Zippy’s Upgrades Its Restaurant Digital Experience

Zippy’s, the popular Hawaiian restaurant chain which expanded into the mainland last year in Las Vegas, has released new digital ordering programs.  

 On Wednesday, Zippy’s launched a new digital experience update focused on pre-ordering on its app and order.zippys.com. When people place an order online at Zippy’s, the amount ordered is higher than when people order in its restaurants, according to Kevin Yim, VP of Marketing and Communications at FCH Enterprises. 

The update by Zippy’s underscores the demand to increase technological advancements in restaurants and improve customer convenience. Hawai’i businesses are responding to mainland trends of increasing digital services like mobile kiosks, direct connection to delivery services and ordering at the table with a tablet.  

The digital update features a redesigned interface, making it easier to order, find favorite items, apply rewards, and view daily and seasonal specials.  

The move allows Zippy’s to have a MACH architecture which stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native and Headless. This allows Zippy’s to use and test different programs at the same time without impacting other programs.  

“We needed this MACH architecture so that we can plug and play new vendors as the world of restaurant technology is fast,” Yim says.  

Some current features include limited items marked ASAP, meaning that they cannot be reserved for multiple hours. Customers can now view and order breakfast items for the next day. Before the update, breakfast items were only available during the scheduled breakfast hours of the restaurant – a feature that was highly requested by customers. 

 “I anticipate that we’ll see a little uptick in breakfast sales as a result of making breakfast available to be ordered anytime, but still only picked up during breakfast hours,” Anthony Meija, VP of Information Technology says. 

While Zippy’s is privately-owned and does not disclose revenue, Yim says the company is slightly above the national average for online orders. He says that as the company looks forward, it is aiming to increase the usage of overall orders.  

The new technology was developed in-house with the help of an outside agency. Yim says Zippy’s is looking to hire more locals who are in the technology field with a desire to return to Hawaiʻi.  

The company is also working with Piʻiku Co., a local non-profit focused on training students interested in technology in Hawaiʻi. Piʻiku interns at Zippy’s have been working on creating a custom cake ordering website for Napoleon’s Bakery that will allow customers to select what kind of cake size, frosting and decorations they want.  

Zippy’s is aiming to improve the holiday meal programs for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s as people order larger portions of meals weeks in advance. Both projects won’t be released until later this year.  

“We look at programs like Piʻiku as not only training the next generation of Hawaii-based tech engineers, project managers or UX designers, but we also look at them as a potential source for recruiting,” Yim says. “So who knows? Piʻiku intern today, Zippy software engineer tomorrow.” 

The restaurant chain’s focus on technology doesn’t mean that it will decrease staff at its restaurants or be replaced completely by kiosks. 

“Service is a big part of our brand. We want to make sure we’re there to help you,” Meija says. “But I do think that there’s an opportunity for more digital to try to get us in line with what other people are seeing.”