Cafes are a critical component to every community. Coffee powers us ahead. It is a wonderful product that many find peace in and with. It is a morning routine for so many of us. As cafes have evolved, so have their menus. Coffee drinks come in more varieties than ever. The food that accompanies coffee and related drinks are more diverse than ever.
Espresso bars that also offer açaí bowls, paninis, bagels, muffins, and other food items have large item libraries in their point of sale system. Many cafes, espresso bars, and similar businesses use Square. At Espressly, we have come to see why they love Square. Square’s point of sale product is an amazing technology solution. When we link up with Square seller accounts to compile their mobile app, we see that some Square instances have 60 or more different categories in their system. Each category then has its’ own items. The baristas and workers at these establishments help customers and can easily process an order in the POS because of the search capabilities that they have. They also use Square “bookmarks” to put tiles on the primary landing page of the POS. The tiles allow for saving popular items in an easy to access location….with a simple click of the tile, the screen comes up to edit and add modifiers.
A cafe ends up with 67 categories, for instance, when they have various drink categories, as well as a regular food menu, and a kids menu, of course.
In working with Jude’s Coffee Company, we needed to present the categories and items in a mobile app in a way where customers could easily find what they are looking for, while not limiting the wonderful offerings that their customers count on seeing and enjoying.
To do that, we brought in a parent category, child (Square) category, (Square) items menu structure.
From there, the 67 Square categories were sorted and displayed in 14 parent categories.
The Espressly menu editor allows the merchant to create parent categories and then assign Square categories to them. They are able to edit all items, variations, modifier sets, modifiers, locations, etc, etc in Square, like they normally do…and the changes are reflected in real time in their customer facing order ahead mobile app.
By adding parent categories, customers can now place their orders right from the Jude’s Coffee Company mobile app. Wonderful!
We love working with each and every cafe, donut shop, espresso bar, bakery, shake shop, and other grab and go focused food and drink establishments.
Thank you Jude’s Coffee Company! Thank you Square!