Garabatos
Up to customers' demands and beyond
Thirteen restaurants and 28 boutique bakeries bring consumers in central Mexico the Garabatos experience. The restaurant chain serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, offering a variety of dishes from chilaquiles to salads, sandwiches, meat and fish, and other specialties. The boutique bakeries function as the brand's outlets for its signature cookies, cakes and other unique creations.
Garabatos' boutique bakeries now serve some items from the restaurants' menu, including paninis, coffee and other beverages. The coffee and Italian-style sandwiches have become favorites among the chain's consumers, who have requested these items as a quick bite at the boutiques.
Bleier provided some detail: "Our coffee is a high quality blend from three regions of Mexico. Consumers possess plenty of knowledge these days, demanding the quality that we bring to our boutiques. Paninis are ideal for consumers in need of a savory item, but lacking time to sit for a full meal."
Welcome to e-commerce
Every single process in Garabatos is performed in house, including order deliveries. Nevertheless, in an effort to close the gap between the brand and its customers, as well as incorporate the expanding role of technology, Garabatos offers delivery via online food outlets SinDelantal and HelloFood.
"We are close to integration between boutiques and these e-commerce platforms. In the meantime, our restaurants have already been delivering for quite some time," the executive stressed.
Ingredients: commitment to the customer and to quality
Living up to the Garabatos’ reputation requires the company to bake its own bread and have every restaurant prepare fresh dishes every day. Each restaurant location makes its own sauces and dressings daily and dishes are cooked to order, which means no Garabatos kitchen has room for food with preservatives or chemicals.
Meanwhile, the packaging for dishes and baked goods for sale at Garabatos boutiques ensures product freshness and shelf life.
Garabatos’ policy of strictly forbidding the use of substitutes for any ingredient has paid off, now that consumers have increased their awareness of product quality and origin.
“We use 100 percent natural ingredients. That’s the way we think it should be, considering we rely on chocolate, cold cuts and dairy products for most of our dishes. Our consumers are thankful to us for using high quality products,” Bleier shared.
The importance of training
Staff training is a very detailed process in the company, focused on key aspects such as:
• Product and associated benefits familiarity
• Improved customer service practices
• Translation of customer desires and requests
Training in interacting with customers provides every visitor in each POS a quality experience, guaranteeing repeat business. Grupo Garabatos invests in prospect hires’ evaluation to ensure the right people deal with their customers.
“We do not focus on sales as the ultimate achievement; instead, we strive to find out what the consumer wants the moment they walk into our stores,” the CEO commented.
Steady steps forward
The brand enhanced its presence in central México by opening a large restaurant in Antea shopping center in the city of Queretaro. Under the business group’s strict quality control, the Antea location, even as the farthest from the Mexico City headquarters, has been a prosperous venture. The success of the restaurant in Queretaro brings the opportunity to follow suit with a boutique bakery in the same city, as well as to carefully evaluate the next steps into opening new Garabatos locations in other cities.
“I’m proud of the reception our restaurant has had in Queretaro, as our first location that far from our headquarters. This makes us keen to expand into other states,” Bleier concluded.
