Highlights — TLDR

1. Pioneering Premium Burgers in Belgium: Ellis Gourmet Burger, established in 2011, introduced premium burgers to the Belgian market, offering a new dining experience with fresh, high-quality ingredients.

2. Diverse Menu for All Dietary Preferences: The restaurant caters to various dietary needs, with popular items like the plant-based Beyond Burger and the meat-rich Meatlover burger, emphasizing quality across all offerings.

3. Rigorous Quality Testing for Delivery: Ellis Gourmet Burger ensures that their delivery offerings maintain the same quality as dine-in by conducting extensive testing on packaging and food quality to determine which items are suitable for online orders.

4. Operational Efficiency with Deliverect: To streamline their growing delivery segment, Ellis Gourmet Burger integrated Deliverect with their Lightspeed POS, reducing manual order entry and the potential for errors and simplifying operations across multiple countries.

5. Focus on Customer Experience and Expansion: With Deliverect, Ellis Gourmet Burger has more time to focus on customer service, reducing administrative burdens and planning for expansion in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.

Ellis Gourmet Burger strives to deliver a perfect customer experience.

Finger-licking good burgers 

The story of Ellis Gourmet Burger started in 2011, almost 10 years ago. The restaurant founders’ mission was clear right from the get-go: to serve the very best premium burgers, but on a plate, with table service, and - of course - fresh Belgian fries on the side. By doing so, the brand became the pioneer in premium burgers in Belgium, which didn’t offer any similar fast-casual concepts at the time.

“We put the premium burger on the Belgian map,” says Joachim Verlinden, Chief Marketing Officer at Ellis Gourmet Burger. “In our early years we offered a completely new experience, and innovation is still one of the most important values for Ellis today. We always try to be slightly ahead of the market, for instance with our vegan Beyond Burger. Our aim is to constantly innovate.”

"All our dishes available to order online have first passed an extensive test procedure. We prepare the food, package it, and take it out for a spin. We then adjust our product offering based on the results."

High quality as a central theme

On the restaurant’s menu you’ll find burgers with meat, but also vegetarian and vegan dishes. “Our brand is for everyone, regardless of dietary preferences,” Joachim explains. “One of our most popular burgers is the Beyond Burger, a high-quality, 100% plant-based burger you can find in only a few places in Belgium. One of our guests' other all-time favorites is the Meatlover, for which we use Dierendonck’s meat and know-how.”

“We have high-quality standards for all our different product lines,” he continues. “Turning all our products into premium offerings is extremely important to us. Additionally, we always strive for a top customer experience. We wanted to start with delivery only if we could guarantee our off-premises guests the same quality and appeal as for our dine-in experience.

Simplifying restaurant operations

To be able to guarantee quality for delivery orders, Ellis therefore thoroughly tests how their dishes will arrive at the customer’s home. Joachim: “All our dishes available to order online have first passed an extensive test procedure. We prepare the food, package it, and take it out for a spin - as long as our average delivery times would last. We then adjust our product offering based on the results of the test. Some dishes need to be adapted for delivery, and some don’t even make it to the online menu if we think the quality cannot be guaranteed.”

“Delivery is a substantial part of our sales, and it’s gaining importance,” Joachim continues. “But food delivery is also quite complicated. On an operational level, each delivery platform has its own ordering systems and procedures. And because every software is different, it requires at least some technical experience. In addition, every order that comes in needs to be correctly copied into our POS system.”

“The process can be quite time-consuming, and you can actually make better use of that time to do other things, such as focusing on customer experience. Additionally, it can always happen that one of our employees makes a mistake when copying the order... and once the order leaves the kitchen, unfortunately we no longer have any control over it. That’s why, to simplify our operational flow, we enlisted Deliverect’s help.”

"Before we started working with Deliverect, we needed to configure the different menus on each delivery platform, which can last painstakingly long when you have restaurants in multiple countries." - Joachim Verlinden, Chief Marketing Offer of Ellis Gourmet Burger

More room to breathe 

“Deliverect has given us more room to breathe,” says Joachim. “Thanks to the integration with our Lightspeed POS, there’s now less room for error. We no longer have to refer to different tablets, because every order is sent straight to our point-of-sale system. Our operational flow has become a lot less complex.”

“Before we started working with Deliverect, delivery involved a lot of administrative chores: among other things, we needed to configure the different menus on each delivery platform, which can last painstakingly long when you have restaurants in multiple countries. Next to that, we were also facing fragmented financial reporting, requiring a lot of internal follow-up. Today that administrative burden has been reduced by a great deal.”

“The impact of Deliverect is clear: we can provide better customer service because we can spend more time on what’s important. The lower margin of error further facilitates pursuing a perfect customer experience. Our people are therefore very positive about the collaboration with Deliverect!”

Ellis Burgers for everyone

In 2021, Ellis Gourmet Burger will celebrate its 10th anniversary. The hamburger chain has come a long way, and today it has restaurants in three countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Even in the current difficult climate, Ellis only looks ahead: “We do have expansion plans - there’s no doubt about it. As usual, we are committed 100% to our goals!”