The Sam’s Riverside and Tevalis partnership: innovation with beautiful river views

Are you looking to expand your restaurant business but unsure if you have the right technology in place to succeed?

For multi-site restaurants with unique business models, there are many factors to consider when opening a new site:

• Is your EPOS provider flexible enough to grow alongside you?
• Will new staff learn the hospitality systems quickly and easily?
• Do you have a comprehensive digital landscape to cater to all areas of your operations?

The Sam’s Riverside and Tevalis partnership: Tevalis has over two decades of experience in providing essential EPOS, Enterprise, and Integrations technology to hospitality businesses worldwide, whilst one of our longstanding and highly valued clients has recently utilised our scalable and reliable solutions to expand and expand and adapt their operations…

Innovating the fine dining scene

With some of the best river views in London, Sam’s Riverside boasts a vibrant restaurant, bar counter dining, outside terrace, and private dining room for locals and visitors to eat in. Their business model is based on offering a modern Anglo-French menu comprised of food and drink sourced from small artisan suppliers, including Cobble Lane, Chalk Stream Farm, Neal’s Yard Dairy, Sciascia Story Bakery, and more.

Sam’s Riverside has been hugely successful since its first opening in 2005, and its business has expanded with Sam’s Larders: these delis-cum-shops are an extension of the restaurant, selling hampers, homewares, gifts, cards, and their iconic frozen range which is lovingly prepared by Sam’s Riverside chefs.

We spoke to Sam Harrison, the Founder and Owner of Sam’s Riverside and Sam’s Larders, to discover how Tevalis has impacted his business and supported their expansion and growth through the years.

What were the main requirements and functionalities needed for your Sam’s Riverside and Tevalis EPOS system?

We needed a solid system that could function in a high-volume restaurant like ours, with an intuitive user interface which integrates with our card payment provider and booking system. We wanted a system that could provide accurate reporting and a reliable stock module.

Why did you choose Tevalis as your EPOS, Enterprise, and Integrations provider?

Tevalis is one of the few systems in the market that can be fully adapted to all types of businesses thanks to its flexibility that fits any style of operation. For a multi-site business like ours, Tevalis was the obvious choice for us. It works very well in our restaurant as well as our Sam’s Larders shops – two different businesses but fully centralised.

How has the overall process, from initial consultations through to installation and Go-Live, been for Sam’s Riverside and Tevalis?

Throughout the whole set-up process, we have been supported by the team at Tevalis. After the initial consultation, we received precise and clear instructions on what to do from the project management team, who scheduled our preferred method of online training sessions for all the Tevalis Enterprise modules. It was great to have an in-depth look at how Tevalis operates before going live – the demo was a fantastic tool to use to play around with every setting and function. On top of that, the communication was excellent across each department, especially the support team who were always ready to answer any questions we had.

What are some of the key benefits experienced by you and your team regarding the Tevalis on-premise hardware?

The hardware looks modern and sleek, and our tills don’t take up too much space. They also fit in with our overall design and are visually pleasing. We find them user-friendly, very responsive and fast, even during our busiest services.

What are some of the key benefits experienced by you and your team regarding the Tevalis enterprise modules?

There is a report available for any kind of data you need. The list is quite extensive, everything can be exported in various formats including Excel, which is great for data manipulation. The reports are accurate, and you can easily pull a large number of information from them. The key to any successful business at the moment is efficiency and cost saving wherever possible. Tevalis allows us to look at every hour of the trading day individually and deep dive into what is working and what isn’t. Then we can tweak menus/ offerings/ stock levels and of course staffing levels. Quick business decisions are vital, but they have to be based on accurate information.

What are some of the key benefits experienced by you and your team regarding the Tevalis integrations?

One of the best integrations we have is with our booking system SevenRooms. Tevalis can track all our guests’ visits and record every transaction and spend per head that will be saved into our guests’ profiles for internal review. The integration with our payment provider also speeds up the payment process at the table, which removes the need to close tables manually and simplifies the split of any amounts with less margin for error.

What does the future hold for Sam’s Riverside and Tevalis?

When we first started working with Tevalis it was for our stand-alone restaurant site. By 1^st August 2023, we will have 3 restaurants and 3 shop sites. Tevalis is integral to our growth and expansion and I see this as a very long-term relationship.