Phat Eatery partners with Popmenu to centralize digital operations while growing online sales

Phat Eatery, a Malaysian restaurant in Katy, Texas, has seen no shortage of press coverage over the last year with their owner and chef, Alex Au-Yeung, being named a James Beard semi-finalist for Best Chef: Texas in 2022. With aspirations to add a second location, the restaurant knows they must continue to deliver a great experience for guests—both in the food they serve and their digital presence. By partnering with Popmenu, Phat Eatery was able to realize a better connection with guests online, streamline their operations, and grow their online sales.

Offering interpretations of regional Southeast Asian specialties, Phat Eatery needed an online ordering system that would be communicative—so as not to sell the food short with a simple text description—and flexible so they can experiment with different specials. Popmenu’s dynamic menu technology, which features online ordering directly on their website’s menus, proves to be an ideal solution as it gives guests access to dish photos and reviews in the same place they order food online. Additionally, the integration with Toast’s POS makes Phat Eatery more efficient, allowing them to add new dishes, 86 items, and adjust prices from a single dashboard.

By combining their creative cuisine with Popmenu’s ordering events, the restaurant creates special menus that can be ordered from in advance and sold for limited quantities. This strategy boosted average ticket sizes  by as much as 190% on holidays like Thanksgiving. What’s more, centralizing these orders in a single dashboard makes it easier for the team to prepare and manage requests.

“We can go to Popmenu and look at what special requests we have and how many items we have sold, so we can prep accordingly. It’s better than going through the orders on our POS one by one. I can even check it on my cell phone with the Popmenu app. That is very convenient for us.”

Phat Eatery’s use of the restaurant tech platform extends beyond the online ordering as they take advantage of Popmenu Answering. With a tool that can answer frequently asked questions with custom responses and send diners a link to place an order online or make a reservation, Phat Eatery’s front-of-house staff spends less time on the phones, and can instead focus on serving on-premise customers. Since launching the tool in August 2022, Answering has fielded thousands of calls for the Malaysian restaurant, with nearly half of those calls being sent a link to place an order online or make a reservation.

‍“I love that Answering syncs with Google and online ordering. When we closed for a couple of days, it caught that change and informed our guests as they called the restaurant. We don’t miss a beat.”

While Phat Eatery’s second location is still in the works, the restaurant is on pace to achieve their goal, due in part to their partnership with Popmenu. By using the robust tech platform to grow online ordering sales and cut down on inefficiencies, Alex and his staff are empowered to flex their creative muscles, provide outstanding service to their guests both on-premise and online, and continue to serve some of the best Malaysian cuisine Texas has ever seen.

*Data was gathered from Ahrefs.com, a third-party website tool that is unaffiliated with Popmenu.

**Industry average open and click rates: 19.7% and 1.3%.