Hapi Ora cafe owner Gretta Carney. Her business has made a bold change to stay contactless. Photo / Warren Buckland
Hapi Ora cafe owner Gretta Carney. Her business has made a bold change to stay contactless. Photo / Warren Buckland
A Napier cafe has moved to using an app to take all its orders from customers in a bid to promote "another layer of protection" during the Covid pandemic.
Hapi Ora cafe on Hastings St is offering a sit-down and takeaway services for people with vaccine passes, and contactlesstakeaways for those without a vaccine pass.
However, regardless of whether you have a vaccine pass or not, every customer is being asked to order and pay through an app called Bopple.
That is for all orders from coffee to health food and juices.
Hapi Ora owner Gretta Carney said the move was about cutting down interaction between staff and customers and a big part of it was about staff protection.
"Everyone has a gruff about signing up but once they sign up they come back and say 'we love it'," Carney said.
"This is just another layer of protection that is going to help keep us all safer. We have the technology so let's use it.
"If there is Covid in the community you will appreciate not being served by someone who has served 200 people today."
Vinci's Pizza in Napier has seen an increase in online orders and deliveries since moving to the traffic light system. Photo NZME
She said she encouraged other businesses to consider taking all their orders through Bopple or a similar app.
"There is no reason you couldn't have every cafe in town on it."
She said basically people who were dining in sat at a table and made an order through the app, while people doing takeaway orders did it through the app and their order was left on a counter for contactless pick-up.
Carney said it was taking people time to get used to and there had been teething problems, such as people not wanting to download the app or not knowing how.
She said it was challenging getting the system setup and educating customers but she believed it was worth it.
"We are eliminating 80 to 90 per cent of our customer contact because we are just delivering food to tables and checking passes, and people are just literally coming in and picking up their food."
Carney said every business was "just doing their best" and asked for patience from customers under the new traffic light system.
She said they were considering taking away the benches at the front of the store as well, to stop people without a vaccine pass from using them.
Vinci's Pizza, in Napier, partner Casey Motley said they had seen an increase in online orders and deliveries since moving to the traffic light system.
She said people were slowly getting used to using vaccine passes in-store and hopefully, people would become more comfortable with the system in time.
"It's not the same as what it used to be. There has definitely been more takeaway [orders]."
She said people can make orders through Deliver Easy - whether you have a vaccine pass or not - which was increasingly popular since the switch to the traffic light system.
"That's definitely been a lot more busy than previously."
