MOOYAH Burgers Taps App for Contactless Dine-In Ordering
MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes is building upon its record-breaking 2021 with plans for 53 locations this year. The the 90-unit fast-casual better-burger franchise closed out 2021 with record average unit sales and 38 restaurants topping the $1 million sales mark.
HT caught up with Stacy Fields, Senior Manager of Digital and Off-Premise Sales, MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes, to talk about the ongoing tech innovation at the chain and what’s challenges − and opportunities − remain.
HT: How has online ordering evolved over the past two years at MOOYAH?
Stacy Fields, Senior Manager of Digital and Off-Premise Sales: Digital Guest Experience has gone on a wild ride the last couple of years. Meeting our guests where they are has been critical to capturing convenience- and safety-based decisions. For us, that has included developing new hand-off modes for curbside pickup and, most recently, the option for guests to order online while sitting in our restaurant dining rooms for a contactless dine-in experience.
HT: When it comes to online ordering and off prem, what are some of the challenges that remain ?
Fields: The biggest challenges are speed and accuracy. It’s easy to correct an order when a guest is dining in, but missing the bacon on an off-premise order means a disappointed guest and one who may not return. Ensuring the guest journey is seamless from ordering all the way to the hand-off to the guest is top priority.
HT: What's on the horizon in terms of new solutions and/or possible future solutions?
Fields: We’re excited to be rolling out dine-in ordering via our mobile app. Our franchise community has been very enthusiastic about this. This experience puts a kiosk in our guests’ hands and allows our team members to manage long lines at the POS and helps in a staffing crunch. We also just launched the ability for our physical gift cards to be redeemed on app and online orders, a feature our guests asked for and we delivered.
HT: How has online ordering impacted the restaurant design in FOH and BOH?
Fields: Our mix of online and off-premise orders has never been higher. When we did the work in 2019 creating our new prototype, we identified online order pick-up as a unique guest journey. We created a 'middle of house' to make this journey visible and easy from the guest standpoint, and simple to manage and execute from the team member perspective. We included shelving for these to-go orders and incorporated a wayfinding system that is not only a beautiful feature in the restaurants, but extremely functional in eliminating confusion and bottlenecks....Looking into 2022, we are exploring drive-up and walk-up pickup windows, food storage lockers and additional marketplace partnerships to make ordering from and receiving MOOYAH easier than ever.