City Barbeque has been proudly serving the flavor of America since its first joint in 1999. Since then, they have expanded to 61 locations in 8 states (and counting!). We were able to sit down with Bryan Meyers, the Chief Information Officer for City Barbeque, and hear about the evolution of his restaurants and see what’s in store for 2023.
A smooth digital ordering experience is key for City Barbeque, as 40% of their sales are digital orders, and customers spend two times more when ordering online than ordering in-store. Flybuy was introduced to their tech stack to ensure that incoming digital orders were prioritized based on the exact arrival time of the customers and delivery drivers. Moving from a First In First Out model to a First Arrived First Out (FAFO™) model, enabled City Barbeque to boost overall food freshness and customer satisfaction. In fact, City Barbeque was able to decrease their average off-premise wait time to only 44 seconds! Faster handoffs = happy customers = repeat visits!
Third party integrations with DoorDash and UberEats were important to City Barbeque, so they can get their food to the hands of the end-customer quickly. By eliminating wait time for drivers, they can be in-and-out fast, and the end-customer can enjoy a fresh, warm meal as they would if they were dining in the restaurant.
There has been incredible growth after implementing Flybuy for City Barbeque, including a 5% increase in digital sales. In addition, Flybuy has driven 4,300 new/unique City Barbeque mobile app downloads. If each app user places just one app order, that would be $232,000 in additional revenue! While adding to the top line, Flybuy also enables ESG efforts, specifically sustainability, which positively contributes to the environment. With a 60% reduction in curbside wait time, City Barbeque has avoided over two tons of CO2 emitted from idling vehicles from entering the environment.
As City Barbeque looks forward, they are excited to grow their footprint and expand their number of joints. They are looking for ways to use technology to prioritize customer service for the off premise channels, in the same way they serve and create happiness for dine-in guests.They are also going to explore additional endeavors with Flybuy, including new technology in the drive-thru, proximity-based marketing, integrating Olo Expo, and further optimizing their program for third-party delivery drivers.
