O'Brien's Riverwalk Café capitalizes on busy Chicago summers with GuestCall café pagers and Motorola CLS 2-Way radios from HME Wireless
Running a successful restaurant is a monumental challenge, even under the most ideal conditions. Now imagine that your restaurant is seasonal, all-outdoors, and needs to make every sunny day count. On top of that, there's a dual entrance setup that makes keeping track of waiting customers and their seating options, difficult at best. And did we mention that you're located on downtown Chicago's famed riverfront, where huge lunchtime crowds are a given?
These were the challenges facing O'Brien's Riverwalk Café before they came to HME Wireless for its GuestCall café pagers for restaurants and Motorola CLS 2-Way Radios. For the first few years along the riverwalk, O'Brien's made due with pen and paper, while hostesses had to walk the entire length of the 200-foot long restaurant to communicate about seating options. Eventually manager Caitlin O'Brien knew she had to do something about it. "It just wasn't efficient," said O'Brien. "And it resulted in some unhappy customers."
O'Brien was inspired to try café pagers after a trip to San Antonio, where she noticed that "just about all" the establishments on its riverfront were using restaurant paging systems. After some comparison-shopping, she settled on a GuestCall wireless paging system and Motorola CLS two-way radios from HME Wireless, citing a good price and her satisfaction with a "very helpful" rep.
Today, hostesses at O'Brien's Riverwalk communicate instantly via Motorola CLS 2-Way Radios, and customers are more relaxed about waiting, knowing they'll be paged as soon as a table is ready.
"Our customers feel more respected now because they feel that they're being taken care of faster," said manager Caitlin O'Brien. "They've also complimented us on the professional look of the pagers."
O'Brien's Riverwalk is right across from Trump Tower, and attracts a diverse mix of international visitors, business types and families. Sunny days bring the crowds out in droves, and now that O'Brien's is using pagers, guests can feel comfortable taking a stroll to enjoy the weather while waiting for a riverside table. At the same time, the busy hostesses are happy to do a lot less running.
"We're always improving, looking for things that we can do better," said O'Brien, "and this is a step in the right direction."
"We're excited and honored to see a well-known establishment like O'Brien's Riverwalk choose HME Wireless for their restaurant paging needs," said Russ Ford, Vice President HME Wireless.
For more information on guest paging solutions for restaurants and complete on-site paging solutions from HME Wireless, call (866) 611-4202 or visit www.hmewireless.com.
