In downtown New Orleans, Pythian Market stands as a celebration of the spirted and creative community it serves. As a gathering place for locals and travelers alike, Pythian Market features local food purveyors, locally-sourced food and art, and delectable craft beverages. Because of its cultural significance and central location, Pythian Market is a popular area where vendors of all kinds can set up shop.
The Challenge
Because of the multiple food vendors working within the same marketplace, Pythian takes great strides to improve the customer experience. Recently, Pythian had developed its own custom online ordering solution that would allow customers visiting the website to input orders ahead of time for any and all food vendors at once, and then check out with a single transaction.
As they already use Square to accept transactions in-house and they developed their own online ordering solution, they required a third-party solution that was independent of any existing POS software to transmit the online order to the kitchen.
The Solution
Pythian Market realized integrating their custom online ordering software with existing POS software would be timely and costly. They needed a solution from a third party that would be simple and easy to integrate.
After an online search, Pythian Market came across Star Micronics. They began researching the Star Micronics CloudPRNT solution, and quickly realized it addressed their needs. CloudPRNT, compatible with Star Micronics mC-Print3 receipt printer, transmits the order from the online ordering platform directly to the kitchen receipt printer. The mC-Sound buzzer from Star Micronics rings, alerting the kitchen staff of an incoming order and then the printer creates a paper ticket with the detailed order.
Star’s SDKs made it easy for Pythian to build out their software and integrate the CloudPRNT solution. In total, the turnaround was a week and a half, and the installation was completed in a matter of minutes.
The Results
With the Star Micronics mC-Print3 with CloudPRNT and mC-Sound solutions in place, Pythian Market had everything it needed to begin taking online orders from customers. Now, as soon as an order is placed on the Pythian website, the market is alerted to the total order and each different vendor receives an individual paper ticket with the order details.
This solution allows customers to place orders from different food vendors without needing to make individual orders and ring up each transaction separately. They simply need to select which orders they want from which vendors and the total is then compiled and the
order is completed with a single transaction.
Orders received from the website are sent to a central location, who are alerted by the buzzer that an order is incoming. The kitchen can
begin working on prepping the order, and once all the dishes are prepared from all vendors, the orders can be compiled together and picked up by or delivered to the customer.
This process provides greater convenience to customers and vendors alike. Vendors can use the existing Square POS to ring up and process in-house orders, but can also take additional orders from the website without worrying about the transaction step. Since transactions are carried out online, the entire process is faster and more efficient. Pythian Market also received the benefit of full control over data. Since they could customize the CloudPRNT solution and build it out on their own server, all data stays in their system. They are able to keep a log of every print job that has been done, and even see it in real time.
“It has been an extremely positive experience in the few weeks since it has been launched. The mC-Sound helps alert the kitchen staff of incoming orders, emitting a sound before and after the print job—really helpful to not miss any orders,” says Michael DePaolo, Managing Director of Pythian Market. “We plan to install multiple printers at each individual vendor so they no longer have to physically be handed print jobs of the order.”
