The Challenge
Empire Tea & Coffee, a popular café chain in Newport, Rhode Island, was looking for new ways to serve its growing customer base while staying ahead of shifting consumer expectations. With long lines out the door during peak hours, co-owner CJ Barone knew they needed a mobile ordering solution to keep up with demand and create a seamless guest experience.
The Solution
Empire Tea & Coffee turned to Craver, leveraging its deep integration with Square to launch a branded mobile ordering app. This solution allowed them to stay within the Square ecosystem while offering customers the convenience of ordering ahead and skipping the line.
“Square isn’t just a POS system — it’s an ecosystem. Craver fits right into that for us.” — CJ Barone, Co-owner, Empire Tea & Coffee
Why Craver
For CJ, Craver’s seamless integration with Square made it an easy choice. Orders placed through the app flow directly into their existing Square POS system, with no manual work or extra complexity.
“Our relationship with Craver is very important as mobile is becoming an increasingly important part of our strategy.”
The Results
Since launching their Craver-powered app, Empire Tea & Coffee has seen a dramatic shift in how customers place their orders, with nearly 50% of orders now coming through their mobile app.
“With Craver, our business switched to now all of a sudden being almost 50% or more online orders.”
This shift has transformed their operations — reducing lines, improving service speed, and meeting customer expectations for convenience.
“In previous years, we’d have a line out the door for several hours. Now, through the mobile app, everyone is at the front of the line.”
Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and mobile ordering has become a critical part of their growth strategy moving forward.
