Crazy Bowls and Wraps, a 16-unit healthy fast-casual concept based in St. Louis, Mo., rolled out a new menu in 2021. The Lifestyle Menu offers curated menu items tailored to popular diet lifestyles like keto, Whole 30, plant-based, vegan, and so on. Customers can choose menu items that are automatically customized to meet their dietary preferences, and they can also subtract or add ingredients they choose.
“Consumers really enjoy customizing their meals so they’re getting exactly what they crave,” says Shannah Preseau, training and integration project manager at Crazy Bowls and Wraps. “We’re seeing more consumers with specific diet lifestyles, and we’re seeing more food intolerances and allergies than we’ve ever seen before.” When restaurant brands provide transparency about the ingredients in their meals and allow for customization, Preseau says, they can avoid getting a “veto vote” when groups and families decide where to dine out.
With enhanced customization options on the new Lifestyle Menu, Crazy Bowls and Wraps had a few logistical concerns top of mind. The team wanted to make sure they could speed up the order process while also keeping orders accurate. In 2019, in the planning phases for the new menu, the brand relied on cashiers to take orders, but this was preventing customers from fully customizing their orders. Sometimes it also led to long lines and accuracy issues due to human error.
In 2020, Crazy Bowls and Wraps opted to test Bite and Elo’s touchscreen self-service solution as a potential way to solve these issues. The program was so successful—even during the early stages of the pandemic—it quickly expanded to 14 of the brand’s 16 total locations.
Bite’s custom kiosk software and Elo’s sleek and modular kiosk hardware integrate into systems already in place to help drive throughput and efficiency, create brand loyalty, and increase check averages.
“We appreciated that Bite cared about the customer experience, and not just speed of ordering,” Preseau says. “Bite focused on the customer flow and experience, which has allowed us to help educate the customer by highlighting menu items that are uncommon and giving a description of the item.”
On the kiosk, Crazy Bowls and Wraps highlighted any ingredient that could be unfamiliar to customers so they can click to see a description and picture of the ingredient—not just the menu item.
“Consumers really want a say in their food, and they’re becoming more vocal about their likes and dislikes,” Preseau says. “We want to help them feel better about what they’re eating.”
Bite also has an intelligent order recommendation AI called Bite Lift, which compares its data with customers’ choices to predict what else they might enjoy in real-time. It helps many of its partner brands increase check averages by 20 percent or more. In fact, Crazy Bowls and Wraps saw their check averages increase by almost double that rate in locations using the kiosks.
“Our partnership with Bite and Elo has been awesome overall,” Preseau says. “Our check averages for orders placed on kiosks increased by 38 percent. We’ve also been able to reallocate our labor to better enhance the guest experience. We went from having a cashier role to having a kiosk ambassador role, which empowers our front-of-house team members to better attend to our dining area, to help run food to decrease wait times, and just better take care of the guest experience instead of being stuck at a cash register for their entire shift. We’ve also seen our order accuracy at kiosk locations improve substantially, and our order customizations are higher than we expected them to be.”
Bite helps restaurant operators improve order accuracy—even for highly customized orders. It can also increase check averages while maximizing throughput. To learn more, visit the Bite website.
Elo is a leading global supplier of interactive solutions and has deployed over 25 million installations in over 80 countries. Elo’s broad portfolio allows its customers to easily “Choose, Configure, Connect, and Control” to create a unique touchscreen experience. Learn more at EloTouch.com.
By Kara Phelps
