With SimpleOrder Acquisition, Upserve Digs Into Back-House Operations

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In a year that’s been marked by consolidation across the hyperlocal marketing space, Upserve’s recent acquisition of SimpleOrder should come as no surprise. It mirrors another hyperlocal acquisition announced just this week: full-suite marketing company Cheetah Digital’s purchase of loyalty specialist Stellar Loyalty.

The full-service restaurant management platform’s purchase of SimpleOrder, an inventory management solution, allows Upserve to expand its suite of products aimed at the restaurant industry. 

“Upserve’s vision was to help to provide a solution that enables restaurants to thrive by providing a single platform that connects the whole house,” says Andrea Kayal, chief marketing officer at Upserve. “SimpleOrder was the perfect fit to bring this vision to life with their focus on restaurant back house operations, including inventory management, allowing our customers to achieve profitability at warp speed.”

Part of the new acquisition involves rebranding SimpleOrder as Upserve Inventory, a solution designed to help restaurants streamline operations with tools for better control over back-of-house operations, like real-time food costing, automated inventory management, and one-click purchasing. Upserve Inventory is integrated into Upserve’s platform.

Upserve CEO Angus Davis anticipates that customers using Upserve Inventory will be able to save 30 to 50 hours each month, and report 5% to 8% improvements in their margins.

One particularly interesting component of the new Upserve Inventory platform is the “buy local” feature, which allows restaurants to expand their purchasing beyond the big mainline distributors and source from local, niche food, and beverage distributors. Kayal says that while mainstream distributors are generally much easier to access, they can be expensive or offer less variety to restaurants. In this case, automatic inventory management allows restaurants to quickly procure local foods from hard-to-reach or unique vendors.

“The ability for restaurants to buy locally allows them to be less reliant on the mainline distributors,” says Kayal. “Not only can they source local and provide true farm-to-table, but they also have more leverage to negotiate prices.”

Restaurants using Upserve Inventory will also be able to view, in real time, which ingredients are being plated or wasted and manage vendor relationships by sending orders digitally to suppliers. Restaurateurs can manage multiple restaurants with a “central kitchen” and track deliveries through a mobile app.

SimpleOrder customers—which have run the gamut from burger chains to Michelin star restaurants—will now have access to the Upserve Inventory platform. Outside of the United States, SimpleOrder will continue to operate as SimpleOrder by Upserve.

Restaurants using Breadcrumb POS by Upserve—the product of another Upserve acquisition in 2016—will be able to use Upserve Inventory as well. Just like with the acquisition of Breadcrumb, this new acquisition of SimpleOrder is a strategic decision by Upserve to expand its suite of offerings and become a central point for restaurants managing their front- and back-end operations online.

“Upserve is focused on being a one-stop shop for restaurateurs to reach profitability, faster,” Kayal says. “Our platform allows restaurants to receive valuable insights from both the front of house and the back of house without using a third party, allowing them to better manage their business.”

Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.

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Stephanie Miles is a journalist who covers personal finance, technology, and real estate. As Street Fight’s senior editor, she is particularly interested in how local merchants and national brands are utilizing hyperlocal technology to reach consumers. She has written for FHM, the Daily News, Working World, Gawker, Cityfile, and Recessionwire.