How Otter helps Fukuryu Ramen increase efficiency and order volume

Fukuryu Ramen increases efficiency and order volume with Otter

"For the skeptics out there, I suggest you 'try otter.' You won’t regret it.”

Overview

Fukuryu Ramen, a restaurant concept created by Southern Japan’s best Ramen companies, first opened its doors in March 2014. Originally located in what’s regarded as the food capital of Australia, Melbourne’s very own Chinatown, the restaurant was an instant success amongst locals, tourists and foodies alike. Fukuryu Ramen was born from a passion for flavor-packed authentic ramen, with the intention of sharing Japanese soul foods with the masses. Owner-partner Jeff Tsao, an alumni of the Culinary Institute of America and The Ohio State University, brought the concept of Fukuryu Ramen back with him to Columbus, Ohio – a test market and melting pot overflowing with innovation and evolution. The first US location of Fukuryu opened on Lane Avenue in Upper Arlington, and from there, Tsao quickly went on to open a flagship store in Dublin’s downtown urban center, Bridge Park. 

What makes Fukuryu’s ramen so special is the time and detail put into crafting each bowl. All soups are made in house, which is true for every location around the world, but the noodles themselves are distinctly regional: produced and pulled locally to a standard of specs for optimum texture and chewiness, with top-quality toppings ordered from local vendors to ensure freshness and flavor.

In 2020, Fukuryu Ramen expanded its footprint to include a ghost kitchen location in downtown Columbus, Ohio, to serve the surrounding area through delivery. Read on to learn more about what Jason Lam, Creative Director & Head of Marketing at Fukuryu Ramen, has to say about succeeding in delivery with Otter.

The situation

“Almost one year after launching our downtown ghost kitchen and working with numerous third party delivery services, we struggled to find an order aggregate partner that met all of our needs. We were approached by an Otter representative and discussed not only key features we value in a product, but the need for a real-time client success executive and IT support, should something come up – and the team at Otter has certainly delivered on these promises.” 

The Solution: Sending orders from delivery platforms straight to the kitchen with Otter's Revel POS integration

“The process of transitioning from our current service to Otter and the integration with our Revel POS system was seamless.”

“While all we did was provide them with key credentials and access to our system, the onboarding and integration team took the lead and orchestrated the complete setup of our online third party menus onto Revel; all while closing the gap of confusion between all four of our third party delivery services by ensuring all items, modifiers, and prices were the same across the board.”

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“Within the first week of launching Otter at our ghost kitchen, we saw an increase in order volume and our kitchen team loved the ease of using a single tablet for all of our delivery service providers.” 

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“The ability to close storefronts individually or all at once, easily view order and customer information, and instantly deactivate items that become unavailable for all services were key features that Otter is able to provide.” 

“We were able to fully integrate Otter into the operations of all of our stores within a month of our initial launch, and have never been happier with a cross-functional partner that is able to deliver results on streamlining our POS-operations. The Otter tablet alerts our team of incoming orders, with tickets and receipts automatically being pushed and printed to our KDS and POS – sometimes even before the alert goes off!”

Partnering with Otter's support team to expand Fukuryu's reach and revenue

“The real-time support via the tablet and sense of urgency and strong communication the Otter team has is ultimately what sold us on pushing this out to all of our locations. Any hiccups that we do experience are resolved shortly after occurring, and we have developed a strong relationship with our dedicated integration representative – who is quick to answer all questions and look into any occurrences that happen on our system.”

Results

“I can say with great confidence that getting started with Otter has been one of the smoothest setup and transition processes that I have experienced in restaurant operations.” 

“Our team is also quite happy with the single Otter tablet provided instead of trying to keep up with four different service tablets. For the skeptics out there, I suggest you 'Try Otter.' You won’t regret it.” 

Support Fukuryu Ramen by ordering from their restaurant on Uber Eats, DoorDash, Caviar & GrubHub.