Laura Leister, Ameet Rawal and James Lettaus have a knack for uncovering untapped niches in the St. Louis restaurant scene. As the owners of Pieces: The Original St. Louis Board Game Bar & Café, they’re also the brains behind Protagonist, a secondhand bookstore and cafe in the city’s Soulard neighborhood.
The shop is packed floor-to-ceiling with over 5,000 books, and with lines that stretch from the counter to the back shelves. As customers wait, they can peruse the stacks and check out Protagonist’s other retail offerings, which include handmade greeting cards and bottles of boutique wine from small craft producers.
It’s the broad yet curated offering that’s made Protagonist a St. Louis destination and that keeps its loyal community of regulars coming back again.
The challenge: Managing diversified revenue streams
Because the cafe sells secondhand books, Leister, Rawal and Lettaus had to simplify the daunting task of adding custom pricing to each book, which ultimately meant they needed a system they could tailor to meet their requirements.
The cafe aspect of the business added yet another layer of complexity to its retail business. They needed to be able to track three different types of inventory – books, retail items and food – all of which would fluctuate at different times. At the cafe, for example, food offerings change every day.
They needed a system to track how many pastries they sold each day, so they could create an efficient delivery loop with their baker to keep customer favorites readily available.
The solution: Deeper control of the business with customizable tools
The business implemented Square Point-of-Sale to help track and categorize every facet of its inventory. “We categorize our books in Square, and we do variable pricing because they’re one-off books,” Leister said. “So someone will ring in an art book as art, and then we price it individually. We have different buttons with variable pricing, and it’s customizable.”
The platform also helps them track how many of their pastries they’re selling, so they can coordinate with their baker to ensure they have enough to meet demand. “What’s really great about Square is the periodic automatic replenishment (par) system,” said Leister. “All of our pastries are homemade. So we keep accounts — like on Sundays, we tell our baker what pastries we have, and we’re able to put the par system in when she delivers them on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And it syncs up to our Square Online.”
The impact: A more flexible operation
Syncing its pastry availability directly to a custom Square Online site allows the business to seamlessly run online ordering while offering customers a convenient way to order. Leister personally cites the control the system gives them as especially beneficial because they can customize what to put on the site, how they want it to look, and even when they want to turn item availability — or the entire store — on and off.
“It’s huge that we have complete control over our Square Online website, and the back end syncs with it so we can quickly take things off,” said Leister. “It also allows us to turn off online ordering during our busiest times so we can focus on the people in the store. And it’s so quick.”
Leister and her co-founders also leverage these flexible tools so team members on the operations side have the ability to work remotely. “We actually have a person who used to be our GM, but she had to move, and so we allow her to work remotely and do our HR, which is unusual for a small business,” she says.
The cloud-based nature of the platform means the team can do everything from scheduling to payroll to invoicing from wherever they are, including an entirely different state. “She runs our payroll from another state and does our scheduling from another state. And she also manages a lot of our Square tools from another state,” said Leister. “So we just tell her we have a new product and the price, and she’ll input it there and she can watch our sales.”
With deep flexibility and control of the business, Leister, Rewal and Lettaus can run an operation that staff and customers are able to champion and remain loyal to, ultimately ensuring long-term satisfaction on both sides of the register.
