How Impact Kitchen Supercharged Scheduling and Minimized Labor Costs with 7shifts

Impact Kitchen began as the brain-child of two health enthusiasts in Toronto and quickly grew into a trendy, upscale restaurant with 3 locations in a bustling city. 7shifts has been with Impact Kitchen from the beginning to improve efficiency in scheduling and keep team communication streamlined through expansion. This is their story.

The Story Behind Impact Kitchen

Impact Kitchen is an upscale, fast casual and dine-in restaurant with 3 locations in Toronto, Canada. The unique spot was started by Josh Broun and Frank Toskan who met and built a relationship the years as personal trainer and client. In their previous career ventures, Josh was a personal trainer and nutrition expert, and Frank was the co-founder of MAC Cosmetics. Over the years, they discussed how there weren’t many fast, healthy places to eat and drink. It was hard to find quick food that fit into their lifestyles. This sparked the idea for Impact Kitchen, and when Josh pitched the idea to Frank, he loved it.

Impact Kitchen has made a mark in Toronto and stands out because of the unique concept and the fast-casual/dine-in combination—customers can easily either grab and go, or stay in and dine. Protein-packed power bowls, a gluten-free kitchen, and a paleo/vegan-friendly menu are only a few key reasons why Impact Kitchen has an advantage against their competitors.

Beyond their healthy menu, the amazing customer service at Impact Kitchen has guests coming back time and time again. Being very particular about ingredients sourced for the restaurants, they work closely with farmers and suppliers to ensure their ingredients are fresh, local and organic.

Impact Kitchen + 7shifts

Assistant Restaurant Manager, Rachel Westelaken, has been working with Impact Kitchen for a couple of years and recently moved from the original King Street location to the Adelaide Street location which opened in May of 2018. Her Assistant Manager role consists of managing inventory, ordering, scheduling and training. Rachel began as a server with Impact Kitchen and quickly grew with ground-up knowledge in different aspects of the business.

From the first day she worked at Impact Kitchen, Rachel received her schedule via 7shifts. Impact Kitchen implemented 7shifts from the beginning, over 3 years ago, and it has immensely helped efficiency in creating schedules and communicating with staff. With the talks of expansion, they knew they needed something that would help assist with scheduling and communication—not to mention a way to manage time-clocking with 7punches.

“I’ve used 7shifts from day 1 working at Impact Kitchen. It is extremely user-friendly.” says Rachel. “Even something as simple as changing a shift from one person to another is very straightforward.”

Rachel loves using 7shifts due to its ease-of-use and robust reports. Prior to working at Impact Kitchen with 7shifts, she worked at other restaurants that had the headache paper scheduling processes.

Rachel uses 7shifts every day in her position as Assistant Manager.

Her daily tasks usually involve:

1. Logging in and checking the time punches using 7punches, 7shifts’ integrated time-clocking app
2. Checking the Manager Log Book for any important notes made from the previous day to make sure everything is in line for the new day.

“I cross reference my schedule to the time punches and then check the Manager Log Book. I’m in 7shifts every day.” says Rachel. “When I sit down and focus, I can do a 3-week schedule in an hour.”

7shifts has really helped Rachel and Impact Kitchen manage labor in creating their staff. “Usually labor cost is around 9-10%, but that fluctuates with sales. We aim to keep it under 20% on any given day,” says Rachel. The schedule is pretty set and there isn’t much fluctuation from day-to-day which makes it easier to predict.

“7shifts is always there, and that’s what I like about it. There’s no excuse for you not be at work, because we all have a phone and it is always there.”

Rachel Westelaken

Rachel’s favourite thing about 7shifts is the fact that the software is extremely user-friendly, which makes creating a schedule fast and simple. “One of my favourite features is being able to drag a shift on the schedule to another person if I need to move things around. That saves me a lot of time,” she says.

“In 7shifts, I can communicate easily to staff every day, including important things that I need my managers to be on top of.”

Rachel Westelaken

The Future of Impact Kitchen

Down-the-road plans for Impact Kitchen include the new 3rd location in Toronto which is set to open up early 2019 in Toronto as well as 4th location in Miami to open sometime in 2019. They are also in the process of making vast improvements to their coffee and beverage program—stay tuned!

Rachel’s advice to peers in the industry is to “Stay on top of your scheduling. Never leave it to the last minute, and if you can get it done weeks in advance, do it.”

“You’ve had a hectic week and haven’t had time to sit down and commit to creating the schedule. You get called to the floor – which can keep you from really getting the schedule done. Close yourself in a locked room for 30 minutes, go into 7shifts, and get it done.

Rachel Westelakeneid