Case Study: PixelPoint Turns Restaurateurs Into Resellers

In 2000, after nearly six years of losing between $500 and $900 per month due to order errors, Joe Gore, owner of Three-Zero Caf, the restaurant at the airport in Half Moon Bay, Calif., decided he'd had enough with the old-fashioned way of writing orders and set out to find a POS system to revolutionize the process.

Gore and partner Mark Smith tried a handful of systems and finally settled on the PixelPoint 2000 SQL POS system.

But what happened next surprised even them: The duo liked the software so much that they signed up to resell it elsewhere in Northern California.

"Right after I saw how easy this was, I thought, 'If this system can help me, why can't it help other restaurateurs?' " Gore said. "I guess the rest is history." Gore, a technology neophyte, flew to PixelPoint's headquarters in Toronto and spent a week taking certification classes and learning about Web-based troubleshooting as well as the ins and outs of networking. By the time he came home, Gore was a veritable computer whiz.

Gore and Smith set up a subsidiary called Three-Zero POS to resell the product.

Gore's educational journey even caught the attention of Massimo Crescenzi, account manager at PixelPoint, who said that the company had never seen a restaurateur interested in reselling the solution.

"Typically, restaurant operators and owners are not proficient in the technology or the other skills necessary to close a technology sale," Crescenzi said. "[Gore] was different; from the very beginning, he was able to sit down and talk with other restaurant owners and operators and make them feel comfortable."

Gore and Smith's careers as resellers took off like a Cessna. They bundled PixelPoint POS software with touch-screen computers from Posiflex and J2 Retail Systems, and priced stations for $3,500 apiece. For additional fees, they started selling servers and Samsung printers for the kitchen, all designed to work with the PixelPoint solution. Within months, Three-Zero POS had notched sales at a Greek restaurant in San Francisco, a billiards hall down in Monterey, Calif., and a brewery up north in Walnut Creek, Calif.

Next, in 2003, Three-Zero POS set its sights closer to home—right down the road at busy Princeton Seafood Co., in Pillar Point Harbor, Calif. There, owner Marty Botham had been complaining about the problems with handwritten orders for years, and a POS system he had purchased to alleviate the problem simply wasn't doing the trick.

Botham purchased five touch-screen stations and a server from Three-Zero POS. In a matter of months, the errors disappeared completely. Botham estimated the solution saves him between $100 and $200 a day. What's more, any time there's a problem with the system, Gore fixes it immediately—service Botham has never experienced with any other reseller.

"The PixelPoint system is a sophisticated program written in a manner that most any smart person can [use]," Botham said. "But what I like most about the system is Joe Gore himself."

These types of endorsements are paving the way for Three-Zero POS's next move: Web-based ordering. It has already been installed at The Flying Fish Grill, another Half Moon Bay eatery that Gore and Smith own. Starting next month, when customers place orders on the restaurant's Web site for takeout or eating in the restaurant, the PixelPoint software will send the orders directly to the kitchen printer. This is another effort to maximize convenience for customers and minimize error behind the scenes.

"The Web system is just another way I'm trying to make the system something that restaurant owners will want to buy," Gore said. "The way I see it, anything that makes our lives easier is something other [restaurateurs] can benefit from, too."