Multi-Concept Company Streamlines Ops and Saves on Costs with Operating Software

Matchbox LLC first opened the doors to their flagship Washington DC location, Matchbox Chinatown, in 2003. Since then they have grown to include three unique concepts that comprise five locations throughout the DC Metro Area including: Matchbox, a vintage pizza bistro; Ted’s Bulletin; a one stop for classic American fare and burgers; and DC-3, a regional hot dog joint.  All provide a unique dining experience and exceptional service.
 

Before implementing Compeat, Matchbox relied on Quickbooks to manage their accounting, and spreadsheets to manage all of their back office operations. Consequently many hours were spent every day entering data into spreadsheets at each restaurant with no easy way to centralize this information. Information from the spreadsheets also had to be reentered into Quickbooks. Ultimately, this made data entry tedious, information was not timely, and the accuracy of the information was not controllable.
 

In 2007, a new General Manager, who had prior experience with Compeat, suggested they implement Compeat software to simplify the management of their growing concepts. Matchbox replaced Quickbooks and their spreadsheets with Compeat. “Managing multiple entities (restaurants and companies) would be next to impossible without Compeat,” states Brian Anderson, Operating Systems Manager.
 

Anderson is very impressed with the labor savings they have been able to achieve by handling vendor invoices more efficiently. Matchbox now automatically imports invoices from multiple vendors. Sysco, one of their largest vendors who make at least three deliveries per week per store, generally has a five to six page invoice that each manager had to work through, usually taking at least an hour of their time per delivery. Compeat has automated this process.
 

Anderson also likes Compeat’s central office consolidation of his stores. This centralized processing combined with better invoice handling at his restaurants has saved eight to ten hours of management labor per week, per store. “Along with the labor cost savings, managers have more time to spend in the front of the house supporting our staff and mingling with customers to ensure they’re having a spectacular dining experience,” Anderson asserts.
 

Matchbox opened their first quick service concept, DC-3, in 2010. Although DC-3 had an extremely popular opening, they soon discovered that their costs were too high and that changes were needed to optimize their success. Anderson was assigned the task to correct the problem and turned to his Compeat system.
 

Anderson used Compeat to verify the accuracy of all of his prep and menu item recipes. He next compared theoretical and actual cost variances. Anderson then ran a menu engineering report that ranks each menu item based on its contribution to the bottom line. These steps enabled Anderson to isolate problems and make positive changes to increase DC-3’s bottom line. “By reengineering our menu with Compeat we were able to reduce our food cost by 2%!” raves Anderson.
 

With three new locations opening in 2012, Matchbox LLC is on the road for considerable growth. Matchbox plans on opening each new location with Compeat. They also have exciting plans to redo their entire bar and liquor programming with the help of Micros and Compeat. “We now have a cleaner and tighter inventory and accounting system which creates more accurate budgets. We could not be more pleased with Compeat,” Anderson concludes.