Fiesta Restaurant Group Enhances Curbside Pickup Experience with Radar

Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc. is a renowned restaurant company that owns and operates the Pollo Tropical brand. Known for its rich history rooted in great food, hospitality, and warm service, the company has established a strong presence in the restaurant industry. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift in customer ordering behaviors posed significant challenges for the company. To maintain its reputation for quality service and freshness, Fiesta needed to adapt its operations to provide safe, convenient, and seamless ordering experiences for its customers. This led to the implementation of a Curbside Pick-up service for mobile users, which, despite its initial challenges, was significantly enhanced with the integration of Radar's location-based solution.

Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc., the owner and operator of the restaurant brand Pollo Tropical, faced significant operational challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a shift in customer ordering behaviors, the company needed to adapt to provide safe, convenient, and seamless ordering experiences that maintained their reputation for quality service and freshness. In response, Pollo Tropical quickly implemented a Curbside Pick-up service for their mobile users. However, the initial solution had many gaps that led to poor customer experiences and operational difficulties for restaurant teams. The lack of visibility into the customer’s Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) made it difficult for restaurant teams to effectively prioritize order preparation between various order modes such as in-store, curbside, and delivery. This often resulted in longer customer wait times and compromised food freshness. Customers were also often unsure of whether they needed to call the restaurant, engage with the app, or park in a designated area. The Fiesta team was under pressure to launch an enhanced curbside experience as quickly as possible.

Fiesta selected Radar to address the gaps of a non-location based solution, leveraging trip tracking and flexible geofences for all Fiesta locations. When a customer places an order, trip tracking initiates a trip in Radar, generating real-time customer ETAs for the Fiesta team. Once a customer enters a restaurant’s geofence boundary for a pickup, an arrival event triggers a notification providing timely curbside instructions to the customer. This location-enabled service empowers staff to manage time and orders effectively and ensures a more convenient experience for customers, who no longer experience the frustration of having to call the restaurant to retrieve their order. Furthermore, new insight into their average wait time and contributing factors across locations enables the Fiesta team to optimize further and continue to build brand loyalty. The solution was built alongside existing tools like Olo, Punchh, Xpient, and OneSignal, and Radar's entire solution fit into Fiesta’s existing technology stack by adding a critical location layer. The Radar team worked with Fiesta's mobile agency and Radar Solution Partner, Bottle Rocket, to design and engineer a delightful order and curbside pickup experience for every Fiesta customer.

• The integration of Radar's location-based solution significantly improved the operational efficiency of Fiesta's Curbside Pick-up service. The real-time customer ETAs provided by the solution enabled restaurant teams to effectively prioritize order preparation, reducing customer wait times and ensuring food freshness. The solution also eliminated customer confusion about whether to call the restaurant, engage with the app, or park in a designated area, as an arrival event triggered a notification providing timely curbside instructions once a customer entered a restaurant’s geofence boundary. Furthermore, the new insights into average wait times and contributing factors across locations allowed the Fiesta team to further optimize their operations and continue building brand loyalty. The solution was seamlessly integrated into Fiesta's existing technology stack, adding a critical location layer that enhanced the overall customer experience.

• Fiesta was able to complete development in just two months thanks to the ease of integration and support from the Radar team.
• The solution provides real-time customer ETAs, enabling effective order prioritization.
• The location-enabled service reduces customer wait times and improves food freshness.