When World of Food expanded their use of PubQ, the daily work in the restaurant changed at the foundation. From manually managing menus, sold-out items and printouts — to one connected system that creates clarity, efficiency, and a better guest experience.

PubQ has been part of the journey for a long time. The collaboration started back in 2021, when the operation was a food truck parked outside the building while the indoor space was being readied. Through features like Mobile Wallet, discounted lunch pricing for guests who work in the building, and fast in-app payments, the partnership has grown alongside the operation's needs.

In spring 2025, PubQ rolled out express checkouts and order validation stations at the serving hatches at World of Food, which has made things easier for the staff.

"First and foremost we've pulled everything together so that all our sales channels mirror each other, which helps a lot. When we update products or change prices it lands everywhere immediately. If we run out of a product we can mark it 'sold out', and that reflects across all our sales channels. It makes the admin work so much easier," says Ronja Jännebring, restaurant manager at World of Food.

What has it meant for your guests?

"Because products get marked as sold out when stock hits zero, our guests don't end up out of pocket on the occasions when they've bought food at a hatch that's run out. That's a clear improvement we've noticed," Ronja continues.

It's clear when we talk to Ronja that adjustments which look small on paper actually have a big impact on operations.

"Another big improvement, which can look like a small thing, is the order we now print our lunch tickets in at the express checkout. We used to have a problem where the receipt printed first, and the lunch ticket printed after. That meant guests would take their receipt and walk to the hatch, missing the wait for the lunch ticket to print as well.

It didn't help that we plastered the printer with information saying you also had to wait for a lunch ticket. So when they arrived at the hatch with their receipt, our staff had to inform them they needed a lunch ticket to get their food. In other words — fewer lunches are being given away for free today."

Five express checkouts, one new screen

With five express checkouts placed in central parts of the restaurant, there's also an opportunity to use the screen's idle state to communicate or run promotions. World of Food is pushing hard to get guests into their app.

"The express checkout screen is a perfect place to get information out. Today we've got promo for our app, telling staff in the building that they get 10% off their lunch when they pay in the app. That way we've grown the user base in our app so we can reach our customers and target our messaging much more easily — which is great."

On getting guests into the app

Do you see a real benefit to your business when you get more guests into the app?

"Absolutely! We run our concept GTNW (Great Taste No Waste), where we offer guests the chance to buy meal boxes in the afternoon at a good price. It's something we only offer in the app, and we always send a push notification when we've packed the boxes and we're ready to start selling. We can have 20 boxes left over and they sell out in a minute. It's hugely popular. So that's a big advantage — we can quickly reach our guests with information that we're selling our GTNW boxes.

It also happens that we have events where the restaurant is fully booked, and then we can put that information out in the app early and send a push notification. We can prepare guests for the fact that the restaurant is full, and that they're welcome to buy takeaway because we can't guarantee a seat that day. So as I said before — if we get guests into the app, we can reach the people who are actually affected by the information much more easily. We used to put up notes around the restaurant trying to communicate that way, and it rarely worked well."

What has made the biggest difference?

Which part of the solution has made the biggest difference for you?

"The order in which the lunch tickets and receipt print, so we can prevent fraud. Then there's the validation step — we've absolutely got happier staff and a better atmosphere now that the staff don't have to act as gatekeepers themselves. They're really pleased. Now we offer the lunch service the way it should be.

I see how much happier the staff are, I see how much faster it goes and how the flow just works — and that's the only important thing I have to think about in my role."

Events without the setup hassle

You mentioned earlier that you sometimes have events and bookings in the building.

"Yes, and for those we've used your event checkout. It's brilliant that we can throw up a bar counter anywhere and just place the checkout there with no fuss. It's never been any trouble to plug it in, and we haven't needed help from your support team to start it up either.

It's a much more modern way than how we used to do it, where we needed external help to wire everything up correctly. Here we can get going on our own. I can realise we've got an event in five minutes and then we're up and running. It's perfect."

On the partnership

The coffee in the cup has started to cool, and it's time to wind down our conversation.

Finally, how do you feel the partnership with PubQ is working overall?

"All contact with support is always brilliant, fantastically good. We've always got answers quickly and resolved what we asked about. If something were to go wrong, I never feel like I'd be alone in it.

You can really come with suggestions on how we can adapt things so they work for us. Take the app as an example — Geely is very particular about colour codes and their brand. The fact that we can really make the app feel like Geely, and that it doesn't look like a PubQ app, or a Compass Group app for that matter, is great. We really feel like it's our app here at Geely," Ronja concludes.