Le Pain Quotidien completes its upgrade to modern EPoS across its London stores

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Le Pain Quotidien completes its upgrade to modern EPoS across its London stores.

Le Pain Quotidien is a chain of characterful, upmarket bakeries-cum-casual dining venues. Spanning both fine food retail and food service, the homespun feel of its stores belies the brand's success and presence in 18 countries. The final phase of rolling out contemporary EPoS from AURES Technologies across its 25 central London locations is now coming to completion.

AURES Technologies reports that its client Le Pain Quotidien is in the final stage of a 3-year project to roll out the manufacturer's latest PC-based EPoS terminals across all of its 24 London stores.

The core of the business is retail bakery, offering artisan breads, patisserie and savouries made using organic flour and wholesome ingredients. Le Pain Quotidien also serves its boulangerie fare and a range of homemade dishes, inspired by the owner's roots in Franco-Belgian cuisine, as either 'take-out' or 'dine-in'.

The company is now not only looking to expand its estate, but it is also evolving its proposition. Explains Head of IT Robert Brown: "Bakery and a communal table remain at the heart of what we do but our stores are now staying open later (from 7am to 11pm). We also have alcohol licences, which enable our stores to put to more focus on their hot food menu and operate as wine bars."

In late 2012, J2 Retail Systems (now incorporated within AURES Technologies) was selected as Le Pain Quotidien's hardware partner. A phased rollout of new EPoS terminals then commenced, using the J2 630, replacing a mix of older EPoS and cash registers in use across the stores.

Comments Brown: "I was impressed by J2's general market prominence, not to mention its dominance in bakery retail. Also, as J2 operates across hospitality and food retail, I knew all aspects of our business would be covered by its solution."

He continues: "The J2 630s have been lowly spreading out across our estate and all has gone well. Now we have just a few old EPoS tills remaining and we're putting in J2 625s to complete the final phase of our upgrade programme. With three or four tills in each store, we will have an estate of 115 J2s."

The J2 625, the latest model in the J2 600 series, has already built a reputation for high performance and reliability. Whilst using an identical casing to the J2 630, the J2 625 comes with a new Intel Dual Core Atom 1.86GHz D2550 Cedarview processor to provide the longest product life possible. This combines a higher speed with lower power consumption than other Atom processors available from Intel at a similar price point.

Robert Brown has opted for the manufacturer's maintenance services but likes the fact that the J2 625 requires little or no intervention and gives a high degree of independence. With a quick access HDD/SDD slot, a drive can be changed in just seconds if needed, and the unit can be fully disassembled and assembled in just a few minutes by simply removing a few screws. The convection-cooled fanless design makes the J2 625 ideal for a bakery and café environment where spills and airborne food particles could otherwise affect operation.

Concludes Robert Brown: "We've gained a range of benefits including improved system reliability, ease of use, speed of use, longevity and cost-effectiveness. Using J2s, our cost of EPoS ownership has reduced."