How The Kookaburra Coffee Brews Better Operations With 7shifts + Square POS

 

When owners Megan Vidal and Spencer Hooker opened the first Kookaburra Coffee nearly 13 years ago, it wasn’t part of some master plan to build a nine-location brand. In fact, it started much simpler than that: two college graduates who quickly realized corporate life wasn’t for them, moved to a quiet beach town in Florida, spotted a 400-square-foot space, and thought, “This would make a great coffee shop.”

Both had worked in restaurants through school—mostly bars—so they knew hospitality. But they also knew they weren’t ‘late-night bar people’ anymore. Early mornings, beach sunrises, and a warm cup of coffee felt a lot more like home. So they leaned into it. The name, The Kookaburra Coffee, is a nod to Spencer’s Australian roots (he’s a dual Aussie-American citizen), which inspired the cheeky, laid-back vibe that now defines the brand.

 

 

And what started as a tiny shop grew into a fast-scaling operation with nine locations across Florida. As they expanded, the realities of scheduling and paying more and more staff quickly became complex. And like many growing hospitality brands, the early systems of handwritten schedules taped to walls simply couldn’t keep up.

That’s when they found 7shifts.

We spoke with Megan about how she uses 7shifts alongside Square POS in her day-to-day operations to schedule smarter, simplify payroll, and create a smoother experience for her team.

Before 7shifts: Juggling systems that couldn’t scale

With fast growth comes the need for systems that can keep up. By location number two, their manual processes quickly became unsustainable. Megan shared some of the challenges they faced before adopting 7shifts, including:

Time-consuming schedules: “I very distinctly remember my first manager, who took over the schedules for both locations, sitting down and handwriting these two schedules. It was taking hours.”

She adds that with coffee shops, oftentimes, they’re hiring students whose availability is all over the place. And while paper schedules may feel sufficient with one location, “as soon as you get into multiple locations… You just cannot do it. In today’s climate, people’s lives are very dynamic.”

Manual tip management: Plus, their previous payroll provider couldn’t handle the complex tip-sharing structure across different roles. She explains, “We have baristas who tip pool during the day, and then we have delivery drivers who we tip out.” 

“We were manually breaking down and entering everybody’s tips every single day, which is a lot of work.” 

Outdated onboarding processes:  She adds that the previous payroll provider was “limited in a lot of things, and their onboarding process of being able to send documents was just very antiquated. We were doing so much by paper. And there’s just no reason to be filling out an I-9 and W-4 via paper at this point.”

“We were having so many issues with the onboarding, and just how messy and frustrating that process can be for us on the back end… It was just becoming this really friction-forward process that sets the tone for this new job that they’re coming into… It was frustrating for us on our end, but also frustrating for the new hire.”

The solution: 7shifts for scheduling, payroll, tips, and onboarding

Megan knew there had to be a better solution. A quick Google search led her to find 7shifts for scheduling, which she decided to test out. That was over a decade ago.

“It just had a lot of really simple features and seemed pretty easy to learn. And so we just jumped into that with both feet, and we have not looked back.”

As the product grew, she eventually adopted the full-suite solution (with payroll, tips, onboarding, and more) across all nine locations of The Kookaburra Coffee.

 

 

How The Kookaburra Coffee uses 7shifts + Square POS

One of the main reasons why 7shifts works so well for all the stores’ operations is its robust integrations with their Square POS. When asked about the experience of connecting the platforms, Megan says, “It was so easy. I think it took a minute—and then all of our sales populated. No problem. It was very simple.”

 

 

And here’s how it all comes together to create better operations for Megan and her staff:

Scheduling with improved labor management 

With 7shifts, creating schedules has never been easier—or more efficient—for managers at The Kookaburra Coffee. Megan explains, “We are running probably nine front of house schedules, three back of house schedules, and two delivery schedules every single week.”

She compares it to the old paper process: “I would easily say you’re going to be saving 4 to 5 hours a week because scheduling is one of the biggest, most time-consuming things that we do.” And that’s per location—across all locations, it’s up to 40 hours saved every week.

 

 

With the Square POS integration, scheduling information is automatically uploaded for sales forecasting. This allows managers to build smarter schedules, making labor decisions based on data rather than gut instinct.

 

 

For Megan, this use case is especially valuable due to the unpredictability of foot traffic at some stores: “The sales forecasting—it’s been pretty cool because we live in a tourist town… Sometimes, there will be a random three-day weekend that all of us forget… When you’re going in to put the scheduling, it’s forecasting that this is going to be a busy weekend.” It acts as a reminder to make sure they’re staffed appropriately.

She adds, “For coffee, you have to be quick and be really staffed for those peak hours. Otherwise, you’re going to lose to some place that can do that… That integration is really helpful to see when those times are going to be.”

Automated tip and payroll data transfers 

Plus, one big standout for Megan is the tips integration. She explains, “7shifts allows us to set up that tip pooling, and then because all the tips are pooled through Square every single day, the algorithm just allocates them out to everybody working that day.” The process no longer includes manual upload after manual upload. 

 

“As long as they’re all scheduled correctly in 7shifts, it’s a seamless process. We don’t really have to do anything except just some quick double-checking. But it does all the mathematics, all the work—it’s kind of phenomenal.”

Not only has it been a whole lot easier. It’s saved a whole lot of time: “Now it’s taking at most an hour, where it used to take 4 to 5 hours every single week… It just seems to work out really well—it is such an easy process.”

 

 

Plus, the integration has led to “a lot fewer errors” for payroll.  Megan says, “It’s much easier to do when all the numbers pull into 7shifts from Square.” Within 7shifts, employees can be assigned different roles—like a barista in training, who receives a different pay rate than a regular barista.

 

 

“We’re able to very quickly move people and assign people to specific job duties that also pay differently, and there’s no back-end calculation on our part… Not only do they properly see it in their schedule, but we are not overpaying or underpaying based on roles, which has been really nice.”

 

 

The final sip

It’s clear Megan would recommend 7shifts to other operators on Square POS. And she does: “I have a lot of friends who I’ve gotten to use 7shifts—and they love it. It’s such an easy process. For every restaurant I’ve recommended [it to], they’re still with it, and they still use Square together.”