How Toastique Simplifies Payroll & Scheduling With 7shifts Across Its 50+ Locations

 

Eat with your eyes first—that’s the idea behind the gorgeous plates at the fast-casual concept Toastique. But as anyone who’s tried their food knows, it’s more than just a pretty plate.

In 2017, founder Brianna Keefe was inspired to turn her passion for healthy eating—shaped by her background as a Division 1 athlete—into a wellness café concept featuring natural smoothies, juices, and gourmet toasts.

The following year, she partnered with Kyle Izett to open the first Toastique location in D.C.’s Wharf District. Without any marketing, the flagship store brought in $1 million in sales in its first year—proof that Brianna and Kyle were onto something big. So in 2019, location number two opened in Alexandra, VA. 

 

 

By 2020, Toastique opened its doors to franchising—and the growth hasn’t stopped since. Today, there are 50 locations (and counting) across 21 states, which are all driven by the same mission: “To make healthy eating approachable, accessible, and enjoyable for all.”

Meet Yvis Manrique, Director of Field Operations

As any great company grows, it needs the right people behind it to fuel that growth. Enter: Yvis Manrique, Director of Field Operations—and a Toastique franchisee herself.

After spending 12 years at a corporation, Yvis was ready for a change: “I knew it wasn’t something that I wanted to do forever.” So, she took a two-year sabbatical to figure out her next steps. At the time, she was also facing some health issues, and decided it was time to live a healthier lifestyle. 

 

 

Along the way, her business partner discovered Toastique, and Yvis immediately knew it was a perfect fit: “It’s not only something that I would eat, but I can offer it to other people—to the world. It’s very hard to find a healthy concept right now that’s on the go.” She adds that this is especially the case when working a corporate job, where busyness tends to take over the everyday. 

So, Yvis and her business partner became the first franchisees to bring Toastique to Florida. And her personal success with the brand led her to take a leadership role with the brand’s corporate team. Today, she helps franchisees thrive as the Director of Field Operations—using her background as a franchisee herself to help others. 

We sat down with Yvis to talk about how 7shifts has supported the growing franchise brand with all its scheduling, payroll, and communication needs. 

The problem: Fragmented systems & inconsistent operations

Before adopting 7shifts company-wide, Yvis explains that there was no consistent platform from store to store for restaurant operations. The corporate office used Heartland to pay its employees, while Yvis adopted Homebase at her store for scheduling and payroll purposes. And a few other franchisees opted for QuickBooks to pay staff.

Among all the different platforms, Yvis highlights the biggest pain point:

“What they didn’t have was that they didn’t integrate with CAKE.”

“It was very difficult to pull reports for sales vs. labor or things like that because I just had to jump from platform to platform to figure out a formula.” She adds that corporate felt the same challenges with the lack of integration between platforms.  

The solution: 7shifts for payroll & scheduling—at all stores

After learning about 7shifts’ and its ability to integrate with other platforms, Yvis decided to give it a try at her store. She adds, “When 7shifts decided to add on the payroll, I was actually the first franchisee who jumped right on it. And I tested it—and I loved it.”

Her love for the platform drove her to spearhead the adoption of 7shifts across all stores. 

When she took on a new role in corporate as the Franchise Success Manager two years ago, she says, “Immediately, I was like, ‘Listen, we have to switch this for all stores.’ And we did. I worked very closely with Kyle [7shifts Account Manager] and made the changes for all locations—and made it mandatory.”

 

She adds how the platform eases her role, especially as she oversees the operations across all stores: “If we allowed all of the franchises to pick their own platform, I’m not going to learn all these systems. How do I better train them or educate them? So for me, that was the biggest thing: I know this system—it works. So, if I am the main trainer, it’s better to do it this way.”

 

 

Yvis also highlights the positive experience she had putting the agreement in place: “It was easy. Kyle made it easy. I think Kyle has also learned so much with our team. He has been lovely to work with.”

She adds that the 7shifts team responds promptly when available, and if they’re out, she always receives automatic messages with clear directions on the next point of contact. “It’s been nice working with the team overall.”

How 7shifts helps Toastique with day-to-day operations

Aside from the corporate benefits of having a consistent platform for scheduling and payroll, Yvis highlights more benefits for franchisees, managers, and team members at the store level. Here’s how 7shifts makes everyone’s life easier on the day-to-day:

Time savings for scheduling & payroll

She says that a core benefit of 7shifts for scheduling is “time saved—for sure. It has the templates that you can copy and paste for the next week. It’s just easy to move the employees around.”

“What I love is that you have options, however you want to see it. If you want to see it by teams, if you want to see them all together by station, it’s up to their discretion. But the fact that the options are there is amazing.”

“I find scheduling easy […] I don’t think it takes more than 15 [minutes] to put together.”

 

 

As for running payroll, Yvis says that checking time-clocks is what takes the longest, but it’s up to the operator on when: “Either they do it throughout the week, or they do it the day of payroll day. But as long as your timesheets are accurate, it’s easy to process payroll.” And it’s extremely quick too:

“Once you’ve done time-clocking, it’s less than 5 minutes—probably less than 3 minutes.”

With these time savings, Yvis says that operators and managers can “invest it back into their restaurants.”

 

 

POS integration with CAKE

As the integration between 7shifts and CAKE was one of the primary reasons Yvis chose to adopt the platform, she says, “The pro on the integration piece is that they’re all together—and we can see it all in one platform […] Everything’s in one place.”

She adds, “It has helped big time because it’s easier […] It’s good on the reporting side since all of them are integrated together. It gives you good reporting on your sales vs. labor. And then I love the projections because you could be doing better.”

 

 

Labor management & compliance

Following the integration of 7shifts with CAKE, management can also make more strategic, bottom-line decisions with the reporting. Yvis highlights the strong use case of the budget tool: 

“You’re able to see where you’re targeting, and I always suggest to all teams, look at 7shifts twice a day.” If sales are dipping, management knows they can send some staff home. “Those are the tools that help make these decisions.”

“The more you can tell me how to run my business, the better […] That part has been amazing.”

She also sees 7shifts as a tool that helps stores stay compliant, especially in states with more complicated labor laws, like California. “I love that once you’re setting up an account and you put in your area, it immediately syncs in whatever laws are for that area. And we have learned a lot.”

 

 

Improved communication & employee satisfaction

Yvis also believes that 7shifts has helped Toastique with employee retention because it offers better communication. Aside from the shift feedback feature, she says, “I love the chats that they can have within 7shifts. I feel like those do help retain because when there’s clear communication, then it eases people.”

 

She adds that with the ability to create schedules quickly, some stores publish schedules two weeks in advance—which can further improve employee happiness as staff can plan well in advance too.

 

 

The final word: Leveraging one another for growth

When asked about what led to the success of the partnership between 7shifts and Toastique, Yvis says, “The relationship that we’ve created with [7shifts] has been smooth and easy—the fact that we have both been very open to any changes, knowing that we’re growing. […] They started off as two small companies that have just leveraged each other to grow.”

“7shifts has continued to grow, which has been amazing to see on my side—as we grow as well. It’s been amazing to see how 7shifts is keeping up.” And to end off, she sums up her thoughts with one note: “7shifts has made our lives easier and more enjoyable.”