Digitalisation and Expansion: The Future of L’Osteria with Lightspeed

The special Italian flair in the restaurants, the basic family spirit in dealing with all employees (or as L'Osteria says, the “Famiglia”), suppliers and guests, as well as the striving for constant development are central components of the company philosophy. L’Osteria is pursuing an ambitious growth strategy in which digitalisation plays an important role in optimising business processes while preserving the restaurant experience. Despite challenging times, the branded catering industry was able to increase its sales by 18.64% in the first half of 2023.

“The interaction of our committed employees in the restaurants, our franchise partners and our employees from the service centres, who ensure our success with innovative solutions and continuous commitment, are largely responsible for this positive development.” said Mirko Silz (former CEO).

The introduction of Lightspeed Restaurant and Lightspeed Payments as well as Lightspeed Advanced Insights is part of the digitalisation strategy to enable long-term growth through innovation.

The cloud-based solution enables a consistently high quality of service both indoors and outdoors, as orders can be accepted and paid for directly at the table using the mobile terminals.

For Johannes Stach, Project Manager at FR L'Osteria SE, the usability of the mobile ordering and payment devices was a game changer: “Not only has the handling of the system improved, the training time for new service staff has also been significantly reduced.” The user-friendly and intuitive interface, which is operated with familiar gestures such as swiping and typing, was well received by employees right from the start.

In addition, service staff now receive more tips on average due to the configurable tip categories integrated into Lightspeed Payments.

Thanks to smooth communication, orders are sent from the terminal to the kitchen immediately after acceptance. This is not only faster, but also ensures that orders arrive chronologically and in good doses. The result is shorter waiting times and more efficient processes in the background. The seamless exchange between devices also ensures that payments always match the data in the ePOS system. This means that invoices don't have to be manually reconciled again at the end of the shift, resulting in lightning-fast end of day closing.

“Since the introduction of Lightspeed Payments, our service staff can spend an average of 2 minutes more time per guest.” said Johannes Stach.

As an innovation partner, L’Osteria is testing the now expanded reports in Lightspeed Advanced Insights in the beta phase. For Johannes Stach, the “Sales Report by Hours” in particular led to new insights. Based on this data aggregated in real time, optimal shift planning can be carried out, for example, as it can be better estimated how many staff are required depending on the time of day. In addition, the success of special promotional dishes or bundles can be measured much better. These data-driven optimisation measures will support efficient operations, particularly with regard to further growth.