North Narrabeen restaurant, Mexicano, is making waves winning in the 2022 Restaurant and Catering Association Award’s contemporary Australian restaurants category.
The restaurant has been recognised for its unique twists on fine dining Mexican cuisine and its delivery of high quality service. Their tortillas are made with duck fat and churned at a rate of around 1200 a day!
Their most popular dishes include its fish tacos made with Ling, pineapple chutney and chipotle mayo, and the pork belly tacos – with crackling, of course!
But what has also helped it reach its status and streamlined service along the way has been the team’s investment in technology and apps to help it run more efficiently and seamlessly.
Ops manager, Stephanie Bull, has led on the changes and the tech has made a huge impact on how the business is run on a daily basis.
The team now has installed the point of sale (POS) ordering app, Mr Yum, which provides online ordering from the table and for take away deliveries, keeps customers updated and sends automated text messages when their order is ready.
“Our customers get a really efficient service and we’ve found it saves us a lot of time.”
Mexicano has come a long way since it was founded by surf and travel enthusiasts, brothers Sean and Kieron Prenter. They came up with the idea after a bout of travelling that wound up in a surfing trip to Mexico. Falling in love with its food and culture, they jumped at the chance to start up their own Mexican restaurant when an empty building came up for rent in Narrabeen.
Stephanie joined the team as head chef for 7 years before coming onboard as an operational manager to help transform the business.
“The technology we’ve incorporated to help improve how the business has had a big effect on the business,” said Stephanie. This was especially so during the lockdowns, but since then, we haven’t looked back.”
During the lockdowns, Stephanie and the team put together cook-at-home packs for customers to easily experience Mexicano’s unique flavours at home.
“Most popular were our canned cocktails, they sold out the quickest!” says Stephanie.
During a time when supplies are often in short supply, due to the Australian floods, the restaurant now uses the app Food By Us, which provides customised and packaged orders of wholesale supplies all in one.
“It means we can order exactly what we need and saves us the time of looking through several different websites for separate ingredients.”
The team hopes to invest in solar energy panels on the building in the future, to save money on energy bills.
Stephanie has plans to expand the restaurant to create 10 new branches over the next 6 years and the tech will continue to play a crucial part in this.
“Without these types of technology in place, we can’t operate as efficiently or as streamlined.
“They will go a long way t to helping us continue to grow; It’s the way the industry has gone now.”
