sunday, the fastest restaurant payment solution co-founded in April 2021 by Victor Lugger, and Tigrane Seydoux – the French entrepreneurs behind The Big Mamma restaurant Group – and Christine de Wendel, a tech leader and e-commerce veteran, today announced it has completed the acquisition of Montreal-based CHK PLZ, Canada’s rapidly growing contactless payment solution with over 300 restaurants across Quebec.   

The CHK PLZ acquisition furthers sunday’s vision to make technology accessible to all establishments,  enabling restaurant owners in order to increase efficiency, drive up sales, and improve the overall dining experience. Moreover, Sunday’s POS agnostic, open-ended payment processing interface is easy for restaurants to integrate and helps reduce paying the bill from 15 minutes to roughly 10 seconds. 

“sunday and CHK PLZ both share the same passion for local restaurants and operate on the same basic principle of supporting local restaurants to survive in a post-pandemic world”, explains Sunday cofounder Victor Lugger. “The acquisition was a natural fit.”

From April 2021 to September 2021, the introduction of sunday to restaurants around the globe has been extremely well received by both consumers and restaurateurs: 

  • More than 1,500 restaurants signed, which represents an annual transaction volume of $2 billion CAD

  • Over 1,1 million end users have paid with sunday

  • Over $1,2 million CAD in tips have been given with sunday (40% higher than without the app)

  • 12% higher basket spent per table

  • 10% faster table turnover

 

“The way people pay in restaurants is changing for good”, adds Victor Lugger. “The intuition our team had five months ago is testament to a global trend supporting restaurant owners, their staff and their clients, from quick service to Michelin-star restaurants.” 

The CHK PLZ acquisition follows sunday’s Series A fundraising of $100M USD last September and is foresight into future market demand. CHK PLZ started as an idea conceptualized by three engineering students from McGill University who wanted to revolutionize decades-old food services technology. CHK PLZ was steadfast in supporting the industry during the pandemic by expanding their product offering from Qr-based payments to on-table ordering and online ordering & delivery. 

“We are thrilled to be joining the sunday journey to better support restaurants and bars across the country. We firmly believe that technology will be the saving grace during these times of uncertainty,” says Roberto Casoli, co-founder and CEO at CHK PLZ. “Together, CHK PLZ and sunday can usher in real change to introduce the North American market to the future of hospitality.” 

CHK PLZ will integrate as the Canadian team within sunday. CHK PLZ CEO and co-founder Roberto Casoli will become GM of Canada at sunday, while Eric Haniak, Co-Founder & Head of Sales and Olivier Eydt, Co-Founder & CTO will remain within the company in their current roles specific to the Canadian market.The original CHK PLZ team will play a key role in the future technological development of the sunday solution with a new head of Engineering for North America coming on board shortly.

“We will grow our Montreal-based team to develop and improve the sunday product offerings in order to better respond to the ever-changing needs of the post-COVID market and drive real change for all restaurant and bar owners and operators”, adds sunday’s new General Manager for Canada, Roberto Casoli.  

In the short term, Canadian users can continue to use the CHK PLZ solutions. It will be integrated into the sunday universe in the coming weeks.

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