Casa del Barco Utilizes Toast KDS to Continually Optimize the Guest Experience

Casa del Barco is a modern, upscale Mexican restaurant in Richmond, Virginia that serves reimagined comfort food and ingenious cocktails. Adorned with high ratings and loyal customers, this establishment is never complacent with their efficiency across all areas of their business.

Operating under the parent company, Housepitality, Casa del Barco is determined to offer a consistent and top-quality experience for their diners.

"There's a lot of hesitation in many parts of the higher end of the restaurant industry to think about kitchens as production facilities," says Matthew Roy, Manager of Technology Operations. "But, really, that's what it is. We need to produce a quality meal that's hot, fresh, and ready in a rapid and expedient manner."

To attain this standard in their service, Matthew and his team implemented Toast kitchen display system (KDS) in their kitchen.

"Without KDS, we would never have been able to have our stations integrated. We need to know the timing to bring everything together and you just can't do that with paper tickets."

Matthew Roy

Manager of Technology Operations

Integrating a Multi-Stationed Restaurant Through a Paperless Workflow

Casa del Barco uses separate KDS units for each station in their kitchen, effectively creating a flow of service that is completely digital and paper-free. This opened up several new opportunities that Matthew was quick to capitalize on.

"There are a number of things that we can do with KDS that we couldn't do with paper tickets that are extremely powerful for our deployments and our kitchen designs," says Matthew.

In addition to Casa del Barco, Matthew also manages Boathouse, a multi-location seafood establishment under the same umbrella company, Housepitality. Their kitchen features an oyster bar as well as a sushi bar. When chefs receive orders that require orders that require dishes to be made from more than one station, the KDS units allow the different dishes to come together to be served as a single order to the table.

"With KDS, we're able to integrate those stations with our main kitchen electronically," Matthew explains. "Each station has their own KDS that they view. They prep the items, send them to expo, and then expo combines the entire order without ever having to leave the kitchen."

The ease of viewing orders and effective separation of duties have freed up time for chefs to place more focus on higher level priorities that elevate the guest experience.

"By eliminating paper tickets and using KDSs, we can get the chefs on the line to focus on what matters," Matthew says. "They can focus on product quality, product consistency, and getting it all out together and on time to provide a better guest experience."

Continually Optimizing with KDS Reporting

With all transactions processed and measured through a centralized point-of-sale system, Matthew and his team can objectively at the performance of every station.

"The KDS reporting feature is very helpful because it allows us to see which individual items are taking longer," says Matthew. "By separating stations, we can get a detailed understanding of which stations are consistently causing our ticket time to rise and which stations and consistently efficient."

This type of reporting data helps Matthew make data-driven decisions to optimize different areas of the business. He can ensure his staff are utilized efficiently across the whole kitchen, such that no station experience delays that could negatively impact the guest experience.

"By looking at per station prep times, we can determine what pre items can be shipped over in order to better distribute the load across the entire line, and ensure that we are adequately utilizing all of our personnel," Matthew says.

Finding a Loyal Business Partner in Toast

On top of Toast KDS technology increasing various operational efficiencies at Casa del Barco, Matthew is also excited about the investment the Toast team has in the success of his restaurant.

"Toast has been a fantastic partner for us because they listen to us," Matthew states. "At 1AM, when we're trying to close out, and we have a ticket that won't close, we know that we can chat with a Customer Care agent and get answers from someone who will actually answer our questions and be responsive."

After researching twelve different point-of-sale systems for his restaurant, it is the personal support Toast offered that led him to his decision.

"We selected Toast because of the quality of the brand and the customer service," says Matthew. "It's really just night and day compared to Oracle or any of the other point-of-sale vendors that we looked at."