Felipe’s Mexican Taqueria began in 2006 with a simple, yet ambitious mission: serve fresh, authentic Mexican food in a vibrant, welcoming atmosphere. What started as a single location quickly grew into a beloved fast-casual brand with multiple restaurants across New Orleans and Florida. However, as the company expanded, managing operations became increasingly complex. With a highly customizable menu featuring millions of possible ingredient combinations, tracking costs and maintaining efficiency across multiple locations became an enormous challenge. To gain better financial insight and streamline its operations, Felipe’s turned to Restaurant365 and completely transformed the way it managed purchasing, inventory, and sales data.
By 2012, Felipe’s had a disjointed tech stack cobbled together over time based on the growing company’s needs. With a fast-casual menu offering millions of possible ingredient combinations, the leadership team at Felipe’s knew they needed a more efficient, strategic way to track costs, standardize recipes, and improve profitability across all of their locations. Felipe’s Director of Development and Finance Pike Howard wanted better visibility into financial data. He began to search for more efficient systems that could keep up with the restaurant’s growth and solve the following challenges:
Howard turned to Restaurant365 to create a centralized system that integrated with Felipe’s POS. He believed R365 could bring structure to Felipe’s inventory management, standardize recipes across locations, and increase visibility into cost of goods sold—and he was right. R365’s recipe management tools helped Felipe’s formalize and standardize recipes, ensuring consistency across all locations while reducing waste. Plus, with enhanced reporting and drill-down capabilities, store managers could now monitor food costs, identify inefficiencies, and make data-driven purchasing decisions. As a result, Felipe’s gained tighter control over its inventory, improved portioning accuracy, and regularly exceeded its target CoGS of 26%. ogained tighter control over its inventory, improved portioning accuracy, and regularly exceeded its target CoGS of 26%.
We started thinking about an ecosystem. The point of sale (POS) is important for every restaurant, but you want to be sure that POS works seamlessly with your accounting system and training.
Pike Howard, Director of Development and Finance
Felipe’s Mexican Taqueria
After spending several years in finance before moving into the restaurant industry, Howard was trained to look at business as math. Felipe’s challenge before implementing R365 was that they didn’t know what variables they were working with, and even the equation itself was sometimes unclear.
I love the platform, and for me, it reinforced even more so how much restaurants really are alike a math problem. Choosing Restaurant365 is making a conscientious decision to manage your business, your restaurant operations, from a data standpoint rather than fly by the seat of your pants.
Pike Howard, Director of Development and Finance
Felipe’s Mexican Taqueria
Since implementing Restaurant365’s Accounting, Inventory & Purchasing, and Workforce Management solutions Felipe’s Mexican Taqueria has significantly improved its cost control and operational efficiency. Store managers now know where their sales levels are against long-term forecasts and their weekly food and liquor budgets. That helps back office and corporate leadership guide stores with slipping profitability back onto the path rather than triage a festering emergency. That level of insight and accountability is what helped Felipe’s drive down CoGS by five percentage points, from 28% to 23%, surpassing their target of 26%.
“They’re given the information to know exactly what they should be purchasing, and if all of a sudden things don’t go according to plan, there’s no finger-pointing; we’re finding a solution,” Howard added.
This five-percentage-point improvement in CoGS has translated into substantial savings across their multi-location business, allowing them to reinvest in growth and maintain profitability despite rising food costs. With five locations spread across New Orleans and Florida, the business plans to add more to the latter in the coming year.
Additionally, the integration of R365’s automated inventory and financial tracking has also enhanced visibility and accountability at the store level. With clear, data-driven insights, store managers can now track sales performance, control purchasing, and maintain budget discipline in real time. As a result, discrepancies in portioning and inventory usage have decreased, and team members are empowered to make more informed decisions that directly impact the bottom line.
Finally, Felipe’s has strengthened its training programs by leveraging R365’s analytics to guide staff on portion control and food preparation consistency. By ensuring employees follow precise serving standards, they have minimized food waste while delivering a more consistent guest experience. With all of these operational improvements in place, Felipe’s is well-positioned for their expansion plans into Florida while maintaining strong financial health.
By adopting Restaurant365, Felipe’s Mexican Taqueria transformed its operations from reactive to data-driven, gaining the tools needed to streamline inventory management, control costs, and improve efficiency across all locations. With standardized processes, real-time insights, and greater store-level accountability, they’ve achieved significant cost savings while enhancing the guest experience. As Felipe’s continues to grow, they now have a scalable, technology-driven foundation to support their expansion and long-term success.
5% reduction in Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS)
from 28% to 23% companywide
Recipe standardization
helped exceed 26% CoGS target
Data-driven decision making
improves purchasing accuracy
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