Dale has spent more than 30 years in the restaurant business. He's watched the technology change from the days when third-party delivery didn't exist to today, where most of his restaurants' volume never touches the dining room.
As director of finance and business growth at Urban Bird, he's helped grow the Houston hot chicken brand from a single store opened in the middle of the pandemic to 24 locations across Texas, with four more under construction. They'll have 28 by the end of the year.
The concept is simple: chicken tenders at heat levels from country (no heat) to fire in the hole ("which will burn you twice"), chicken and waffles, tender baskets, and a chicken sando. It's built for takeout - about 65% of orders come through third-party apps or pickup. And that makes the phones one of the most important, and hardest, jobs in the building.
Kitchen help is easy to find, Dale says. Good front-of-house help is not. "It's been tougher to have people who can answer the phone and take care of the guest in this environment."
The collision happened every rush. "We would have situations where a cashier would be taking an order to a guest inside and the phone's ringing. And what do they do? They stop that order, pick up the phone and say, 'Hey, you're calling Urban Bird, I'll be with you in a minute.'"
"Well, that'd be fine to do that, except they got to remember to go back on that phone when they finish that order."
Every interrupted order meant a worse experience for two guests at once: the one standing at the register watching their cashier walk away, and the one on hold wondering if anyone was coming back.
When Urban Bird got the opportunity to try Loman, the appeal was immediate. "We really liked the idea because it freed our cashiers up to take care of the guest in front of them."
With Loman answering, the whole flow changed. The order is taken in the background, the ticket goes right to the kitchen, and the kitchen starts cooking. And because the guest pays online before they ever walk in, pickup becomes the simplest transaction in the store.
"One of the great things about Loman now is it's paid online before the guest comes and gets it. So now it's just like another third-party order. We just hand the food and they're gone."
"The guests like it. They're not having to wait in the store, wait in line to pay. They're out the door."
The numbers came in fast. In the last full month, Urban Bird did about $80,000 in sales through Loman while saving roughly 220 staffing hours across its stores.
"Loman's helped us save hours, no doubt," Dale says. "But what it's really done is made our cashiers more efficient. They're able to concentrate on the guests in front of them instead of having to answer the phone."
That consistency matters more as the brand grows. With 24 stores across Houston, Dallas, and down toward San Antonio, and more opening this year, Dale thinks about the guest experience at brand level, not store level.
"You want the guest to get the same experience whether they're in Austin, Texas or Houston, Texas or Dallas, Texas. Enjoy getting your food, not having to deal with people not taking their order or getting stuck on the phone. That's the advantage of Loman."
For a concept that was built for takeout from day one, Loman turned the phone into one more channel that runs itself.
"We're really good at third party. That's what we're really good at. And it's almost like a third party to us. The order gets taken, it goes right to the kitchen, we fix the food, the guest comes in. It is a time saver, it's a staff saver."
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