About the company
Loren Food Group is a Southern California hospitality group built on a culture-first philosophy — “be of service to our staff first.” Its concepts include Riviera Mexican Cantina, an oceanfront, Tulum-inspired restaurant in Redondo Beach.
Location
Southern California (South Bay)
Number of Sites
7 locations across 4 concepts
Service type / POS
Full-service · Toast (all locations)
$287,000 in tips distributed in a single month · $3M+ in tips paid out per year · 12+ hrs saved per week, per restaurant · 7 / 4 locations / concepts on Toast · 0 bank runs
“After using Kickfin, we would absolutely not go back to cash.”
Owner/Operator, Loren Food Group
Loren Food Group, a seven-location Southern California restaurant group, uses Kickfin to pay out more than $3 million in tips per year directly to employees’ bank accounts. By replacing cash tip-outs with instant, POS-native digital payouts through its Toast integration, the group saves 12+ hours per week per restaurant, eliminated bank runs, and pays staff faster — even on its busiest nights.
For George Loren, running seven restaurants across four concepts comes down to a single principle: be of service to your staff first. “This business is about hospitality — it’s about taking care of your people,” he says. From the oceanfront tables at Riviera Mexican Cantina to every concept in the group, the philosophy is the same: happy teams create better guest experiences, and better guest experiences build the business.
But one nightly ritual kept getting in the way of that philosophy — cash. Counting it, calculating it, driving to the bank for it, and handing it out in envelopes at midnight. Read on to see why Loren Food Group digitized tips with Kickfin — or watch the story of how they modernized payouts across all seven locations.
Restaurants have always run on cash. “You wait tables, you bartend, you get tipped out that day — you’re walking out with cash,” George explains. But as guests moved to cards, phones, and tap-to-pay, less and less cash came through the door — and getting enough of it to pay the team became its own job.
On the group’s busiest days, that job broke down. “On a Cinco de Mayo or a busy day, sometimes servers would have to wait two or three days to get their tips, because we’d have to go to the bank to do a change order,” George says. The paradox was brutal: the harder the team worked, the longer they waited to get paid.
Behind the scenes, closing the restaurant meant math. “We were figuring it out with a spreadsheet and then we added the cash through there — it was a lot of math back and forth, and then there’s discrepancies,” recalls Cynthia Padilla, General Manager at Riviera Mexican Cantina. “Sometimes we wouldn’t be able to tip out the team member at the end of the night, just because we didn’t have enough cash.”
For the team, the wait was discouraging — and the cash itself felt unsafe. “The longest I’d have to wait was honestly a week to a week and a half, especially for event tips,” says Stephanie Pyles, a bartender and server with 25+ years in the industry. “It was discouraging not getting my money the same day, when I knew I worked hard for it.” And walking to the car at close with a pocket full of cash? “If it’s a night shift, walking to your car at night — it’s not great.”
The old way came down to:
George didn’t rush. “We looked at everything — from Toast cards to companies that do it through payroll,” he says. He’d also watched what happened when a fellow operator chose the wrong tool: “A restaurant group, a good friend of mine, went to a program that put tips on a card, and they could only use that card to make purchases. It disrupted the morale of their staff. They had turnover. They had all kinds of issues.”
That’s why Kickfin stood out. Tips go directly to the bank account each employee already has — no proprietary card, no spending limits, no new financial product to sign up for. “It goes straight to their bank account, and they see their cash. They get the notification that their tips have been sent — and it’s immediate,” George says. He didn’t decide alone: “I surveyed my staff. My staff helped me make that decision.”
Even the skeptics came around fast. “I’ve been doing this 25-plus years — I was a little skeptical,” Stephanie admits. “And then my bank account was growing. I like it way better.” For others, it was a revelation. “When I found out about Kickfin, I was honestly shocked — I didn’t know something like this existed,” says Emily Glasgow, a server at Riviera Mexican Cantina. “Directly transferred, almost like Venmo. So nice.”
Because Kickfin is POS-native, it fit the way Loren already ran. “It integrates seamlessly, and it doesn’t take an IT person,” George says. “If we have a correction to make, Kickfin’s customer service knows Toast really well — it’s corrected immediately, within minutes.”
The change shows up everywhere — starting with time. “With Kickfin, we’re able to save about 12 hours a week,” says Cynthia. The math is simple: 15–20 minutes per server, across 50–60 shifts a week, adds up fast. “Now that we have Kickfin, I can focus more on the floor than being in the office.”
That reclaimed time goes straight back into the guest experience — and the numbers back it up. “Last month, we distributed $287,000 in tips through Kickfin,” George says. Across the group, staff collectively earn over $3 million in tips a year — and every dollar now moves without a single bank run. “Kickfin has allowed us to spend more time with our team, developing those moments and improving their tip percentages through training,” George says. “It creates success for the staff. And if your staff is happy and making good money, the restaurant is making good money.”
For employees, the wins are personal. “Getting my money right away makes everything easier — but the most important thing for me is budgeting,” says Emily. “It’s way nicer knowing the exact amount I’m getting after a shift.” And the digital record does something a cash envelope never could: “If you’re going to buy a car, or apply for an apartment, it can actually prove how much money you make — not just what’s on a paycheck stub,” George notes.
Across the operation, Kickfin delivered:
Loren Food Group uses Kickfin to send tips directly to employees’ own bank accounts the same day, calculated automatically from its Toast POS — no cash, no bank runs, and no proprietary pay card.
The group distributes $287,000+ in tips in a single month (over $3 million a year) and saves roughly 12 hours per week, per restaurant, by eliminating manual tip math and cash handling.
Owner George Loren chose Kickfin because tips go to the bank account each employee already has — no card, no spending limits, no new financial product — after watching a pay-card solution hurt morale and drive turnover at another restaurant group.
Yes. Kickfin integrates natively with Toast across all seven Loren Food Group locations, calculating tip pools automatically and letting managers push same-day payouts in seconds.
“It creates success for the staff. If your staff is happy and they’re making good money, the restaurant is making good money. Kickfin is one of those things that allows us to do that.”
Owner/Operator, Loren Food Group
