Knoxville restaurant online ordering, run on Zayos

Zayos gives a Knoxville restaurant commission free ordering on its own site for a flat $499 to $699 per location each month. Delivery apps charge 15 to 30 percent base and 25 to 35 percent blended, so their bill grows on your busiest weekend. A flat fee does not.

Knoxville runs on three different years

Why does a percentage fee fit Knoxville so badly?

Most cities have one demand curve. Knoxville has three, and they barely overlap. A percentage charges you most during the one that matters most, then keeps nothing back for the July week you spend staring at an empty room on Cumberland Ave.

Sep to Nov

Seven home Saturdays

Roughly 100,000 people inside Neyland and more on the Strip and Market Square. Ticket counts triple. So does the commission bill, on the days that were supposed to fund the rest of your year.

Jan to Apr

The student baseline

More than 30,000 students plus a hospital and campus workforce. Steady, high frequency, low ticket reorders. These are your regulars, and you pay an app to reach them twice.

May to Aug

The summer trade

Campus empties and Smokies traffic fills the gap with first time visitors heading to the park. Discovery matters most, repeat business least. That is the one stretch where the marketplaces genuinely earn their keep.

What does one home game Saturday cost you on the apps?

A Market Square or Old City kitchen pushing 400 orders on a home Saturday at a $26 average ticket books $10,400. At a 25 percent blended marketplace rate, $2,600 leaves before you have paid a single cook. That is one day. The Zayos subscription for that location is $499 for the whole month.

The same arithmetic runs in reverse on a slow Tuesday on Sevier Ave, which is why the honest way to read this page is as a break even, not a slogan. At a $26 ticket and a 25 percent blended take, $499 equals 77 marketplace orders a month. Above that, flat wins. Below it, a percentage is cheaper, and we would rather you heard that from us than found it in month three.

It stops being close because a marketplace charges you again every time the same person orders again. A Fort Sanders regular ordering four times a month is four commissions on a relationship you already earned.

Do you have any Knoxville restaurants on this?

No. Zay Revenue Group is a Fort Lauderdale, Florida company and we serve the Knoxville market from Fort Lauderdale. No local office, no local rep, no East Tennessee customer.

What is real: Naya Grill, a Lebanese fast casual brand, is live and taking orders on Zayos across two South Florida locations, and on the commission model at 3,000 orders a month it keeps more than $48,000 a year that would have gone to the apps. Eight further South Florida storefronts are built with ordering opening at launch. Our Google profile, ZayOS-Zayrev, is rated 5.0 from 12 reviews.

What does it cost, and what does the diner pay?

  • $499Operator. Branded ordering site, menu, payments, kitchen tablet.
  • $599Operator plus Marketplace. Marketplace tickets on the same tablet through Otter, so one screen runs the Saturday rush.
  • $699Concierge. Up to five virtual brands out of one kitchen, still billed per location.

Per location, per month, flat. No setup fee, month to month, no contract. At checkout the diner pays $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine in and 10 percent catering. The restaurant is never charged a percentage of anything.

What Knoxville owners ask us first

Is Zayos live in Knoxville?
No. Zay Revenue Group is a Fort Lauderdale, Florida company and we serve Knoxville from there. No Tennessee customers, no local office. The one restaurant live and taking orders on Zayos today is Naya Grill, two locations in South Florida.
A flat fee sounds great in October. What about July?
A flat fee is a fixed cost in a slow month. Here is the break even: at a $26 average ticket and a 25 percent blended marketplace take, each app order costs about $6.50, so $499 a month equals 77 marketplace orders. If your slowest month cannot clear 77 orders through the apps, a percentage is cheaper that month. Most Knoxville kitchens clear it in a weekend.
Half our Saturday orders are from people who will never come back. Is direct ordering worth it for them?
For the one time Smokies visitor, no, and you should keep the apps for exactly that traffic. On Operator plus Marketplace at $599 a month, Otter pulls DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub tickets onto the same kitchen tablet as your direct orders. The Fort Sanders student who orders four times a month goes direct, at zero commission.
We run a food truck and a brick and mortar. Can both sit on one account?
Pricing is per location, so two locations on Operator is $998 a month. If you run several concepts out of one kitchen, Concierge at $699 covers up to five virtual brands from that kitchen.
What does the diner pay, and does it come out of my tips?
The diner pays a flat fee at checkout: $0.99 pickup, $2.99 delivery, $0 dine in, 10 percent on catering. Nothing is taken from the restaurant. You keep 100 percent of food revenue and 100 percent of tips, at every tier.
How long does setup take before the first home Saturday?
Live in under two weeks, with most operators taking a first direct order within a week of signing up. Count back two weeks from the Saturday you want to be running.

Put a number on last football season

The free report reads your ordering setup and estimates what the marketplaces took. No card, about a minute.