Case Study:
Multi-Unit Franchise Operator Slashes Labor and Food Costs with Switch to Xenial Back Office

Discover how the company's reliance on a 'made-for-QSR' back office fuels continued growth.

Ambrosia QSR has grown rapidly, more than doubling its restaurant count in one year. The 150-location Burger King and Popeyes franchise operator has also cut its food cost variance in half and reduced labor costs by more than 4%, company-wide. The company’s IT Director attributes both of these impressive improvements to their switch to Xenial RTI Back Office from Micros back office

Key Benefits include:

  • Reduced food cost variance by more than 50%
  • Lowered labor costs by more than 4%
  • Rise in profits helps fuel continued growth

Ambrosia QSR
137 Burger King Locations &
13 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Restaurants

across Oregon and Washington

The Beginning

Ambrosia QSR operates 150 franchise restaurants in Oregon and Washington. As of May 2021, the company owned 137 Burger King locations and 13 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurants. Ambrosia QSR is on a rapid growth trajectory, having more than doubled its footprint in one year’s time.

Previously, the company used technologies from Micros including its back office software. Finding that the back office solution wasn’t suited for the unique needs of Quick Serve Restaurants (QSR), Ambrosia QSR sought an alternative.

The Transformation

Ambrosia QSR’s CEO, along with Felipe Martinez, the company’s IT Director, selected Xenial RTI Back Office.

“Micros was developed for different kinds of businesses such as hotels and full service restaurants, and it didn’t have the QSR-specific back office functionality or features that we needed,” says Martinez. “RTI Back Office was built for our industry which is one reason we like it so much.”

Ambrosia QSR sat down with a Xenial salesperson, who led the selection team through several demos. “Xenial took the time to do a deep dive, answer our questions, and demonstrate Xenial RTI Back Office, hands-on,” says Martinez. “We were really impressed and highly interested.”

Approximately 800 Ambrosia QSR employees regularly use Xenial RTI Back Office including all levels of management at all 150 franchise restaurants as well as District Managers, Operations Directors and Support.

The Outcome

By implementing Xenial RTI Back Office, Ambrosia QSR slashed food cost variance by more than half and reduced labor costs by 4%. “If QSR restaurants implement Xenial Back Office in the right way, they will get results. Awesome results,” says Martinez.


“If QSR restaurants implement Xenial Back Office in the right way, they will get results. Awesome results.”

— Felipe Martinez, IT Director,
Ambrosia QSR

Dramatic Drop in Food and Labor Costs

Before deploying Xenial RTI Back Office, the company had an average food cost variance across its restaurants of around 3.4%. It’s currently below 1.5%, a decrease of more than 50%. “We started out with a food cost variance much higher than the average Burger King and ended up much lower than most Burger King restaurants across the nation, thanks to our use of Xenial RTI Back Office,” says Martinez.

Across 150 stores, that translates into a lot of money, and that’s just food. The company has also had stellar reductions in labor costs. Micros didn’t offer a labor scheduler. “Although we could track labor costs after the fact, Micros back office didn’t enable us to understand go-forward labor costs for planning purposes,” says Martinez.

“By enabling us to optimize staffing levels, the Labor Scheduler in Xenial RTI Back Office has helped us lower our labor costs by more than 4%,” says Martinez. “Labor Scheduler tells our managers how many employees to schedule for each daypart at each store. And it manages projections and costs down to the hour, not per half day or whole shift, so the forecasting and labor cost control is very granular.”

By enabling us to optimize staffing levels, the Labor Scheduler in Xenial RTI Back Office has helped us lower our labor costs by more than 4%.”

— Felipe Martinez, IT Director, Ambrosia QSR

Rise in Profits Fuels Continued Growth

“Lowering food costs by almost 2% and labor by 4%, we attained a 6% reduction in costs,” says Martinez. “When you consider that most QSRs average 8% profit, a 6% reduction in costs translates to a huge improvement. The bump in profitability gives our investors confidence to continue to invest, and can help us continue to fuel and fund growth.”

Reporting Delivers Visibility

Martinez and the leadership team at Ambrosia QSR use Report Builder in Xenial RTI Back Office. However, to help them create even more customized reports for their custom Business Intelligence (BI) dashboard, Martinez relies on the data exporter tool in Xenial RTI Back Office to export data to the company’s own data warehouse. “This was an important factor for me, to be able to manage our own data,” says Martinez. “Because RTI Back Office enables us to export data, we can create the highly customized reporting that we need.”


“The entire team at Xenial, from sales to implementation to support has been awesome.”

— Felipe Martinez, IT Director,
Ambrosia QSR

Great People Stand Behind a Product that’s Easy to Use

“The entire team at Xenial, from sales to implementation to support has been awesome,” says Martinez.

“Xenial Back Office is very easy to use, so much so that if our managers simply follow a very straightforward process, they can start using it right away. There is almost no training required for front-line managers.”

Martinez concludes: “I very much look forward to the browser-based version of RTI Back Office with its improved user experience.”

Company Overview

Ambrosia QSR operates 150 franchise restaurants in western Oregon and western Washington. As of May 2021, the company owned 137 Burger King locations and 13 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen restaurants. Learn more about the company. Or discover franchise opportunities for Burger King or Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

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