Hi there,
Magic Sauce is really just me. It’s a one-person shop. I will likely keep it that way.
But I don’t work alone. There are teams of good people that support me and help take care of my restaurant clients.
I am equal parts trusted consultant, implementation manager, support line (lifeline), and fixer.
I work with restaurants and bars, from single locations to small restaurant groups, to chains with 75+ stores—from fast casual to fine dining.
Most of my clients are super busy people with lots of responsibility, running great eateries, feeding thousands of people, and bringing joy to their customers.
My clients have high expectations, can be quite demanding at times, and have a super-low tolerance for BS. If this describes you, and you are generally a considerate, nice, and friendly person to work with, we should get along very well.
I enjoy working with cool people in a small portfolio of kick-ass restaurants. Some of my closest friends are restaurateurs.
My restaurant career began during the fall of my freshman year in high school. I was underage at the time.
For over nine years, I worked my way through school in seven different restaurants—a combination of small-family-owned establishments and regional chains. I worked at two of the restaurants for over three years each.
I thoroughly enjoyed my restaurant career, although to be honest, I don’t miss it. I miss aspects of it, including all of the great people that I got to hang out with. I miss the food. And lot’s of cherished memories.
But to this day, I have occasional restaurant anxiety dreams of being a waiter or busboy, forgetting stuff, and not being able to dig myself out of the “weeds.” The dreaded weeds during the “rush” still haunt my sleep time!
I was a good waiter (if I do say so myself), especially later in my restaurant career. Early on, I was a bit scatterbrained, but I learned to focus more during my last job at an upscale casual restaurant. It didn’t hurt that the place had stellar server training and was exceptionally well run.
I helped to open that store in 1996. It was exciting to be a part of a new restaurant opening. We rocked it—slammed busy on most nights. The restaurant spent zero on marketing. It was all word of mouth—no advertising needed. I like to think I played a small part.
About a year-and-a-half later, I left the restaurant industry to pursue other things.
It was by “accident” that I got involved with restaurants again; this time it was outside of the dining room. I stumbled into it. Different challenges morphed into opportunities, and here I am talking to restaurant owners about table-side ordering/payments, integrating online-delivery services, implementing chip cards, and updating POS menu modifiers.
Since 2006, I have been providing front-of-house restaurant technology and payment solutions.
My first restaurant-specific product was an analytics platform that linked with payment data to give owners and operators anonymized information on guest frequency metrics and what drives repeat visits.
I now offer high-quality POS systems (powerful, reliable, and low hassle), table-side ordering, online ordering, multi-channel payment solutions, and some other bells and whistles.
Magic Sauce is an independent consultancy and free to represent the products and services of its choosing. I don’t work directly for any restaurant technology or payments company.
I listen to my customers and spend an enormous amount of time comparing companies and technologies. I enjoy doing research and finding a good fit for my clients.
I choose to only work with technology companies that are honest, ethical, and place a high value on good customer service. I can remain as a one-person operation only because I have an excellent support team behind me.
Although Magic Sauce represents several different products and companies, I WORK FOR YOU. Period.
Here is how I may be able to help:
My job is to make your life easier. That is what I focus on.
Wearing the consultant hat, I always have your best interests in mind (above my desire to make money).
I try not to force-feed product or service recommendations on my clients. Sometimes I get a little passionate about my opinions, but that is part of my job as a consultant. It’s also part of my personality.
I will never recommend a product that I don’t feel is right for your restaurant or bar. And will never recommend something that I wouldn’t feel comfortable placing in one of my close friends’ restaurants.
I listen to you and respect your decisions. It’s your restaurant and I don’t claim to have all the answers.
Wearing the implementation-manager hat, I help to get you up and running smoothly and avoid problems along with way.
During the life of your engagement with any of the companies/products that I represent, you may interact with several different people on different teams, from sales reps to onboarding specialists to account managers to customer support reps. Sometimes things get lost in the shuffle, and also lost in translation as people come and go, and the torch is passed from one representative to the next. You may have experienced this from time to time. I am hands-on and work behind the scenes to help maintain continuity with your account and ensure that things continue to go smoothly for you.
I shoot for perfection but will never promise it. You may experience billing, technical, or other service-related issues from time to time. It’s the nature of things. Technology fails, mistakes happen, balls get dropped. With my karma, it seems like it’s always something. Maybe you can relate.
What I can promise is that I will do my best to take care of problems fast, and to your satisfaction; you’ve got enough on your plate. This is my role as your fixer. I try to be as invisible as possible.
For many of my clients, I am their support line (lifeline). You’ll have access to my cell phone and can call or text at any time, even on evenings and weekends.
Pretty much all of my clients are respectful to not call at crazy hours with non-critical issues, If you have an urgent problem, like your POS crashed, or your credit-card processor went down, I’ll do my best to drop everything and get you back up and running.
I enjoy providing great service. That hasn’t changed since my younger restaurant days.
two ways to work together:
INDIRECT COMMISSION
I partner with top-tier restaurant tech and payment companies. If you end up moving forward and implementing technology from one of the companies that I represent as an agent, Magic Sauce will earn a monthly commission.
With this model, you get to have your cake and eat it too. You get to have me in your corner, and you may not end up paying more for my services. Usually, I can get you a better overall arrangement than if you directly contracted with one of the companies.
DIRECT CONSULTING FEES:
With this arrangement, you pay me directly. I charge an hourly fee for my consulting services with an upfront retainer.
My standard hourly rate is $150. There is some wiggle room depending on the scope and length of your project.
We may also work out a longer-term managed-services agreement. The monthly fee includes unlimited management and support services as we initially agree.
Regardless of how we choose to work together, we’ll get to know each other first in a low-key “feeling out” process. We discuss your needs and see if there is a fit. I don’t charge for this. I will be respectful of your time, and I appreciate mutual consideration.
I am able to provide you with an all-around positive experience because I don’t bite off more than I can chew at any one time. I won’t take on new clients until I am comfortable managing the ones I have.
My clients may wonder how I am typically so responsive to them. The trick is that I'll “burn” tables, so that I don’t fall into the “weeds”. Okay, that’s it for the restaurant analogies—for now.
If you’d like to start a conversation, the best way is to send me an email (mark@magic-sauce.com) intro with as much detail as you think is necessary to begin a dialogue. We’ll go from there.
With Utmost Sincerity,
Mark Abrams
Restaurant technology/payments consultant,
implementation manager,
support line (lifeline),
fixer & mensch