How The Rendezvous Boosted Direct Orders by 14%

Life Before ChowNow

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, takeout was not a significant part of Rendezvous’ business model. “If someone called to place a takeout order, we would tell them to just come down and place it at the cash register where we’d have it ready in 5 to 10 minutes,” Anna explains. This process was burdensome for customers and deterred people from ordering takeout.

Like many legacy businesses, Charlie Vergos Rendezvous faced challenges adapting to the evolving digital landscape. Their location in a basement, limited parking, and the size of the restaurant made takeout and delivery logistics particularly difficult. While Uber Eats and DoorDash provided a solution, they came with high fees that cut into the restaurant’s already thin margins.

The Rendezvous needed a cost-effective, seamless way to offer takeout and delivery services without compromising customer experience or profit margins. They also wanted to reach more diners.

While ChowNow provided a seamless solution for managing takeout and delivery, it also helped maintain the integrity of Rendezvous’ brand by allowing customers to interact with their website directly. This distinction was especially important for the historic restaurant, as it offered a way to maintain personalized customer relationships. Anna noted, “It just gives us an extra avenue that without it, we wouldn’t have.”

Not only was The Rendezvous able to implement ChowNow without having to make sweeping changes to their backend systems, they were also able to attract 20+ new customers a month through the Order Better Network. ChowNow’s Order Better Network allowed their menu and a direct ordering button to be featured on high traffic sites like Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, and more.

Expanding Their Brand Through Google

As part of the Order Better Network, ChowNow makes it easy for diners to find, browse, and order from The Rendezvous across some of the most popular sites and apps, like Google. When people used to Google The Rendezvous, all of their ordering platforms would come up, including 3rd party delivery platforms that charge high commissions. Luckily, Google recently allowed businesses to select the ordering platform that they want customers to order from, saving them valuable profits.

The Rendezvous selected ChowNow as “Preferred by Business” in their Google Profile, which means their ChowNow ordering link is the first option customers see when they want to make an online order through Google. With this change, diners can now see how the restaurant prefers to accept orders, and they are more likely to order through the preferred channel. This allows The Rendezvous to get more commission-free orders, which ultimately protects their bottom line.