Case Study: Hickory Tavern reduces food inventory 25% and cuts COGS 3% with CrunchTime

Hickory Tavern Reduces Food Inventory 25% With Crunchtime Suggested Order

Hickory Tavern, a 34-location casual dining brand in the Southeastern U.S., was spending up to three hours a day on inventory counts and carrying chronic excess stock after a new VP of Operations identified persistent over-ordering and inefficiencies. The brand needed a centralized restaurant operations platform to tighten ordering, reduce waste, and improve food-cost visibility.

By deploying CrunchTime’s Suggested Order feature, Hickory Tavern automated forecast-driven ordering and aligned purchases to actual need. The result: on-hand food inventory fell 25% company-wide (some locations dropped up to 60%), a sustained 3% improvement in COGS, faster inventory cycles, immediate payroll and labor insights, and further reductions expected as suggested orders are fine-tuned.

Hickory Tavern

Dan McKeon

Software and Operations Analyst/Regional Manager