New mobile applications flood the market every day and it’s a challenge for businesses to keep pace. Restaurants want the flexibility to leverage new customer-centric technologies, and at the same time ensure that their main point-of-sale system remains stable. Chop’t Creative Salad Company, a 25-unit premium salad restaurant brand, is partnering with Future POS to strike the right balance for their operations.

As our business continues to grow, we face two challenges: ensuring absolute stability of the core POS system and real
openness to many different consumer-facing technologies to integrate with the POS,” says Nick Marsh, CEO of Chop’t. “Consumers are demanding the ability to interface with the restaurant on their terms and that’s why it’s important that we use a POS that is truly open.”

Last year, Chop’t started a search for the right POS solution that could meet these needs. Marsh said the company considered many different options, including big solutions providers with large market share and promising start-ups offering nimble cloud-based products. In the end, Marsh said Chop’t needed a solution that comprised the best of both worlds and chose Future POS to offer both flexibility and openness.

Future POS is specific to the hospitality industry, with two decades of industry expertise. “We’re not a not a big company but our 25 restaurants average 400 transactions an hour,” says Marsh. “Future POS fell nicely in the middle for us. They have a long track record and enough installations to reference check the product.” The Future POS solution has evolved to include such capabilities as tablets at the table, and pre-arrival online and mobile ordering, all with a focus on efficiency and faster table turns for its customers.

Chop’t installed Future POS at its first location mid-2013. After testing for six months, minor adjustments were made before converting all restaurants to Future POS within four months. Because Chop’t is an extremely high volume restaurant, the company demands a solution that is rock-solid, and built on a scalable industry standard database like Microsoft SQL.

“Future POS supplies us with all the tools and support we need to be successful,” Marsh explains. “They are open to feedback and make me feel as if I am their only client. This is a refreshing change of pace compared to most other IT experiences I’ve had working with other vendors.”

The POS installation was done via a local systems integrator, iPOS, out of New York. Marsh stresses the importance that the local integrator can play in the uccess of a roll-out. “Like most POS companies, Future POS depends on its local dealers to bring the product over the finish ine,” says Marsh. “The dedication and daily interaction with the team from iPos made the whole conversion come together successfully.”

There’s been no downtime at the store level, according to Marsh. When Chop’t updates functionality in the enterprise it updates the store and the app simultaneously without the need to maintain multiple databases. “We anticipate a huge reduction in repair and maintenance expense,” says Marsh.

Now that Chop’t’s POS system is providing consistency from the front to back of the house, the company is in the midst of implementing mobile applications. Future POS is developing a mobile ordering solution that will allow Chop’t customers to pay with one application in-store. The first phase integrates payment and loyalty with a third-party solution and the second phase of the rollout will include mobile ordering.

“Everyone claims to be open, but for a small company like ourselves with limited resources, Future POS made it work,” Marsh says. “Future POS worked with us to find solutions to our problems and in some instances, problems that surfaced helped us identify ways we could improve our business.”

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