Case Study: Great Lakes Pub Cruiser boosts revenue and streamlines bookings with Xola

How a High School Teacher Started Grand Rapids’ Largest Pedal Tavern

Great Lakes Pub Cruiser, founded by high school teacher Laurie Ryan in Grand Rapids, MI, grew from an $80K investment in 2014 into one of the city’s largest woman-owned businesses. Laurie juggles full-time teaching while running operations, facing the challenge of managing bookings, seasonal changes, lost reservations, and limited time to oversee day-to-day tasks and strategic planning.

Switching to Xola gave her mobile-friendly booking management, reporting, abandoned booking recovery, and marketing tools that saved time and boosted revenue — recovering more than $30K from abandoned bookings (Apr 2018–Apr 2019). Moving to Xola’s Flex pricing freed up funds to reinvest about $20K into upgrades (like pedal-assist bikes), enabled new features such as Lightning Deals and TripAdvisor Review Express, and helped position the company for its best year yet.

Great Lakes Pub Cruiser

Laurie Ryan

Great Lakes Pub Cruiser