How Fishbowl and Square are changing Australian fast food together

In 2016, uni friends Nic Pestalozzi, Nathan Dalah and Casper Ettelson were searching for a business idea. Their concept, healthy fast food restaurant Fishbowl, quickly became a real-life hit. “We say ‘change fast food, change the culture’ and that’s basically what we’re trying to do now,” says Pestalozzi. “We’re selling food that’s a really high, fresh quality, but it’s at relatively affordable prices, and we’re trying to scale as well.”

Since 2016, the trio have grown Fishbowl from its Bondi origins to 30 stores, with a clear trajectory for future growth. While the business model — beautiful stores and a health-conscious menu – has resonated with Australians, they also give plenty of credit to an important collaborator: Square. Here’s how the two businesses have combined for success.

Beauty and simplicity for staff and customers

Like so many businesses, Fishbowl first found success with Square’s point of sale (POS) system. While the transactional side of Square’s POS is rightly lauded, Pestalozzi found that there were two elements that really boosted Fishbowl: the ease of use for staff, and a transparent, attractive package for customers.

Payment terminals face both staff and customers, and Pestalozzi says that this is a key to its success. ”Facing the staff you’ve got all the different imagery of your products,” says Pestalozzi. “It’s very straightforward so basically anyone can jump on the till and master their way around the point of sale in no time. There’s also that added layer of security whereby the order is facing the customer too. It minimises mistakes, it’s easy for staff to use, and easy for a customer to see and understand what they’re paying for.”

And it might seem secondary, but the aesthetic quality of Square POS has been a seamless fit with the design focus of Fishbowl. “It complements the brand,” says Pestalozzi. “People are pleasantly surprised by how slick and modern and sexy these point of sales are, which makes our brand look better too. That’s why we’re working with Square.”

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Beyond payments: functionality for a growing business

When Fishbowl was just one store in Bondi, it was relatively easy for Pestalozzi and his co-founders to stay on top of business. With significant growth, though, they’ve come to rely on a few key tools from Square to keep track of the day-to-day. 

The Square dashboard, for instance, provides the operations team with live updates on a range of key metrics to make sure each location is staying on track. “We can open Square and it’ll literally tell you that, today, you’re up 5% on last Friday,” says Pestalozzi. “It shows you your top selling items, how they’re changing week on week or month on month, it’ll show you sales and revenue and whether that’s up or down. You can view location by location, you can pick the locations you want to do, you can group them, you can view everything together and it tells you your average spend.”

The kitchen display system (KDS) syncs with the POS, and lets the team drill down into the essential details of how the restaurant’s back of house is operating. “It shows us what orders are coming up in what order and it allows us to have a better understanding of the speed at which we’re delivering food across all the stores,” Pestalozzi says. “Without the KDS system we really wouldn’t have any idea what the wait times are. We need the KDS system to provide insight into stores when we can’t be there.”

Growing together: a synergy of business

The extended functionality of Square — like the KDS and dashboard — is something that has helped drive Fishbowl’s success, but Pestalozzi has seen the mutual benefits of the relationship since 2016. “We were founded around a similar time, so it was quite a good synergy,” Pestalozzi says. “We’ve really grown with Square, because they didn’t start as a brand that knows how to service a restaurant chain.” 

The initial appeal of Square for Fishbowl was the same reason Square had found success with sole traders and market sellers: instant satisfaction. “When we started Fishbowl in Bondi it was like well, this seems easy enough to use, you can literally just get it up on the phone and the next minute we’ve got a point of sale,” says Pestalozzi. “It was so easy to start working with and it looked really slick so it was a perfect alignment for Fishbowl.”

Pestalozzi says that despite Square’s beginnings as an easy payment solution for individuals, and Fishbowl’s humble beginnings with one store in Bondi, both brands have found success with facilitating business growth. “It was really easy to work with, to understand, and it looked really modern,” Pestalozzi says. “We just happened to turn that one restaurant into 30 plus today, so we have obviously grown into a restaurant chain and Square’s grown with us, so they’re also servicing chains.”