Canadian seafood chain expands to U.S. with enterprise platform
The Captain’s Boil is supporting franchise growth in the U.S. with a full suite of front- and back-end solutions.
Based in Toronto, Canada, The Captain’s Boil operates over 20 franchised casual dining seafood restaurants. The company recently expanded its franchise operations into the U.S. by opening a location in Atlanta, with plans to open three more U.S. stores in Georgia in the near future.
To help support international growth, The Captain’s Boil uses a full suite of Givex Information Technology Group solutions in its restaurants, including POS, kitchen display, gift card, loyalty, and inventory control systems, as well as an online ordering app. The Captain’s Boil also pivoted its business by reinforcing its takeout/delivery platforms with Givex technology.
“For more than five years, GivexPOS and other Givex technologies have helped improve our operations, from the kitchen display system ensuring that our food is served hot, to the robust inventory/recipe application helping control our food costs,” said Andy Huang, COO of The Captain’s Boil. “Their system seamlessly integrated with a third-party app to help manage our labor costs, and we’re very pleased with the preliminary results of the loyalty program we recently implemented with Givex.”
“We congratulate The Captain’s Boil for successfully expanding into the U.S.,” said Givex chief commercial officer Mo Chaar. “We look forward to growing with them as they expand their physical footprint across North America.”
Smoothie King supports franchisees with enterprise solutions
Another franchise-based restaurant chain, Smoothie King, is also supporting franchisees by implementing enterprise technology. The company recently began piloting a text-to-order platform from HungerRush in Chicago and Jacksonville, with the goal of offering a more modern customer experience while driving top-line digital sales for franchisees.
This text-to-order pilot launch came on the heels of other new technology solutions Smoothie King introduced in the past year. These include a healthy rewards app, online ordering for pickup and delivery, multiple third-party delivery partners, and the introduction of tablet devices for drive-thru locations.
Previously, the company said it had focused on refining its digital-ordering platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic to better align with customer purchasing behaviors to maintain its development momentum. Since their creation and introduction at the beginning of the pandemic, the company says its online ordering, curbside pickup and delivery capabilities have continued to grow.
In addition, Smoothie King recently selected the unified commerce cloud platform from ParTech Inc., a subsidiary of Par Technology Corp., to manage secure, compliant payment processing services across its store network. As part of a systemwide payments processing upgrade, Smoothie King had been seeking a single payments partner that would provide a streamlined underwriting and approval process, frictionless onboarding, competitive pricing, and centralized support.
Ultimately, Smoothie King wanted to substantially improve the payments experience for both its customers and franchisees. The focus of the company in 2022 is to continue ramping up unit-level economics and system-wide growth through the introduction of new consumer-facing technology, product lines, and tools for franchisee success.