Japanese restaurant drives more revenue with Popmenu
Teppanyaki Time earns 7x returns on online ordering offers
Teppanyaki Time, part of the Lucky Dog Mountain Hospitality Group, set out to bring authentic Japanese cuisine to a small Georgia mountain town. A challenging goal considering the tough market conditions they had to navigate: opening a restaurant at the height of the pandemic, closing the restaurant for a limited time due to staffing shortages, and supply-chain issues requiring chefs to travel four hours to a farmer’s market to access authentic ingredients. Yet, the Japanese kitchen proved its resiliency and came out on top using Popmenu’s direct online ordering, marketing suite, and phone answering tools to keep customers (and online orders!) coming through the door.
With online ordering living directly on their website, Teppanyaki Time can both avoid third-party online ordering commissions—saving them an estimated $2,200 a month—and collect guest contact information. That data is foundational to their marketing strategy as the restaurant uses it for email communications inviting guests to leave a review, wishing them a happy birthday, or offering them a discount they place another order.
By providing offers on online ordering, such as $2 off when guests leave a review or 15% off takeout orders, Teppanyaki Time has seen over $7.7k in revenue in 4 months—7x the value of discounts given. What’s more? The Japanese eatery attaches offers to smart messages—emails that send automatically after guests perform specific actions—saving their team precious time on email marketing efforts while still keeping their restaurant top-of-mind with guests.
In addition, the restaurant was able to save time with Popmenu Answering, which reduced the number of calls their staff had to answer while supporting their marketing efforts.
"The phone was ringing off the hook and became too much for one person to handle. That's why we invested in Popmenu Answering. It would take a little bit off our staff's plate so they could give the in-person guests the best service possible."
Teppanyaki Time uses Popmenu's AI phone answering assistant to field calls and provide answers to common questions with information from the restaurant's website or with custom responses, which can create opportunities to highlight events or special dishes. That includes sending diners a link to place an order online. Half of guests who called in the last ten months were looking to place an order and got the service they needed, without the staff having to ignore on-premise customers.
The Lucky Dog Mountain Hospitality Group continues to see great success as they prepare to launch their 5th concept later this year. The continued growth of Teppanyaki Time has proven that not even a pandemic, labor shortage, or supply-chain issues can stop a successful restaurant launch, especially when using the right technology tools.
“Having [Popmenu] as a consistency with all of our restaurants makes everything simpler for us. I think it sets us apart.”
Data Points
$4.1k
in revenue from email marketing
3,187
calls answered
35
hours saved from speaking on the phone
$70k
in online ordering revenue from Answering
