Porto's boosts efficiency in a big way

Handling an ever-increasing supply of innovative fresh bakery products in a radically shifting environment requires the sort of critical thinking that is vastly different from what worked in the past. This is the new reality of Porto’s Bakery & Café, a leading retailer that celebrates baking memories since 1960.

Family-owned Porto's Bakery is a Southern California staple that serves more than 2 million guests in their six locations in the greater Los Angeles region. Their latest cutting-edge endeavor involves partnering with Tillster, a leading ordering technology company, to supercharge their customer ordering experience. 

In addition to their retail locations, Porto’s Bake at Home enables customers nationwide to enjoy the best of Porto's Bakery shipped directly to their doors. With new Savory and Sweet Sampler Packs, online shoppers can dive into a delicious assortment of best-selling flavors.

“Younger generations are doing everything more digital, more online,” points out Raul Porto Jr., president of Porto’s Bakery & Café. “We started working with Tillster about a year ago. Customers love the convenience. Tillster allows us to take online orders on our own website. It’s huge.”

Porto elaborates on how the family business pivoted successfully from a radical change in the consumer marketplace during the Covid pandemic.

During Covid, he explains, Porto’s Bakery worked with Uber Eats and DoorDash to handle the exploding interest in online purchasing of food and pastries. Porto estimates that third-party now accounts for 8-10 percent of their food and pastry business.

Now, working with Tillster enables Porto’s Bakery to create a seamless and more efficient system.

“Tillster has the ability to aggregate third-party orders and feed them smoothly into our platform,” Porto explains. “You save a ton of labor – front of house. Now customers just walk in and walk right out the door with their order.”

Anyone who has visited Porto’s Bakery knows the impressive way the company handles huge lines with extraordinary efficiency. The Porto’s team wears the badge of superior customer service with great pride.

Customer engagement  

Source: Brian Feinzimer

Tillster simplifies digital ordering, improves customer engagement, and grows sales. For more than a decade, the company has helped turn guests into regulars. Award-winning technologies have transformed the casual dining and quick service restaurant industries and “made us the global leader in this space,” according to Tillster. The company reports they support 40,000-plus restaurant locations and handle more than 35 million digital orders per year.

Tillster helped launch the digital ordering industry with an unrivaled knowledge of large multi-unit restaurants.

“We view each business as a whole, serving up solutions that offer benefits far beyond technology alone. And our understanding of today’s resource-strapped restaurants and their tech-savvy, time-crunched customer is as deep as it gets,” the company states.

Tillster empowers food retailers and restaurants to engage and transact anywhere, any time, and from any device.

ORDERING

• Online & Mobile Ordering
• Delivery
• In-Store Solutions

MARKETING

• Coupons & Promotions
• Loyalty & Rewards
• Multi-Channel Communications

DATA INSIGHTS

• Actionable Insights
• Conversion Optimization
• Predictive Analytics

TECHNOLOGY

• Platform
• POS System Compatibility
• Payment Integrations

Advance ordering

Retail bakeries are unique, Raul Porto emphasizes, because bakery customers really like to place orders in advance.

“A lot of people who have experienced these platforms really enjoy it,” Raul Porto explains. “It’s very efficient. Our customers love it.”

Porto’s Bakery has always offered pre-ordering. Now customers can place orders directly into the POS automatically and can even change their orders up to a certain amount of time.

“We have come a long way,” Porto says. “The savings are great, and you can provide much better customer service. Online ordering is super easy, and we continue to prioritize the walk-in customer. We are seeing the benefits everywhere.”

And there’s another huge bonus.

“Third-party helps us march into a different customer base. It has expanded our distribution reach, which is a very good thing,” Porto explains.

Now, customers who live 40 minutes away from one of Porto’s locations in Southern California have no problem ordering online.

“Anytime you can get your product in front of a customer who hasn’t had your product before is a very good thing,” Porto says. “We actually get a ton of traffic now from customers who are visiting Southern California.”

Porto says they plan to open their seventh retail location – in Downtown Disney – this year, and they are exploring additional locations further out.

Strength of family

Source: Brian Feinzimer/Porto's

The Porto family is synonymous with bringing incredible bakery products and authentic flavors to their community and building success with a strong work ethic and true entrepreneurial spirit. 

In May 2024, Raul Porto Sr., the patriarch and co-founder of Porto’s, died at the age of 92. Rosa Porto died in 2019 at the age of 89. Rosa and Raul Sr. are survived by generations of Portos, including multiple grandchildren. Their three children — Beatriz, Raul Jr. and Margarita — all grew up helping in their parents’ bakery operation, then went on to run the business themselves.

When Rosa and Raul Sr. first arrived in California, they had only the clothes on their backs, Raul Sr.’s strong work ethic, Rosa’s exceptional baking skills, and a dream for a better life contributed to their success. Soon after, Rosa began baking and selling cakes to friends and family that had heard of her fabulous cakes back in Cuba. 

Within a couple of years, it was not uncommon to see a line of customers picking up cakes from Rosa’s small home. In 1976, Rosa opened her first official storefront, Porto’s Bakery, on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, California. 

Raul Sr. helped out when not working at another local bakery, and after several years, he was able to join Rosa to continue to grow the business. Rosa’s three children, Beatriz, Raul Jr., and Margarita, helped at the bakery after school and on weekends. They witnessed their mother’s passion for baking and cooking firsthand, which inspired them to carry on their mother’s legacy. After graduating from college, the siblings took on more significant roles within the business.

Rosa’s Cuban cakes and pastries were soon accompanied by our signature Cheese Rolls®, Refugiados®(Guava and Cheese Strudels), and our famous Potato Ball®, among many other international sweets and savory items. Rosa Porto passed away in 2019, but her three children and grandchildren work alongside a talented and dedicated team to carry on Porto’s tradition and Rosa's legacy.

Porto’s took the number one spot on “Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat in the US.” In 2021 Porto's Bakery was voted Best Bakery in the Southland, according to the Los Angeles Times. Just as Porto's Bakery started in Rosa's home back in Cuba, with Porto's Bake at Home, they now ship their most popular pastries and cakes nationwide directly to consumers.