When you think of an international fast food franchise, you probably don’t imagine a company specializing in culturally specific street food. Juici Patties, a restaurant centered around the iconic Jamaican patty, is breaking the mold.
Juici Patties was founded in Jamaica in 1980. After becoming the island’s top fast food franchise, it began expanding into the United States, opening locations throughout Florida and New York.
Juici Patties CTO Stuart Levy estimates that by the end of 2025, the company will have 27 locations operating in the U.S. and 38 more in the works.
You might wonder how a restaurant focused on a relatively niche cuisine has found mainstream success. Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that Juici Patties has perfected the art of delivering authentic Jamaican street food at scale.
Through a network of innovative technologies, Juici Patties has been able to streamline its franchising operations, plan its expansion efforts, and run critical data analytics — all while serving fresh, authentic Caribbean cuisine.
“The number-one tool, I would say, is our franchise management software that we use to keep all the stores in order and organized,” says Levy. “We use that to automate royalty collection, to send out communication to the franchisees, and to keep track of where they are in the pipeline. It also houses key documents for each franchise.”
Just as the company itself is always evolving, Levy constantly strives to improve the tools that support daily operations.
“It’s continuously being built out with different modules,” he says of the franchise management software. “Right now, we’re adding an AI module that will assist the franchisees as they become more familiar with the system.”
Software helps Juici Patties monitor and streamline operations at each location. However, even before each location is built, the company’s leaders use cutting-edge tech to guide critical decisions.
“We use mapping software, as well, which is also vital to how we expand,” Levy says. “It’s what we use to determine where we’re going to put a store and how many stores can fit in an area without cannibalizing each other.”
Since its earliest days, Juici Patties has periodically rotated menu items depending on customer preferences. Now, thanks to a point-of-sale system with robust built-in analytics, the company can use data to determine where it’s succeeding and where there might be room for improvement.
“The system is pretty good at data capture and providing robust reporting that we use for menu analysis, understanding where we are with benchmarks, and comparing ourselves to restaurants in and around the locations of our stores,” Levy says.
The point-of-sale system also makes it easy to change prices and menu offerings.
“If you see any images of the menu boards, they’re all digital. They’re integrated with the point-of-sale system,” says Levy. “So whenever there’s a price change or a new menu item, it’s quickly displayed on the menu boards, and it’s connected to our social media feeds.”
The company doesn’t just rely on outside technologies to thrive. Levy says that in the near future, customers will be able to enjoy convenience and cost savings through the Juici Patties app.
“Right now, we’re actually working on building an app that Juici Patties will be able to offer customers,” he says. “They can download it from the different app stores, order directly, and save on delivery fees that they’ll probably experience with third-party ordering platforms.”
While Juici Patties has found success in using technology to streamline high-level processes, Levy has also discovered the importance of optimizing even seemingly small details.
“In one of our stores, we placed a camera on top of the menu board, and it tracks the demographics and the wait time for individuals who come into the store,” he explains. “We use that data to determine a few things, like how long somebody is waiting in the store, the age group, and the gender.”
Monitoring customer wait times helps franchise owners improve efficiency, and tracking customer demographics helps Levy and other members of the Juici Patties leadership team decide how best to target their marketing.
“The camera can determine your age group and your gender. We use that to pretty much determine who our customer base is,” he says. “Then we match that information back with our social media interactions, and we just basically use the two and put them together and say, ‘Okay, this is our core.'”
The juxtaposition of street food and high-tech software might seem incongruous at first. But as the company’s success has illustrated, it just might be the key to taking ethnic street foods mainstream — and adding much-needed variety to the fast food landscape.
