Anderby Beach Cafe brings you a story meant for those who are launching a seasonal business

It’s well known how tempting is for tourists to have their summer vacation in a place where good food, rooms, a beach, and why not some souvenirs are just in front of them. But building such an “All-in-one” seasonal business definitely is not an easy task. Let’s see what tools Jason Foster and his team did in order to conquer the Anderby Greek Beach in the UK.

Why and how did you start your business?

We bought an existing business, a café business with a gift shop and a licensed bar as well, and also sell Ice cream and confiture things. We were looking for a POS software system to encapsulate all the business, including the food ordering and the retail side. It was great to find Loyverse and find something that, first, was free and secondly, was so simple to use.

What is the unique point of your business?

I think because we are a diverse business; we got an inside area where people can come in. Next, there is the beach which is one great thing. People visit the beach so they can sit inside and eat food or sit outside in our garden and have a drink. We also have a gift shop where people can buy souvenirs and if they want an ice cream they can take it to the beach. With the Loyverse system, we can cover all those aspects. People want to order the fish and chips in the bar, so we send them straight to the kitchen; we use the KDS with two iPads in the kitchen in different areas, one area prepares the sandwiches and then cooks the burgers and the fish, etc. Even we have the KDS in a different room for sauces, knives, and forks. There is another one nearby the coffee machine. That display is for hot drinks generally. Also, the CDS, where people can see the ordering; Loyverse just works for us.

The great point is that we can connect multiple KDS as you may know; we could send orders everywhere so everybody knows what’s happening. We don’t have papers anymore, because we can just write comments on the ticket. The paper is quite antiquated.

How do you survive in out-season times?

We’re a seasonal business so we operate between March and November; the wind periods are quiet because there is nothing where we are. We are not in a town or in a city, so people come to visit the beach. Those periods of out-of-season when the weather is not that good, we close. We open a little bit around Christmas and new year's time for the people who want to take a walk. But mostly, we are a seasonal business.

What is the philosophy behind your business?

We want people to enjoy their time. We just use three main words: “Eat, shop, stay”. Because we can feed you, you can buy some gifts, have some ice cream and we provide accommodation as well, so if you want to stay we can give you a nice apartment to stay in here for a couple of days. We just want people to have a good time, we are in a very special place. We are not in the business to take the money and become profitable but also to be kind to the customer.

We’ve got our staff already for a few years, didn’t change it at all. We build relationships without returning customers, so that’s really important.

How did you find us and what features do you like the most?

I was looking for a solution to use for the business in Google. I have found Loyverse and I just used the free side of it and it was always good. But once I found out that it was great for stock control, we can see what we were selling. With Dashboard, we can check the daily sales in different categories and more. All that part is just fantastic. 

For a few years, I have been paying for Employee Management. Our staff clocked in when they arrived so we were able to keep tracking their hours if you don’t have any casual staff then I create a login and they were able to login into the system and clock in on it. So that kind of thing really works for us. The access rights also seem to be complete. Most of the time I give the administrative rights to one of them so they don’t need to keep looking around for me when I’m busy, so I think it works very well.

What would be your suggestions for the development of Loyverse?

I requested a long time ago for the graphics aspect of our logo; we most use seaside blues and think like that so I wanted Loyverse to be able to print the logo in colors as well, not black and white printing. Also to be able to customize the customer display for the bar. To make it more like our colors. 

What would you advise other people who want to become entrepreneurs too?

I have been doing this many times; if the people come in and get their business during Covid times like our business that we were just serving people at the table with just an iPad. And for those businesses who were in a similar situation, I always say to them, “please, go and check out Loyverse. You will be amazed by the things that will do for you and what provides what you could wish for”.

I truly thank you for the design of the system and in general what you have done for us.