary restrictions directly.
Having guests input orders with Square Kiosk has also helped Crepes Bonaparte improve order accuracy, which makes a difference for staff and customers. “When staff are passing out the orders, it’s correct and the customer is happy,” Murcia explained. “Before you would get a couple every shift where they go to hand the order out and the person’s like, ‘Oh no, I told you no strawberries on this,’ because it was misheard, whether because it’s a loud environment or because you’re shouting up and down through a food truck window. That’s the biggest thing specifically with my staff that they like about the kiosk.”
