Customer Case Study
Yuzu Ramen
With BayPOS, Yuzu Ramen cuts main dish preparation time by 50% during peak hours and reduces overall kitchen labor costs by 20%
Emeryville, CA | San Rafael, CA
Yuzu Ramen opened their first location in 2016 and has been winning converts and drawing crowds with their signature bone broth ever since. “We specialize in healthy, top quality bone broth and original ramen noodles all made in house.” says Business Manager Julli Meyer.
Workflow delays and redundant tasks
As business grew, Yuzu Ramen faced order wait time and order error challenges. Servers used pen and paper to take orders, and then rushed to a congested POS terminal to enter them.
Once orders entered into the system, servers had to make multiple trips to the kitchen to get accurate order status updates. Each step in the process added a delay.
In the Kitchen, there were also challenges. During peak hours, the kitchen bustled with 5 employees with an order expeditor in charge of juggling paper order tickets.
Because all information had to flow through the expeditor, both servers and the kitchen were heavily reliant on him/her. As a result, the expeditor was often a bottleneck and a source of errors.
Shortly before the second location opened, Motonori Kobori (now the COO), joined the team and set about streamlining operations. It quickly became clear that although the POS system appeared to be working well, it had hidden workflow delays and redundant tasks. They needed a more robust and easier to use POS System.
Cuts main dish preparation time by 50% during peak hours and reduces overall kitchen labor costs by 20%
Julli recalls jumping to BayPOS was a big decision but implementation was “Very easy. Training is very straightforward and the system itself is very self-explanatory, so it is easy to have all staff understand how BayPOS works.”
Soon BayPOS was up and running, and it was a game changer.
What really stood out to Julli was “Speed. BayPOS allows all staff members to receive information faster, take orders faster, and serve the orders faster. Previously, when we hit the peak hours, main dishes could sometimes have a wait time of 40 minutes. That’s been reduced down to about 20 minutes.”
Now servers punch orders directly into their tablets while still at the table, and order status/table information is immediately displayed across all stations. Servers don’t need to rush to a shared terminal, and they can stay focused on the guest experience.
Critical information easily accessible to all
“Kitchen staff are now on the same page across kitchen and server stations.” Orders instantly pop up on kitchen tablets, color coded to show food preparation status and table information. “... communication has greatly improved with BayPOS.” Information is displayed in a way that makes it easy for all staff members to see, in real time, how a table’s order is progressing. “They can imagine what the table is like now that the table information is right in front of them.”
Before BayPOS, a skilled expeditor was required to coordinate orders and troubleshoot issues. Now, information is accessible to all, the number of errors has dropped precipitously, and the expeditor’s position has been phased out.
With BayPOS, Yuzu Ramen cut main dish preparation time by 50% during peak hours and reduced overall kitchen labor costs by 20%.
Powerful reporting functions
Back in the office, BayPOS’s powerful reporting functions don’t just track sales, they give managers the metrics they need to make informed decisions about all aspects of the operation across locations.
Armed with data about Individual menu items and prep times, kitchen performance issues can be pinpointed and corrected. Customer preference trends can easily be identified and used to drive menu development.
Because information is readily available it’s easy to spot opportunities and make improvements.
“BayPOS can fit in with a lot of different types of restaurants,” Julli says. During lunch, the restaurants are fast casual and customers order at the register, for dinner they switch to full table service. “BayPOS fits perfectly with our service / operation style. I would think that many other businesses would find that it fits in with theirs.”
