From Hole-in-the-Wall Espresso Bar to a 30 Location Nationwide Franchise
From humble beginnings as a Sydney CBD espresso bar, Piccolo Me have grown in the 10 years since opening their doors, both in size and ambition. What was once a tiny, piccolo-sized hole in the wall is now a family-run empire of 30 locations with outposts covering the entire Greater Sydney area and beyond and they’re just getting started.
Business Type:
Quick service cafe
Products Used:
Lightspeed POS
Lightspeed Delivery
Lightspeed Insights
Lightspeed Inventory
Lightspeed Payments
Locations:
30 with 20 more on the way in 2023
Challenge
During the first few years of trading, Piccolo Me adopted many tech solutions from different providers to combat any issues they had, and this approach worked for a time, but a need for a more unified system was apparent.
In short, they needed the separate components of their tech to be able to talk to each other and for that improved communication to inform them not only where their business was thriving or failing, but also why.
Solution
Piccolo Me took the bold choice to start again with their tech and Lightspeed provided them with a suite of products that bring their ecosystem into one, central platform, giving them valuable insights into how their business is going from anywhere at any time.
With Lightspeed, Piccolo Me were able to consolidate their tech stack by bringing everything into one platform. They’re now able to monitor the performance of their multiple locations and tweak their operations to suit each particular cafe’s needs and easily open new locations with Lightspeed’s simple setup and 24/7 support team on hand to help.
Room to grow
With Lightspeed’s easy setup, Piccolo Me are able to expand their business with confidence. Backed by the data gained from Insights, they can see what works in each location and tailor everything to suit their needs.
“Being able to log in remotely and help with issues has been a great help for (the franchisees). If we've got an issue, we've got a team here that fully supports it and they also know that the Lightspeed support help chats are there for them 24/7, so having that peace of mind for them is also really good.
“The more data we collect, we can start picking better locations, we can start looking at times to open when to close. We've always used data to simplify a menu as well.”
“What we love about Lightspeed is that the people at the top actually care about us. We haven't become a number, we feel like we're part of a bigger family.”
Charlie & Roy Hachem, Co-founders