An online,
neighborhood community
SERVICES
Services
Business coaching
Strategy
Media planning and buying
Digital production
Design
A trendy, creative, gourmet, restaurant with a flexible online service.
Creativity and efficiency combine to make this one of the more popular eateries in this neighbourhood. It is looking to expand to surrounding areas while preserving its identity as a simple, delicious, authentic place for lunch.
The pandemic created challenges for this local eatery and they came to &CO to find a solution. We proposed developing an online ordering and delivery service.
Olive + Gourmando opened its doors in June 1998 when Montréal’s culinary landscape lacked diversity. Visionaries and purists, Anglo and Franco, Dyan Solomon and Éric Girard set out to reinvent lunchtime for Montrealers'. They would open an exceptional daytime kitchen that defied expectations. A menu that would turn this basically functional meal into an experience.
More than 20 years later, O+G is now a well-established gourmet bistro, a favourite of Montrealers. A breakfast and lunch stop renowned for its inventive and satisfying daytime cuisine.
Olive + Gourmando hired &CO to develop an online business platform allowing them to extend their reach. The idea, initially launched with the aim of growing and expanding their market, quickly became a contingency plan following the lockdowns due to the pandemic.
Challenges
- Rapidly build a transactional site that could support O+G’s complex business model, with changing menus, variable inventories, fresh products and multiple delivery options.
- Most restaurants run on older operating systems which are often difficult to adapt to current online ordering systems.
- How to improve the offer through the continual flow of service?
- Olive + Gourmando's reputation is built on its personality: unpretentious service, warm décor, and the mouth-watering presentation of its signature dishes. But how could these mostly physical assets be experienced online?
SOLUTIONS
- &CO worked with O+G to develop a strategy and then produced its online ordering service.
- Olive + Gourmando's website and storytelling were revamped to better reflect the experience of the physical restaurant and expanded to integrate the e-commerce platform to provide a holistic customer experience.
- With limited existing solutions that could meet these needs, &CO developed an e-commerce platform synched with Maître D, a full-service POS solution, that allows for frequent and simple changes to the menu, managing customer reviews and integrated secure online payment through Paysafe.
- Once the transactional site was launched, our team created an effective media campaign to announce the news to the widest possible range of gourmet customers. All within a limited budget.
Process
- For O+G, &CO is more of a business coach than a technology provider. The team brought relevance and consistency to the development of the brand image and communications.
- &CO developed the storytelling of the restaurant and its artisans to bring the personality and soul of O+G online. The history of the restaurant, the trajectory of its founders and the local atmosphere focused on the human attributes of O+G.
- &CO and O+G collaborate constantly and are always looking for ways to improve O+G’s online presence. New services and features have recently been added to the site, including Twin Jet bike delivery and a function that limits the number of orders per item for better inventory control and to offer more customers a fulfilling experience.
- The « From Home to Home » campaign, featuring the delivery of home-cooked gourmet meals, has attracted a new clientele outside of tourism.
- The campaign was rolled out on proprietary media as well as on various paid media such as banners on geo-targeted fine dining sites and paid advertisements using the keywords "restaurants near me". This enabled O+G to quickly reach a new and interested customer base leading to growth.
Implementation of the strategy
- In the physical restaurant, the gourmet presentation of the dishes, the seemingly casual, but in fact finely tuned service, and the beautifully illustrated blackboards, all combine to create the experience customers expect from O+G.
- To recreate this feeling online, &CO worked with an illustrator who adapted the familiar tabloid drawings on chalkboards by combining them with visuals that are meaningful for O+G. The result conveys O+G’s human, urban and gourmet attributes. The team was very proud of the result.
Results
- A new clientele requiring success and growth management with the reopening of the dining room.
- Sales increased by 15-20%, maintained since the reopening of the dining room.
- &CO and O+G are still working together to develop and plan the next steps in the evolution of the brand.
