How Lettuce Entertain You's App Transformed Customer Experience

About Lettuce Entertain You 

A family-owned restaurant group founded in 1971, Lettuce Entertain You (Lettuce), owns, manages, and licenses over 130 restaurants across eight states and Washington, D.C. It is the premier restaurant group in Chicago. 

Lettuce founders Richard Melman and Jerry A. Orzoff began with R.J. Grunts, a healthy casual Chicago restaurant. Today, the company has over 60 unique restaurant concepts ranging from fast casual to fine dining. 

The company has prided itself on innovation and creativity since its founding. Each restaurant features a unique brand concept, from menu to decor, that exudes Lettuce's commitment to great quality food and service. A focus on the customer and providing exceptional dining experiences across their various cuisines, brands, and locations is at the heart of the company.

The drives to satisfy customers and focus on creativity and innovation impact Lettuce’s every move, including its investments in technology.

An Early Pioneer in Restaurant Technology

Guest-obsessed Lettuce has been technologically innovative. The company established a loyalty program in 1988 (modeled after an early 1980s airline program), delved into gift cards in the early 1980s, and created a website in 2008. In 2014, Lettuce became one of the first restaurant groups to introduce a custom mobile app for its loyalty program, LettuceEats.

For today's audiences, a mobile solution seems obvious. However, this wasn’t the case when the app launched over 10 years ago. Lettuce Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Bell recalls it was a challenge. “Getting the money for the first app was probably the single hardest thing I ever had to do. Profit and loss in restaurants is low, so there’s not a lot of wiggle room for us to play with … but we were getting to a point where we had about 100 restaurants total, and I knew that we were not connecting with the younger generation.” 

Before the app, users could only join the rewards program by enrolling via pen and paper, after which they would have to present a physical card to earn and redeem their rewards. Surveys showed that customers wanted an easier, digital experience. 

Bell was convinced that if customers had an easy, convenient way to join, the number of rewards program members would triple in the first year and lead to increased engagement. The company partnered with Focused to integrate a new gift card purchase platform into Lettuce’s native iOS and Android apps. By the end of the first year, the number of members more than tripled, the average age of the rewards member was lower, and increased sales reflected a good return on investment. 

A Partner from Day One

Focused CEO Austin Vance partnered with Lettuce (before forming Focused) to create the restaurant group’s first app and has continued to work with Lettuce ever since. Lettuce and Focused base their solid relationship on trust and honesty.

The number one thing that makes us have a successful partnership is the trust we have in each other."

Bell appreciates Vance and Focused as a true partner in that they go above and beyond to find the best solutions for Lettuce. “The solution might not be the one I asked for, but they find a better solution for us,” Bell explains. “They’re willing to question, ‘Should we be investing in this and doing that?’”

Focused gained Lettuce’s trust by taking the time to learn about Lettuce’s business and what’s important to them from a technological standpoint. “I have all the confidence in the world and their abilities,” Bell adds.

Changing with the Times

In the world of technology and particularly app development, six years (2018-2024) is an eternity. When LettuceEats was first developed, building two apps (one for iOS and one for Android) was the industry standard. Even though the app is actively maintained, adding features to both apps, became a costly bottleneck for moving quickly. During this time, cross-platform frameworks were gaining popularity and allowed for the development of a single app for both iOS and Android. 

Bell and Focused were aware of the issues and began the conversation about maintaining both applications in the early 2020s. However, Lettuce was not ready to move forward. 

Of course, the restaurant industry was in flux during this time due to the pandemic. Carry-out, pickup, and delivery became the primary sources of revenue for restaurants with dine-in closed.

Lettuce’s existing app infrastructure (the old iOS and Android) made it difficult to implement native online ordering. So, Lettuce couldn't iterate as quickly as they wanted to keep up with the changing dynamic.

In 2023, Lettuce and Focused engaged in the discovery phase of app development to determine the app’s most important features and how it could better serve Lettuce, which had grown in the interim.

Focused interviewed dozens of diners, executives, and operators to reorient the app around loyalty, diner discovery, and ordering. The process was aimed at determining how to reimagine the look, feel, design, and interaction of the app as well as reevaluating the technology used to develop the app with a focus on more easily adding features and reducing complexity. A popular cross-platform framework, React Native, had gained popularity and cultivated a mature ecosystem of tools to create apps that looked and felt native. For Focused, React Native was an obvious recommendation because it promised to reduce development costs and increase speed to market for new features.

These updates enabled Lettuce to deliver more quickly and create a consistent experience across iOS and Android because developers only had to write code once. Additionally, Lettuce is now able to maintain the app with a modest development team and reduce costs for keeping the app updated.

React Native made our internal teams lives so much easier,” Bell says.  “Processing one code base and utilizing technology that we have on our existing websites makes it easier to implement updates and add new features, and it has improved the experience.”

Another reason Lettuce can maintain the app with a small engineering team is they can leverage their relationship with Focused to make changes to major features. This model is made possible because of the relationship between the two companies. It helps minimize costs and empowers Lettuce to engage in long-term planning.

In early 2024, Lettuce’s investment in technology paid off once again when they decided to add online ordering to LettuceEats. Partnering with Focused, Lettuce leveraged DoorDash Storefront to add a native online ordering experience to drive more revenue through the app. Since Lettuce had already invested in a cross-platform framework they only had to implement the online ordering feature once to release on both iOS and Android. 

Within a few months, online ordering rose dramatically, 30-40%. Total revenue gained from the increase in online ordering during the first year is projected to exceed the cost of the engagement with Focused.

Adding online ordering to the LettuceEats app has been a game-changer for us. It’s driven 30-40% more online orders, and the projected revenue increase for the first year alone will far exceed our development costs."

"The seamless experience keeps guests engaged, makes it easier for them to order directly from their phones, and strengthens their connection to our brand. It’s exciting to see how technology can deepen our relationships with customers while driving tangible results” Bell said. 

Customer Reaction to the New and Improved App

As a guest-obsessed restaurant group, Lettuce turned to its customers for feedback on the new app.

While Bell acknowledges there were short-term growing pains, customers adjusted and the user experience significantly improved: “… after they used it once or twice, they loved the user experience, and they commented how much improved it was.”

Use of the app is now seamless and personalized. Customers can easily see their history of reservations, what reservations are upcoming, their previous orders, their reward dollars, and how they have used previous rewards. Lettuce has seen higher engagement from people who have downloaded the app. 

Other benefits from the new app include increased loyalty, higher engagement, and a stronger brand connection.

Previously, people associated Lettuce restaurants primarily with Chicago, where the company began, yet the chain has a significant presence in other cities and states. Bell explains that customers have told her that through the app they have discovered a Lettuce restaurant in a new location, “It's like this discovery of where we have locations and restaurants.” 

Switching to a React Native app has also helped Lettuce be more agile. Bell emphasizes. “We get things to market quicker, and it's more cost-effective for us.”

Moving Forward

Bell recalls that the success of the original app gave Lettuce the confidence to invest a bit more in the technology. The restaurant group continues to be a trendsetter thanks to its partnership with Focused.

I think our user experience, thanks to Focused, is far superior to any other app,” Bell enthuses. “If you were to look at restaurant apps on my phone now, I would beg you to try to find one that has a better user experience than us. There are some that I like as well, but I don't like any of them better.”

A great loyalty app requires a company to understand what they want to get out of it. LettuceEats didn’t start with everything. Over the years, it was built out and finetuned based on user feedback and the changing market. A great loyalty app also requires the whole team to be fully behind it. Regarding Lettuce, their customer support team and employees are on board and well-versed in LettuceEats so they can help customers.

Finally, it takes a good partner who understands the company’s goals and turns them into reality.

Because of Focused’s innovation, we were able to develop a solution that exceeded customer expectations and establish a long-term relationship. They remain my go-to for all technological advancements and questions,” Bell concludes.