Customer Stories

Why Tartine Bakery’s Jillian Ressler decided against building her own app

Melanie O'Hanlon
Marketing Associate

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, any foodie has one business that’s a regular stop on their daily routine. For thousands of Californians, Tartine Bakery is their morning “spot.”

Tartine opened its doors in 2005 and quickly became a state-wide favorite. With eight locations spread across San Francisco and Los Angeles, their rich history of “experience and craftsmanship” is part of what keeps guests coming back every day, says Jillian Ressler, Tartine’s Vice President of Brand.

With state-wide demand for its baked goods, how did Tartine double check size from off-premise orders in just a few months — plus, open three new locations during the height of COVID? We sat down with Jillian Ressler to discuss why she went with Bbot’s online ordering tech instead of her original plan of building her own app to increase restaurant food delivery sales and keep up with demand.

Bakers at Tartine Bakery prep baked goods for the day.

Getting started with online ordering

Tartine’s popularity brings an atypical set of challenges for maintaining its menu. Items rotate in and out of stock multiple times a day based on how quickly the kitchen staff can bake and prepare the next batch of goods. This rapid rotation often led to incorrect menu displays and disappointed customers which cut into restaurant profit.

In addition to the ordering challenges for their regular menu, Tartine customers had to go through a complicated process to place speciality orders like cakes and tarts:

“You’d need to fill out a hand-written form 5 days in advance,” Ressler said, “and either send it in via fax or by hand. Then you’d have to wait for someone to get back to you to see if we could actually make that order. There was a lot of friction on the team and guests.”

The bakery had fully built its own online ordering system as a temporary solution to improve the ordering process and increase restaurant food delivery sales. But, because each location’s menu needed high flexibility and hourly adjustments, this restaurant technology solution wasn’t a long-term solution for how quickly Tartine was growing.

Tartine needed more flexibility to increase restaurant food delivery sales — one that spoke to each of their location’s specific needs.The food delivery software they chose needed to let the bakeries own their data and make each guest’s ordering experience personalized. After all, they needed to be able to update what’s out of stock and any new items baked for that morning.

They wanted the platform to appear as a natural extension of the brand, offer a flexible setup for each location, and integrate with their current POS system.

Stats about how Tartine Bakery has improved since using Bbot

Creating a personalized dining experience

Tartine Bakery adopted Bbot’s online ordering and delivery management software in 2020. This tech lets each location easily update its menu throughout the day as products become available, doing away with disappointed customers trying to order an unavailable item. Since the addition, Bbot makes up as much as 20% of daily revenue when polling locations.

Each location can easily see all orders coming into the store, including off-premise, in-venue, and reservations made by guests. This sets the bakeries up for “the opportunity to create a lot of surprise and delight,” says Ressler.

Diners enjoying a meal at one of Tartine Bakery’s locations.

Increasing customer loyalty

Tartine reaches out to customers with email marketing tools to encourage them stop in and reorder their favorites or try something new. According to customer data, Tartine has hundreds of customers who’ve made over 20 repeat purchases each through their online ordering software.

And, these repeat customers are spending more with each visit. At Tartine’s slowest locations; check sizes grew by a 30% average; at the busiest locations, check sizes grew 2.2 times the average check size compared to in-store diners.

Growth, improvement, and community

Tartine Bakery doesn’t just create incredible food and beverages for their guests — they strive to create a community that encourages people to share their experiences and resources with each other.

Ressler says the reason she joined Tartine was the brand’s “commitment to growth and improvement.” The bakery focuses on pushing itself and the surrounding communities forward, with a focus on creating more sustainable products and sharing recipes for their most popular baked goods.

Quote from Jillian Ressler about Tartine’s philosophy for creating a community.

Thanks to Tartine’s new off-premise ordering technology, the bakery continues to thrive as more and more customers begin to call the bakery their “spot.”

Want to learn how Bbot can do the same for your business? Fill out the form below and get started with a free demo!

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