Harborview Goes From Website Skeptic to Website Super User

In 2018, Harborview Restaurant & Bar, a sprawling Cantonese Chinese restaurant, opened on the bay in San Francisco, CA. Its 20,000-square-foot restaurant space included a 200-seat dining room, five private banquet rooms, a 4,000-square-foot terrace and buyout options for each of those areas.

The one thing Harborview didn’t have? An online presence. It understood the value of a restaurant website, but the ownership group had a poor past experience with an outside vendor, which managed the site in a way that created more problems than it solved. If Harborview was going to build a website, it needed to be on its own terms.

When it learned about BentoBox, Harborview was intrigued by a platform that put control in its hands while still allowing the website to look clean and refined. It was also attracted to the platform’s built-in tools to collect and manage diner information. With COVID-19 looming, it had no idea how vital those tools were about to become.

Operating a 20,000-square-foot restaurant is no small feat, especially in a city like San Francisco. To accomplish it, Harborview relies on the experience of its staff — but that staff is filled with hospitality experts, not technology experts. If managing Harborview’s website required technical expertise, the restaurant would either have to relinquish control or put its team in a difficult position. To Harborview, neither was acceptable.

BentoBox quickly proved itself the perfect solution. In addition to the platform's user-friendly back-end, which is designed for all levels of technology users, the partnership began with full-service setup and onboarding. This allowed Harborview’s staff to ask questions and learn the ropes without feeling like it jumped into the deep end.

Once the staff was comfortable, Harborview wasted no time turning its website into a revenue driver. It has fully embraced the potential of online commerce, using features such as direct online ordering, digital gift cards and online merchandise to drive profits and capture diner information. From there, it uses two of BentoBox's built-in marketing tools — automated email campaigns and loyalty program — to re-engage diners with strategic promotions and increase lifetime customer value.