More Than a Coffee Shop

Charles Gonzalez set out to create a coffee shop that would be more than a coffee shop - a place where people could be all day. March of 2014, he and his wife opened up Rosella Coffee in the heart of San Antonio, Texas. It was a brand new venture for them and it took nearly a year from conception to opening day. They found the space, talked to contractors and banks, and picked out a mobile POS system. After a few months, though, they reached the limits of what their POS could do - they wanted more functionality, more visibility, and greater ease of use than they were getting with their existing system.

A Simple But Powerful Platform

Beginning the search to replace his café POS, Charles wanted more than a POS - he wanted greater functionality and simplicity. He turned to Toast. He had heard positive reviews about the Toast platform from fellow restaurant owners, so he had a Toast specialist come by the shop and demo the system.

The ease-of-use immediately stood out to Charles. Simple changes were quick to make. Adjusting a menu item, for example, could be done in a matter of seconds, and from any tablet or computer.

“With our old system," Charles said, "it was always a hassle to change things - always two or three windows. But with Toast, I can make changes right from the POS in just a few seconds. And making changes from the computer is really easy too.”

Ability to Expand Easily and Affordably

The system had the depth of functionality he needed with the promise of more. As a cloud-based POS system, there were new features being added every month that would automatically get updated on his system at no additional cost. And he could easily and affordably expand over time:

“We’ve been able to expand on the way we do some things, especially in terms of having the second tablet in our courtyard - whether we do something like table service to order drinks or just have two separate registers without needing two whole systems has been really convenient. And, we’ve been able to expand our menu but keep it functional and easy for all our staff to find everything, not getting bogged down by going through a lot of pages,” Charles shared.

Business Insight Accessible Anytime, Anywhere

Charles also loves how easy it is for him to check in on the restaurant anytime, from anywhere. He checks in on sales reports in real-time at least once a day. He can even look up specific orders or slice the data by hour, which he couldn’t do easily before. Whether it’s evaluating menu performance or sales exceptions, Toast makes it easy for Charles to get the insight he needs to make smart decisions for his restaurant. The easier it is for him to manage the restaurant, the more time he gets back to spend with his family.

A Restaurateur’s Recommendation for Cafe Software

Charles’ advice is short and sweet: “Think about what you really need and look at what’s out there. Toast is simple to use and has everything that we need - actually, it has even more than what we need, so we know our restaurant can grow with Toast.”