Elaine and Ed Widner, the owners of Café Classics, Bapa’s Coney Island and Inga’s Bake Shoppe in downtown Monroe, are typical business owners.
Elaine and Ed Widner, the owners of Café Classics, Bapa’s Coney Island and Inga’s Bake Shoppe in downtown Monroe, are typical business owners. They work hard to provide outstanding service to their customers, and they rely on their computer systems to manage their business.Café Classics, the Widner’s coffee house, opened in 2004. When they first opened the café, Elaine used a register that was basically a glorified calculator. "It would add things up, but mistakes were never corrected properly," explained Elaine, "which made closing the register at the end of the night difficult."The Café installed a point of sale system, and hasn’t looked back! "Now, I can punch a few buttons and see sales of any product," continued Elaine. "I know when our slow times are and can adjust hours of operation and staffing accordingly."In June of this year, Ed and Elaine opened Bapa’s Coney Island next to the Café. Working on a very tight two week deadline, they had an immense amount of work to do to get opened on time, including the setup of the new point of sale system for Bapa’s."Tech Experts came in immediately to get the system up and running," said Elaine. "Three of Tech Experts employees were here running wire and phone lines and programming the computer. They made sure I was going to be open on time!"Bapa’s register system includes a front counter computer that is used for entering food orders, processing credit cards and cashing out customers. A printer is located at the counter for printing credit card receipts. A second printer in the kitchen prints orders for the cooks. The point of sale system lets the owners run reports showing food sales by hour, so they can make informed decisions about staffing.Tech Experts also installed a wireless networking system to connect back office computers, letting Elaine work in her office at the back of Inga’s Bake Shoppe, which the Widner’s opened in September, right next door to Bapa’s. Inga’s sells a variety of baked goods, including bread, granola, muffins, cookies and cakes. But more importantly, all three businesses are connected to one another, and work to help each other out. Inga’s supplies bread and buns to Bapa’s, and baked goods for Café Classics. This allows them to bring the freshest products to their customers.When asked what she liked most about Tech Experts, Elaine said: "The fact that when I call with a problem, no matter how small, I am taken seriously. I am the least computer literate person you will find. Tech Experts staff is very patient with me and educates me on why a problem happened, and how to prevent future problems. They don’t just fix it without explanation. I am involved and educated."
