Choosing a POS provider can be hard work: Most restaurant operators painstakingly research their options before reaching a decision. But some, like Mike and Niko Frangos of Rascal House Pizza Café in northeastern Ohio, still wake up in the aftermath of an expensive technology purchase hooked up with the wrong partner.

“In 2003, we installed 11 new POS stations in our main store in downtown Cleveland,” says Mike Frangos, Rascal House president. “Then we installed another six stations in a second store. But we could never get the system working properly with our menu and pricing.”

Mike and his wife, Fouly, had opened their first Rascal House restaurant in downtown Cleveland in 1980. Over the years, the concept had evolved into a strong brand, strategically positioned in the fast casual market. Their restaurants had specific operational needs that the POS they had chosen could not fully meet.

Remarkably, Mike and Fouly built their first thriving restaurant where two fast food giants had failed. In 1980, they took over a Dairy Queen and Burger King that were going out of business, right across the street from Cleveland State University in downtown Cleveland. In the next few months, they transformed the fast food outlets into a popular pizza place.

Rascal House’s first customers were university students looking for a place to hang out and fill up. In fact, the restaurant was named tongue-in-cheek after “those rascals, across the street.”

“The secret of my parents’ success was their exceptional attention to their customers,” says Niko Frangos, Mike and Fouly’s son and Rascal House vice-president. “They really valued being in the restaurant, working with the customers, and building relationships.”

Rascal House provided arcade games, tasty food and the right atmosphere for the university crowd. Two years after the restaurant opened, students at Cleveland State University voted Rascal House the best off-campus eatery. The reputation of the restaurant grew among the larger community and Rascal House became famous throughout Cleveland.

By popular demand, two more company restaurants opened in 1994 and 1995. And after 2000, three franchise stores joined the Rascal House family.

Over the years, the Rascal House menu has expanded from their signature pizzas to include wings, subs, salads, and pasta. To serve the business clientele in their area, the Frangos also developed an extensive line of catering dishes. “We’ve got the word ‘pizza’ in our name, but we’re not your standard pizzeria,” Niko says. "We’re not just a pizza store with other stuff added to the menu. We’re really four restaurants in one.”

“If you’re comparing us to dine-in restaurants, our competitive advantage is speed: We can prepare a large order very rapidly, and deliver a quality product. If you’re comparing us to other pizza places, we stand out with the quality of our products and the diversity of our menu,” he explains.

It is because of that diversity that Rascal House needs an uncommonly flexible POS solution. SpeedLine provides what their other POS could not: Powerful delivery features, configurable printer routes, and a deferred order system that enables Rascal House to streamline their large catering orders.

In pizza delivery, speed is essential. Orders must fly in and out the door. “SpeedLine’s menu layout at the order stations is fully customized and straightforward,” Niko says. “Our staff can ring up orders efficiently and accurately.”

“But above and beyond that, the delivery and dispatch functions of SpeedLine are very, very important to us. The system shows us which tickets are out and which ones are outstanding. It gives us the ability to better handle our deliveries and better manage the whole process.”

Rascal House integrates MapPoint with their SpeedLine system. “It’s very helpful, especially in the suburbs when we have new drivers,” Niko says. “They can map their routes and figure out where things are.”

Rascal House has recently integrated their online ordering site with SpeedLine, through OrderLink Gateway. “Tickets used to print separately on a fax machine and we had to enter them manually into the POS,” Niko explains. “The fact that they now go automatically into SpeedLine makes the whole process simpler and smoother. We eliminate one possible hiccup along the way. It’s one less thing that can go wrong!”

Relationship Marketing — Targeting Email & Direct Mail Promotions

This is a new twist on an established strategy: The chain is already using the information in their SpeedLine customer database to send direct mail pieces to their customers. After a recent renovation in their downtown location, for example, they planned a mailing to invite people to drop by and see their new look. They’ve also recently joined SpeedMail, SpeedLine’s turnkey marketing program that provides weekly, automated mailings to targeted customer groups.

“We use the information in our SpeedLine database to build relationships with our customers,” Niko says. “We’re not into constantly bombarding people with coupons and offers. But we like to be able to stay in touch to say thank you for their orders, or to send a special promotion, or to let them know what goes on in our stores.”