Tevalis and Parogon Group: innovating fine dining pubs with fully connected technology

Requirements

Founded in 2007 with the reopening of the Swan With Two Necks gastropub, Parogon Group quickly expanded with a focus on providing premium dining experiences across nine iconic landmark venues. Maintaining its exceptional service and food soon needed advancements in the hospitality technology in place, as the teams struggled to monitor business performance, stock and allergens, and their integrated platforms.

Considering a completely new digital hospitality landscape involved several key areas. The health and safety of the group’s customers were imperative, and their stock management processes were hindering their customers’ journey. Alongside this, Parogon wanted to innovate their operations through integrations: their legacy EPOS system didn’t have the functionality to enable this. Business reporting, reliable and easy-to-use interfaces, and handheld ordering were also essential to the group’s success.

Ben Allison, Compliance and Projects Manager at Parogon Group, explains that: “Across our nine different venues, we have seven concepts of venues. We found that technology moved incredibly fast and we wanted to find a company to work with that we could have a conversation with.

“We wanted a lot of the integrations. That was the difficulty for us. We wanted to bring in a best in class in various areas, but were struggling to do that.”

Why Tevalis?

The main objectives for Parogon included an improved customer journey, simplified management processes, and sustained growth: these meant that Parogon needed a complete technology ecosystem across each site with the flexibility and scalability to easily expand into new venues. The Government’s introduction of required calorie labelling led to a significant project being conceived: Parogon wanted to link their website and to their stock management tool to update dishes with live and accurate calorie and allergen information.

Key requirements for the group’s new technology ecosystem included: business reporting that provided granular detail and data, a stock management tool that would simplify processes and ensure continuous accurate information, increased kitchen efficiency with kitchen management systems, and handheld ordering technology to increase speed of service.

Ben explains: “When we were looking for suppliers, we narrowed it down to a shortlist of two, and chose Tevalis because we felt that they are a company we could speak to, would listen, and actually work on what we needed.

“A key driver for us was that Tevalis said we could work with the various different integrations that we wanted. When we first put in all the new technology across the board, the team took to it straight away. It’s intuitive.”

The Tevalis Solution

With nine sites in the group and the continuing focus on outstanding customer service and fine dining experiences, Parogon needed a complete hospitality solution. It was also essential for the technology to be rolled out quickly and effectively. Tevalis and the teams at Parogon worked together to create the right ecosystem for the needs of the business, including bespoke developments and new integrations.

The Paragon sites had varying On-Premise needs, but each venue was fitted with easy-to-use EPOS terminals, intuitive TevX handheld ordering technology, and intelligent kitchen management systems. Discussing the solutions implemented, Ben says:

“We decided on kitchen screens; we had always used tab grabbers before. We also introduced TevX handheld ordering; we used to write things on pads. These were a big change: currently, we have 40 kitchen screens and 50 TevX handhelds in total.”

Having access to in-depth data and reporting was critical for Parogon Group, and the management team now has access to this through Tevalis Enterprise modules. Ben explains:

“Reporting is really important and has become more crucial as we’ve expanded. Being able to access financial information that’s accurate and up to date and be able to present that quickly is key as a growing business: the data that Tevalis gives us is accurate and essential.”

Alongside the On-Premise hardware and Enterprise software, Tevalis developed an ecosystem with essential integrated platforms for improved service and simplified processes across Parogon Group. These included reservations management with SevenRooms, integrated card payments with Dojo, management of gift cards with Toggle, collecting guest feedback with Yumpingo, communications platform with Yapster, and viewing reports with Tenzo.

“We were going in with a whole new reservation system and integrated it into Tevalis. We wanted one of the best. We recognised that SevenRooms and the link with Tevalis would maximise revenue straight away,” explains Ben.

“From when the guest books and the server is tableside, they can already see information; as soon as they are on SevenRooms, they appear in Tevalis. We can put information in our servers’ hands tableside in another way without actually having that communication. We’re finding as we go through the whole journey, we come to the end and payment is slicker.”

Benefits

Each of Parogon Group’s iconic venues now has a feature-rich hospitality ecosystem in place, ensuring their customers’ journey is as efficient and engaging as possible. The teams benefit from robust hardware, intelligent software, and industry-leading integrations that all communicate seamlessly and provide essential business performance data. Plus, the flexibility and scalability of Tevalis’ solutions will ensure that future Parogon openings are fitted with technology to ensure their success.

Ben details the benefits of their new ecosystem: “In terms of our whole system, it completely changed when we first put in all the new technology across the board: the team took to it straight away. It’s intuitive. The handheld ordering is like having a POS screen on your table side. The team picked it up quickly.”

One area that initially brought apprehension was the new kitchen management system: their staff were used to traditional paper tickets and were unsure how the technology would work. Fortunately, with support from Tevalis, they quickly recognised the benefits.

“We completely changed: we got rid of the tickets. We’ve found that it was one of the biggest changes that we made that the teams were concerned about, but it was actually really easy,” states Ben.

The integrations were another crucial element for the group’s technology upgrade, and with these implemented across the venues the advantages are huge.

“Tevalis day to day brings us a whole ecosystem that we’re getting from the moment our guests walk through the door,” describes Ben.

“We don’t need to mess around typing numbers into card machines because our card machines are linked straight to all tables via Tevalis. The granular feedback from the Yumpingo integration means we know exactly what customers enjoy.

“We’re now looking at it and know we can maximise this further. I’ve got confidence that the people we’re talking to will help us move it further.”

The comprehensive hospitality implementation will drive Parogon’s business and will evolve alongside them. With plans to expand again, their technology empowers their teams. Ben explains that: “we are intending to expand. We’ve got our tenth site lined up to open. The opportunity that arose to put Tevalis in and then looking back 12 months later, it’s night and day to our business. It really did move things forward. If you’re in a situation where you need to make a change, I would certainly recommend looking at Tevalis.”

“Moving to Tevalis to us was a very good decision. We needed to move on as a business and Tevalis helped us move forward.”