Success Story: Pork Barrel Wakes Up from a “Cash Management Nightmare” with Kickfin

Success Stories

Pork Barrel Wakes Up from a “Cash Management Nightmare” with Kickfin

Fast-casual, counter service, bar

About the company

Opened in 2011, Pork Barrel prides itself on being a neighborhood spot for the Del Rey community.

Atmosphere

Three-in-One: This location houses three different concepts under one roof. You can get high quality barbecue, a burger to-go, or a specialty cocktail all within a few steps. 

Number of locations

5

Service type

Fast-casual, counter service, bar

“It’s problematic to continue paying out servers and bartenders the old way, with cash at the end of every shift. But it’s a mainstay of the industry to expect to walk away with your tips every night.”

Bill Blackburn

Co-Owner Homegrown
Restaurant Group

Key Results

  • Accountability: Tip payouts are tracked and recorded through Kickfin leading to fewer tip disputes
  • Money in their pockets: Employees get to leave their shift with money in their accounts, much like they had with cash
  • Time saved: 12 hours of managers’ time saved per week by not counting cash 

Meet Bill. 

Bill Blackburn is a veteran of the restaurant industry and co-owner of the Homegrown Restaurant Group based out of Alexandria, Virginia. At one of their locations, they’re operating three different concepts out of the same BOH. Under the same liquor license and one set of books, you can find Pork Barrel Barbecue, Holy Cow (a fast casual burger joint), and rotating pop up cocktail bars. With three sets of employees and three types of service falling under one financial umbrella, streamlining operations and accounting isn’t easy — and cash was adding to the complexity.

“It was just a cash management nightmare.”

Cash hasn’t always been this much of a hassle. But with very few customers paying in cash these days, Bill noticed that most nights, they owed way more cash to their servers than they had on hand 

“It’s problematic to continue paying out servers and bartenders the old way, with cash at the end of every shift. But it’s a mainstay of the industry to expect to walk away with your tips every night.”

In recent years, managers had begun spending an inordinate amount of time counting piles of cash, counting down safes, or ensuring tips were delivered to servers. And with no record of the cash being paid out, Homegrown Restaurant Group had little recourse to deal with tip discrepancies and disputes.  

Non-negotiables 

Bill and his team knew they were ready to move past cash tips at the Pork Barrel concepts, but they weren’t sure what that would look like. At one of their other restaurants, their servers were receiving all of their tips on payroll bi-weekly. But they also recognized that one of the big benefits of working at Pork Barrel is leaving with cash in your pocket every night. 

“We started looking for what we were calling a ‘Venmo for restaurants’.”

Bill and his team asked their industry partners if they had any leads on a solid digital tipping solution that would have the same benefits as cash without all of the risk. Their U.S Foods rep was familiar with Kickfin and recommended that they give it a try — and Bill felt it was an immediate fit. 

One feature that Bill loved about Kickfin was the immediate payouts: As a former bartender himself, he remembers how great it felt to walk home with money in his pocket. Kickfin takes it one step further by putting the money directly in his employees’ bank accounts, where it’s instantly available and ready to use, 24/7, 365.

Kickfin for employees 

Getting buy-in from your team is one of the most important steps to implementing a new process. Bill presented Kickfin’s cashless tipping system to his employees and gave them the option of using Kickfin or putting their tips on payroll. 

The team embraced Kickfin — and now, servers and managers alike feel confident in their tip outs thanks to Kickfin’s robust, easy-to-use payment tracking. Now, if questions or disputes pop up, managers can reference Kickfin’s digital paper trail to see that the correct amount was paid out and when it was sent. 

Payroll benefits 

Bill’s team especially appreciates Kickfin when it’s time to run payroll. Rather than relying on a spreadsheet to track tips for the pay period (where it’s very easy to make a mistake), managers can run their Kickfin report to see how much each server earned and easily navigate between gross tips, net tips and other views to assist in reporting. 

“Kickfin is easy to implement and easy to use. If you’re thinking about trying it, you’ll be glad you did.”

Bill Blackburn

Co-Owner Homegrown
Restaurant Group

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Rock N’ Roll Sushi Trades Tip Cards for Kickfin’s Digital Tipping Platform

Success Stories

Rock N’ Roll Sushi Trades Tip Cards for Kickfin’s Digital Tipping Platform

Franchise | FSR

About the company

Eric Robison owns all of the Rock N’ Roll Sushi franchise locations in Georgia, opening his first in 2018.

Atmosphere

No California Rolls here. Rock N’ Roll Sushi draws inspiration from rock music and culture. You’ll find interesting sushi rolls like the Punk Rock Roll — and of course, rock music at all of their locations.

Number of locations

Eric Robison owns 7 locations, but Kickfin also serves 21 other Rock N’ Roll locations.

Service type

FSR, Franchise

“One of the biggest benefits of switching to Kickfin is that we don’t have employees questioning their money or worrying about when their tip cards will be ready. [Employees] are confident knowing that money is going to just flow into their accounts.”

Christina Antizzo

Director of Human Relations
Rock N’ Roll Sushi

Key Results

  • Up to 2 hours saved, daily. Admin can quickly upload tip outs to the Kickfin platform, reducing their weekend tip distribution time from four hours to an hour and a half.
  • Simplified transition. All seven locations seamlessly implemented Kickfin with the help of the customer success team. 
  • Employees save money. Employees previously had to pay $1.50 in transfer fees every shift, on top of the cost of transferring money from their tip cards to their bank accounts and ATM fees.
  • Account replenished daily. Rock N’ Roll no longer has to float large sums to their tip-out account on a weekly basis. Kickfin keeps their account sufficiently funded day to day.

Meet Christina.

As Director of Human Relations for all of the Georgia franchise Rock N’ Roll Sushi restaurants, Christina wears many hats. Between recruiting, onboarding, and tip distribution to over 80 employees, she basically has a hand in everything HR.

Trying out cashless tipping

At Rock N’ Roll Sushi, we’ve always been cashless. Originally, we paid tips on payroll, but we were looking for a more streamlined option. We started working with a different cashless tipping platform, which wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as user-friendly nor as streamlined as Kickfin. We had to issue Visa cards to all of our employees, which made things pretty complicated for them. They had to move money around and pay fees to get the tips into their bank accounts to pay bills. 

We weren’t looking to switch from our pay card provider and were kind of complacent when it came to our tip program at the time. We didn’t even realize there could be an easier process, but once we found out about Kickfin, there was no question about switching over. 

We found out that corporate Rock N’ Roll Sushi locations were using Kickfin, so we started looking into it. We checked out an info session and spoke with a few people at Kickfin to dig in deeper. We ultimately decided to make the switch—which went so smoothly. The transition was so effortless with no residual issues or anything like that. 

Administrative issues

One thing that really stood out to me was the ease of adding new employees. When we had a new employee ready to get on the floor and start earning tips, we had to set them up with a new tip card, upload their ID, and have them activate their account. We may not have had cards in stock or run into other issues, so sometimes this process could take up to two weeks, which not only left them without pay but also created a frustrating administrative process. 

If a new employee had gone two weeks without activating their tips cards, we would have to go back at that point and look at their tip earnings and input each day’s tips into their account. Now, I can send new employees a Kickfin invite and start inputting their tips immediately. If for some reason that employee doesn’t get around to activating their account for a few weeks, the money is sitting in a sort of limbo account, ready for them to access. I no longer have to parse through 14 days of tip-out reports and can just run my normal tip-out distribution process instead.

I went over everything with my managers and explained to them how much more efficient Kickfin would be, both for the company and for employees. That’s easy to say since it’s saving them time and money too. Using tip cards, employees were charged $1.50 per transfer to their tip card, and from there, they’d be hit with ATM fees or fees to transfer tips into their bank accounts. With Kickfin, they’re saving at least a dollar if not more each shift, which meets our goal of keeping more money in employees’ pockets. Everyone loves it.  

It was really simple because I’m the only one who pays out tips. Our managers don’t have to worry about it at all. With the tipped employees, we had no issues either. We just send them the invite via text or email, and it takes only about a minute to set up their accounts. And then boom, they have tips going straight to their bank accounts. We had really no issues and no complaints. 

Visibility into tipping

One of the biggest benefits of switching to Kickfin is that we don’t have employees questioning their money or worrying about when their tip cards will be ready. Once they’re set up, they’re confident knowing that money is going to just flow into their accounts. Before, there would be a lot of confusion about the tip cards and visibility, but now we don’t even have technical issues enrolling people with Kickfin.  

We do mention it when recruiting because one of the first things servers will ask is how they’ll be paid. It’s a determining factor for a lot of people in the service industry, whether they’re paid in cash daily, on payroll, or digitally. Servers don’t care about the hourly rate because tips are how they really make a living. It helps us sell them on working at Rock N’ Roll when we tell them their tips will go directly to their bank accounts after each shift. 

Money & time saved

Another huge plus for me was the amount of time I saved. With our previous gratuity management platform, I had to manually enter each employee’s tip amount for the day. It was time-consuming, but also nerve-wracking. God forbid, I’m off by a line and pay tips to the wrong person, so I was constantly double and triple-checking my work. Now, I can upload a spreadsheet to Kickfin, which not only cuts down on mistakes but also the time it takes me to input tips. It went from three or four hours of work down to now about an hour and a half to input tips for all seven locations. 

On a company level, Kickfin has also made a huge difference in our cash flows. Before switching to Kickfin, we would have to deposit funds into our float account on a weekly basis for all of our locations, which could mean a $40,000 withdrawal every Monday, because it’s hard to anticipate how much we’ll need to tip out each week. Some locations are busier than others, and obviously, some weeks are busier, too. Some weeks we’d have to reach out and ask them not to replenish the account because we still had too much sitting there. Other times, the float account would be empty by the time the weekend rolled around, so employees would have to wait until our account was replenished to access their tips. 

Now with Kickfin, we pay out our tips, and then our float account replenishes every single day to bring us back up to $5,000. We never have to worry about having enough (or too much) money sitting in the float account and we don’t have to make huge cash allotments to pay our workers as we balance the budget. I don’t even look at our float account anymore because I know I don’t have to worry about it. 

The transition team

When you’re making a big transition to a new platform, you always have fears and ask yourself, “Is this going to screw everything up? Am I going to have technical difficulties?” And I take it seriously because this is our employees’ livelihood, so you want it to go as smoothly as possible to not interfere with their pay. I normally would have been more stressed, but they would get back to me even with the silliest questions. We had a location that wasn’t quite open yet during our transition, but it would be ready very soon. We had a direct line of contact about this location, and basically, the Customer Success team just needed to know when we’d want the funds. We reached out once it was ready, and just like that, we were able to pull funds and pay employees. I’ve been more than satisfied with the service from Kickfin. 

The bottom line. 

“I definitely credit the Kickfin transition team for being so accessible along the way. Anytime I had a question, I would get a response within five minutes, or I could call customer support to talk through it. The follow-up has been nothing short of excellent.”

Christina Antizzo

Director of Human Relations
Rock N’ Roll Sushi

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North High Brewing Opens 5 New Locations with the Help of Kickfin

Success Stories

North High Brewing Opens 5 New Locations with the Help of Kickfin

Restaurant Group | FSR, Brewery

About the company

Founded in 2011, North High Brewing Company was one of only 7 breweries in the Central Ohio area. Ten years later, they’ve expanded into brewpubs and restaurants across four cities and two states.

Notable sites

While they now brew the beer off-site, the Dublin brewpub serves the flagship and the face of the business.

Number of locations

7  (with three more coming soon!)

Service type

FSR, Brewery

“Kickfin makes a huge difference when it comes to staying organized, making transitions seamless, and ensuring that we’re comfortable with how the business is going before we’re onto the next expansion.”

Jodi Skaff

Director of Finance
North High Brewing Company

Key Results

  • Accountability. Cash never goes missing due to disorganized tipping methods.
  • Happier employees. Managers only spend 15-20 minutes a week on tip distribution, and employees can count on their Sunday deposit.
  • Rapid growth. Balanced books allowed them to open five new locations just in the past year.

Meet Jodi.

Jodi Skaff is the Director of Finance for North High Brewing Company, which has expanded from its original Columbus brewery to include six other brewpubs in Ohio and Indiana. Jodi’s oversight of NHB’s finances has made it possible to scale the business quite rapidly — with five locations opening in the past year and three more on the way. 

As an early addition to the craft beer scene in central Ohio, North High has built a reputation for good beer and classic, midwestern-style menus. At all of the many NHB locations, they exclusively serve North High beer alongside favorites like fried pickles and buffalo cauliflower chunks.

Disappearing tips

Before adopting Kickfin, NHB tipped out their 50 employees in cash – and the disorganization was costing them. With that much cash floating around, mistakes are bound to happen, and NHB was losing money every week. 

Jodi noticed the discrepancies in credit card tips and cash tips, but there was no way to recoup the losses and no accountability. “I think for restaurants, tipping poses one of the biggest risks for money to just disappear,” she said. “You pay someone too much cash and it’s gone. There’s no way to really trace it after that.”

Balancing the books with Kickfin

Jodi has her hands full with keeping seven brewpubs’ finances afloat, and missing money was making it even harder. When North High made the switch to Kickfin’s cashless tip distribution, she said the nightmare was over. “It was pretty much a no-brainer because dealing with cash from an accounting and finance standpoint was a nightmare,” she said. “I always struggled to balance the books and they would never match up. And now it’s a very cut and dry system.”

Not only was Jodi happier with the added accountability, her managers and employees bought into the system, too. Instead of having to come in person to collect tips, employees count on Kickfin to deliver their pay on a regular basis without interrupting their days off.

Jodi says the managers like the system because they no longer have to deal with her. “It’s less frustrating for managers because I’m not coming at them asking why money is missing anymore,” she said.

Scaling their restaurant

As North High grew, the company needed to quickly set up gratuity management systems at each new location. Jodi relied heavily on Derek from the Kickfin team to implement the platform throughout their expansion. “We’ve opened five locations in just the past year and it’s been very simple to just let him know we have a new location and he’s on it,” Jodi said. “He’s great, especially because half the time I’m reaching out last minute and need to get things set up and he just makes it happen.”

Not only has Kickfin supported North High’s expansion, but it also makes it easier to switch employees between locations, and hire new employees–especially now that they have 253 tipped employees. According to Jodi, the system is straightforward and easy for employees to get behind. “It’s so user-friendly for everyone, and I never really get questions about how to use it,” said Jodi.

While cashless tipping didn’t directly cause NHB’s rapid growth, using Kickin has certainly made it easier to scale. According to Jodi, “Balancing the books plays a huge role in our ability to expand. If you’re not super organized and keeping finances in check, you can’t expand as quickly as we have.” Going cashless has made finances much clearer for NHB, ultimately growing their confidence in their business and continuing to grow.

The bottom line

“Expanding is hard enough as it is. You need to set up so many new systems, have to make sure the books are balanced, and using Kickfin to easily pay out tips and check for discrepancies makes a huge impact.”

Jodi Skaff

Director of Finance
North High Brewing Company

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Fifty/50 Restaurant Group Saves Managers 2 Hours Per Shift with Kickfin ​

Success Stories

Fifty/50 Restaurant Group Saves Managers 2 Hours Per Shift with Kickfin

Hospitality Group | FSR, QSR, Bar & Nightlife

About the company

Established in 2008, Fifty/50 Restaurant Group is a well-known, fast-growing hospitality group that operates  establishments across the Chicago area.

Notable sites

Fifty/50 manages the famous Second City theater, a comedy club where many SNL alums got their start. 

Number of locations

14

Service type

FSR, Bar & Lounge, Coffeeshops, Catering

“Tip volume is extremely high across our locations. It used to take our managers up to 3 hours to distribute tips. Since we got Kickfin, I’ve seen end-of-night notes from managers saying it only took them 20 minutes to go through the whole closing procedure. That means our managers get hours back in their shift, every shift.”

Kassie Barr

Administration & Finance Director
Fifty/50 Management Group

Key Results

  • >2 hours saved, per shift. Tips are instantly sent straight to employees’ bank accounts — where cash tips would end up anyway — saving managers and employees time (and reducing labor costs).
  • Rapid setup. Seamless, same-day implementation. No hardware, no learning curve.
  • Unprecedented visibility. Every payment is tracked to the penny. That’s a win for accounting, and it has created a culture of trust with employees.
  • Safety first. Less cash on site and on employees has greatly reduced the risk of theft.

Meet Kassie.

Kassie is the Director of Finance and Administration for Fifty/50 Restaurant Group, which owns and manages restaurants, clubs, bars and coffeeshops across the Chicago area.

That includes the famous Second City comedy club — an SNL “feeder” of sorts that has graduated the likes of Bill Murray, Chris Farley, Steve Carell,  Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert (to name a few).

Cash payouts: no laughing matter.

Tip volume is consistently high across all of Fifty/50’s sites, and for years, employees were paid out in cash. Kassie said cash tip payouts had become one of their biggest operational pain points.

“It’s not unusual for our managers to pay out $20,000 in one evening. That’s $20,000 in cash that they have to count out, bill by bill. Managers were spending four hours in the back office working on tip distributions when they could be out on the floor.”

Cash also set the team up for human error: “If you get a couple of new bills stuck together, you could accidentally pay out an additional $300 or $400 that you didn’t intend to,” Kassie said.

And then there’s the risk of having so much cash on site, night after night: Over the years, Fifty/50 has experienced theft across multiple locations.

Employees were feeling the pain, too.

It’s not just the management team that struggled with cash. Because tip distribution took so long, employees would have to stay late or make an extra trip to pick up their tips.

“We have employees that only work one or two days a week, so if they don’t have time to wait after their shift for tip-outs, then they’d either have to come back on an off day, or wait until they work again,” Kassie explained. “Some people are working paycheck to paycheck, and waiting isn’t an option.”

Safety was also a consideration; employees often left work with hundreds or even thousands of dollars in their pockets.

Going cashless with Kickfin.

“We first heard about Kickfin on LinkedIn,” Kassie said. “I remember thinking, ‘This could be a cool thing to try.’”

There were some reservations at first. Switching to cashless tips felt like a big operational and culture change. And ultimately, it was a big change — for the better.

“It can feel daunting to roll out a new system, especially one that’s so intrinsically involved with payroll, reporting — and also the fact that it would have a direct impact on our employee experience,” Kassie said.

But it didn’t take long for all 12 locations to get on board, and employees quickly became Kickfin fans.

“Our employees were actually relieved to have Kickfin. They value their time, and they like having their funds when and where they need them.”

And of course, life with Kickfin is much easier for managers.

“I’ve seen end-of-night notes from managers saying it only took them 20 minutes to go through the whole closing procedure. That means our managers get hours back in their shift, every shift.”

The bottom line

“We’ll be launching four more sites by the end of 2022, and they’ll be added to Kickfin as soon as they’re up and running.”

Kassie Barr

Administration & Finance Director
Fifty/50 Management Group

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Southern Proper Hospitality Eliminates 4 Bank Runs A Week With Kickfin

Southern Proper Hospitality Food

Success Stories

Southern Proper Hospitality Eliminates 4 Bank Runs A Week With Kickfin

Hospitality Group | Full-service

About the company

Southern Proper operates 23 restaurants. Concepts range from elegant southern gastropub, to Spanish tapas restaurant, to coastal seafood.

Location

Southeastern U.S. (Gyspy Kitchen located in Washington D.C.)

Number of locations

23

Service type

Full service

“We used to go to the bank 3-4 times a week, and we’d walk out with $10,000-$15,000 in cash. Now that we’re using Kickfin, I think I’ve been to the bank once in the past month. As an operator, there’s a sense of security that we no longer need to have that much cash on site.”

Managing Partner,
Southern Proper Hospitality

Key Results

  • Eliminated 3-4 bank trips a week
  • Saved managers 20-30 minutes per shift distributing tips
  • Mitigated risk by reducing volume of cash on premises
  • Strongly preferred by employees over cash/paycard tip payments

Southern Proper hits their tipping point

Southern Proper Hospitality operates 20+ restaurants across the Southeast. Each concept has been wildly successful — but operationally, cash tip payouts were slowing them down. The costs of managing cash management were piling up: frequent bank runs, tedious tip distribution process, lack of visibility accounting issues — just to name a few.

The team knew cash wasn’t going to cut it — so they signed up for Kickfin shortly after Gypsy Kitchen opened its doors in Washington D.C.

“The thing about restaurants is that a lot of the workforce is made up of younger generations. They’ve grown up with technology that provides instant experiences and a high level of convenience — it’s really all they know. Kickfin is a service that’s in-line with what they need and expect: convenience, speed, safety,” 

“So, so easy.”

The SPH team doesn’t shy away from technology. They have software and systems for every aspect of their operations — from POS to invoicing to accounting to payroll.

“Kickfin stands out from the rest of the tech we’re using. This, by far, has been the easiest program to stand up and use.”

SPH explored other digital tip payment options, but none compared to the functionality and ease of use of Kickfin: no hardware, no integrations required, no predatory fees, and as they put it: “You really only need two fingers to make it work.”

Employees are (big) fans.

Cash management isn’t just an issue for managers and operators. It’s a problem for employees too — because really, no one uses cash any more.

“They’re not paying with cash — they’re doing everything digitally. So when we pay out tips with cash, they have to make their own bank runs, too. In the city, they have to take an Uber or walk to the bank and deposit their money before they can use it. It just makes so much more sense to put it in their account where it ultimately ends up anyway.”

The bottom line

By bringing Kickfin to Gyspy Kitchen, SPH transformed its old-school method of tip distribution into an efficient, automated process. They’ve eliminated their need for an every-other-day bank run, and the amount of cash on premises (and on his people) is dramatically reduced.

And — perhaps most importantly — it’s a huge value add to SPH employees.

“We’re always looking to make our workers’ jobs easier and more convenient. We’ve incorporated Kickfin into our recruiting spiel. New hires are like: Great. That’s a benefit to me.

“We were excited to jump on Kickfin, and it’s been a great solution for us. The technology aligns with the way things are done today, especially when you think about the younger generations who make up a lot of our workforce. It’s quicker, it’s safer, it’s user friendly.”

Managing Partner,
Southern Proper Hospitality

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Celebrity Chef Fabio Viviani Puts People First By Tipping Out with Kickfin

Success Stories

Celebrity Chef Fabio Viviani Puts People First By Tipping Out with Kickfin

Hospitality Group | Full-service

About the founder

Fabio Viviani is a celebrity chef, restaurateur, TV host and bestselling cookbook author. He rose to stardom after competing on the reality television competition series Top Chef in 2008.

About the company

Fabio Viviani has created a “restaurant empire,” partnering with other restaurateurs and hospitality groups across the country to launch dozens of concepts.

Number of locations

20+

Service type

Full service, Fast Casual, Bar & Nightlife

“We’ve done cash tips. We’ve done tips on payroll. We’ve tried prepaid cards. None of those keep you competitive with other employers. Kickfin does.”

Shane Farzad

Head of Operations, Fabio Viviani Hospitality

Meet Ken and Shane.

For years, these two hospitality pros have helped drive the success of Fabio Viviani  Hospitality. Shane, Head of Operations, and Ken, who’s launched dozens of restaurants alongside Fabio and on his own, know everything there is to know about restaurant operations.

And — as credit card transactions continued to increase in their restaurants — they knew they needed to resolve their tip payment problem, fast.

“We never had enough cash to pay out tips,” Shane said. “Our managers were constantly going to the bank and coming back with $40,000 of cash in their pockets. It’s crazy.”

Managers also were spending way too much time on the (tedious, error-prone) admin tasks that come along with cash management: counting out cash, divvying up tips, running reports.

But inefficiency wasn’t the only concern.

“Cash was a safety risk,” Ken said. “Our managers were walking around with thousands of dollars in their pockets. Servers and bartenders are leaving with a lot of cash every night after getting tipped out.”

Ken and Shane are the first to acknowledge that hospitality can be a grind. Cash was only making life harder for their team, and they knew it was time for a change.

Kickfin for the win.

When one of their partners told them about Kickfin, Ken says it was “a no-brainer.” They quickly signed up for Kickfin and stood it up across multiple locations.

“There was very little hesitation from our employees,” Ken said. “They were actually more excited than anything else. It’s become the standard.”

Ken and Shane said Kickfin has helped their team:

  • Solve the “cash problem:” All of the hassle and risk that come with cash tips are eliminated with Kickfin. Cash management is streamlined — no more bank runs or tedious tip distribution, and reporting and tracking are simple. Plus: there’s less cash handling, less cash on the premises, and less cash on their people.
  • Keep managers on the floor: Managers want (and need) to be on the floor engaging with guests and overseeing operations — not stuck in the office working on admin tasks, or making trips to the bank. Kickfin allows managers to do the job they were intended to do.
  • Cut labor costs: With fewer admin tasks and more efficient tip payment processes, FVH has realized a cost savings with their hourly workers.
  • Stay competitive with other employers: FVH employees are happy to get instant tips right where they need them — in their bank accounts. 

“Kickfin has become the standard for hospitality tip payments.”

Ken McGarrie

Fabio Viviani Hospitality

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Automated Tip-outs, Excellent Support: Why This Walk-On’s Franchisee Chose Kickfin

Success Stories

Automated Tip-outs, Excellent Support: Why This Walk-On’s Franchisee Chose Kickfin

Hospitality Group | Full-service

About the franchise

Walk-On’s is a leading full-service family sports bar that provides Louisiana takes on game day favorites. As of 2021, Walk-On’s operates more than 50 locations across the country, with plans to open at least 25 more in the coming year.

About the franchisee

Chris McJunkins is an industry veteran who opened Walk-On’s first franchise location in 2015. Chris also operates Cantina Laredo and Windrush Grill, two of Shreveport’s most well-loved restaurants.

Company type

Hospitality group

Service type

Full service

“When you automate anything, you often sacrifice personalization and service. That’s not the case with Kickfin. We love the tech, but on top of that — the level of real, human support has blown our expectations out of the water.”

Chris McJunkins

CEO, Chris McJunkins Hospitality

Chris McJunkins Hospitality had a problem.

Chris is a seasoned restaurateur who operate a number of successful concepts under his umbrella, including five Walk-On’s locations across two states as well as Cantina Laredo and Windrush Grill in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Cash had become a kink in an otherwise well-oiled machine: more credit card transactions meant less cash on hand, so managers were constantly leaving the floor and going to the bank.

Of course, that was in addition to the other cash headaches that their team had grown accustomed to, like accounting and reporting errors, liability and safety issues, and tip disputes.

An employee-approved solution.

In a tough labor market, Chris wanted to do everything he could to keep his workers safe and satisfied. So, when an employee suggested he take a look at Kickfin, he listened.

And when Chris discovered Kickfin could solve their tip-out troubles for good, he didn’t think twice.

“We’re finding that more and more employees are expecting to get paid out with Kickfin,” Chris said. “They want instant payments, of course — but until Kickfin, cash was the only way to do that.”

Chris said he’s been “beyond impressed” with the level of support that he’s received from the Kickfin team. Restaurant owners get a lot of attention from sales folks — but when a deal actually gets done, it’s always a toss-up as to whether they’ll get the ongoing support they need.

“Suffice it to say, Kickfin has exceeded our expectations when it comes to customer service,” Chris said. “Implementation was quick and easy; part of that’s due to the nature of the technology, but it’s also a testament to the customer success team.”

Chris said that his great service experience didn’t drop off after Kickfin was up and running. “Response time is typically within hours or less, and I’m always able to talk to an actual person when we have a question or request.”

“The best place for employees’ earnings is their bank accounts — so why not send it straight there? Kickfin just makes sense.”

Chris McJunkins

CEO, Chris McJunkins Hospitality

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