Case Study: Protagonist Cafe achieves flexible inventory control and smoother operations with Square

How Square Helps Protagonist Manage Its Bustling Cafe and Bookstore

Protagonist Cafe, a secondhand bookstore and cafe in St. Louis’s Soulard neighborhood, faced the challenge of managing multiple revenue streams at once: custom-priced books, retail goods, and daily-changing food inventory. The business needed a more flexible system to track items, handle variable pricing, and keep up with pastry demand. Square Point-of-Sale and a Square website helped provide that control.

With Square, Protagonist Cafe categorized books, used variable pricing for one-off items, and managed pastry inventory through a par system that synced to its Square website. This made online ordering easier, let the team quickly update availability, and even turn off online orders during busy times to focus on in-store customers. Square also enabled remote work for operations tasks like scheduling, payroll, invoicing, and HR, helping the business run more efficiently and flexibly.

Protagonist Cafe

Laura Leister

Owner