Yoshi's Japanese Grill Hits The Road With iPad POS And Smart Printers Lighting the Way

Sixteen years ago, Eddee Johansen opened the doors to Yoshi’s Enso Japanese Grill in Salt Lake City, Utah, to serve up Asian-inspired cuisine to local residents. Just two years ago, he decided to share the love, taking the same delicious bites on  the road, with his wildly-popular food truck bearing the same name. But as his business grew, he became frustrated with the technology he was relying on to run it.

He’d been using a legacy point-of-sale system for many years, and was ready for a change. “Our old system was too complex,” Johansen said. “We were spending way too much time programming new menu items and syncing it, and it was so expensive. So we went with an iPad POS that claimed it was made for restaurants, but really, it was made for coffee shops.” That system also fell short.

The Secret Sauce

Finally, Johansen came across an ad for an iPad POS system designed specifically for restaurants in the Utah Restaurant Association magazine. And that turned out to be the secret sauce that set his business up for major success.

“I didn’t need a system built by a bunch of programmers. I needed a system built by users who know my business,” said Johansen. And that’s what he got with Tavlo cloud-based iPad POS restaurant management system by Utah-based Cirra Systems. Jim Ngo, president of Cirra Systems, made Johansen feel at ease right away. “He’s been inside our food truck to check on the system, and when we got busy, he started handing out orders. He knows how restaurants work, and he’s developed a system that’s easy and intuitive.” Yoshi’s uses the same system  in the restaurant and the food truck. “We can train someone in the restaurant and put them in the food truck the next day,” he said.