City Barbeque
WEB + ONLINE ORDERING + APP + LOYALTY
BRINGING AN AUTHENTIC SMOKEHOUSE FEEL TO A FAST-GROWING BBQ BRAND’S ONLINE EXPERIENCE.
From day one, everything at City Barbeque has been smoked on-site. Today’s nationally recognized BBQ brand began as one hardworking local joint, serving up regional barbeque specialties from across the country. Fifty locations later, they faced a new challenge: how could they bring some of the sensory experience of smoked-on-site BBQ to their online ordering process — and make that process as smooth and seamless as possible?
THE STRATEGY
Complexity is the enemy of online decision-making. City BBQ had been using white-label apps through Olo and Punchh to present their menu options — but without any customization from those platforms, their menu felt closer to overwhelming than irresistible. Many customers were abandoning the online ordering experience and calling in orders instead.
Hathway got to work on envisioning a new path forward. With the help of seven stakeholder interviews and three creative workshops, a strategy emerged:
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Start with the website, then continue the transformation across their native apps and web ordering system.
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Take their extensive menu and build an easy-to-navigate digital version that creates an intuitive and seamless experience across the website and apps
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Let the food speak for itself with mouthwatering imagery for every menu item.
The ordering flow, all the way from “Oh, that looks good!” to placing the order, benefited from third-party user testing, too.
THE RESULTS
Rethinking the presentation of the menu gave City Barbeque room to showcase what’s special about their food. It’s not just the main dishes: It’s the whole experience, created with the help of sauces, sides, modifiers, and everything else a diner would see at their local restaurant.
THE INNOVATION
City Barbeque also came to Hathway with an integration of the Radius Flybuy service for geo-tracking. That’s now made the native app experience even better for everyone. Restaurants can see when customers are approaching their location, which helps them time their expediting accordingly. It creates a more seamless curbside pickup experience for the customer, too.
Best of all? Because it’s all built on NomNom, City Barbeque can now easily update and customize everything whenever new menu items warrant shaking things up a bit.
