SpotOn, a leading restaurant technology provider, has helped modernize the technology behind Tito’s Tacos, the hard-shell taco stand that has served the original recipe since 1959 and counts celebrities like Jack Black and Jim Harbaugh as fans. The Culver City quick service restaurant now runs an average of 800 orders a day on SpotOn’s point-of-sale platform and online ordering system, replacing a legacy system that had run out of room to grow with the business.

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AI Summary

Tito’s Tacos hasn’t changed its menu in nearly seven decades. What did change is everything behind the counter: Tito’s replaced a legacy system with SpotOn’s restaurant management system with a photo-based ordering screen and the ability to update the menu in real time for a restaurant serving close to 800 orders a day.

The pressure every independent operator is feeling

Even as labor and food costs keep climbing, demand hasn’t disappeared. Restaurants remain consumers’ top discretionary spending priority, with 53% dining out in the past week, according to the National Restaurant Association. That mix of real cost pressure and real demand is what makes operational efficiency the lever independent operators can pull when raising prices isn’t an option. Tamale entrées, for instance, have dropped 7.8% on U.S. menus over the past five years as labor costs outpace what operators can charge, according to Technomic data reported by Fox News. Tito’s hard-shell tacos are hand-fried to order and sit in that same harder position, so any efficiency gain has to come from operations, not the food.

For years, Tito’s ran on a legacy point-of-sale system that had reached its limit. The screen didn’t have room for new menu items. Equipment breakdowns took months to resolve, and even a small menu change had to be routed through support and could take up to a week to process.

Menu control for restaurant operators right from their phone

“With our previous system, we ran out of space on the screen. There was no way we could have added more items or modifiers to the menu,” said Wilman Medina, Director of restaurant operations at Tito’s Tacos. “Now, SpotOn gave us the control to change anything ourselves right from our phone, without having to call support and wait.”

SpotOn replaced Tito’s aging software with a photo-based, categorized ordering screen built on SpotOn’s point-of-sale platform, giving staff a faster way to move through high-volume orders while giving Medina direct control over the menu.

Tito’s also uses SpotOn’s restaurant analytics software to track ticket times and order volume. The restaurant’s roughly 35-person crew clocks in and out through a Spanish-language interface, a small detail that makes a big difference where English is a second language for many staff.

The restaurant has fulfilled orders as large as 700 tacos in a single ticket, often for nearby film and TV productions, using just a crew of three to four people. On a typical day, staff process around 800 tickets, with lines of 25 to 30 customers forming before the doors open at 11 a.m.

“We’ve been in business a long time. We didn’t want to change our operation or food, just how fast we run,” said Wirt Morton, owner of Tito’s Tacos. “SpotOn’s point-of-sale gave us the efficiency and control we needed. That kind of support matters when you’ve been open every day since 1959.”

Why this matters for independent restaurants

Tito’s has no second location and no corporate efficiencies to lean on — every operational gain has to come from the tools in front of its own staff. That’s the position most independent restaurant operators are in, and it’s the gap SpotOn is built to close.

“Tito’s Tacos has run the same recipe since 1959 and never needed a rebrand to prove it works,” said Zach Hyman, co-founder and co-CEO of SpotOn. “What they needed was a system that could keep up with 800 orders a day without a corporate team behind it. That’s exactly what our team built for them, and it’s what we’re built to do for every independent operator taking on chains with ten times their resources.”

Sixty-seven years in, Tito’s Tacos still serves the same tacos it always has. What’s changed is the operation and technology supporting the restaurant that’s modern enough to keep up with a restaurant named the number one burrito in the country by The Daily Meal and featured on Food Network’s list of the best restaurants in America. Restaurant owners and operators looking to stay true to their recipes and legacy, while evolving their operation can learn more at spoton.com.

About SpotOn

SpotOn is a leading restaurant and financial technology company that helps operators run smarter, more profitable businesses. Known for its flexible, cloud-based restaurant management system and 24/7 support, SpotOn offers a complete point-of-sale with online ordering and reservations, labor management, AI-powered P&L analysis, and access to best-in-class integrations. SpotOn builds restaurant technology designed for peace of mind and delivers it with hospitality. For more information, visit www.spoton.com

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