The first thing a customer asked Chris Amoretti to make for them was an arrabbiata pasta. It sounds like a small story, but it's one that has stuck with him to this day.

"My first customer came round and said, can you make me an arrabbiata? So I made him one and it was way too hot," Chris remembers. "But the guy sat there and ate it. I could see him sweating. I was like, is this too hot? And he's like, no, no, no, it's fine. I like chilli. That was my first customer. I'll never forget it."

This is the story of Chris and Ti Amo Deli.

I started this to make food I love

Before Ti Amo became a successful Italian deli with multiple sites, it was simply a few people cooking for each other. 

"My mom makes a great lasagna. Matt [Chris’s brother] started making bread. I said "you do the bread and I'll do the lasagna." 

That evolved into delivering lasagna. Then delivering bread. Then more bread. Soon it was pannacottas and what Chris calls "the sickest pizzas." Even their mozzarella was made from scratch in the early days. 

That's the version of the business Chris started: small, hands-on, built one dish and one regular at a time.

The jobs nobody warned him about

"I didn't start this to troubleshoot a card machine mid-service."

As Ti Amo grew, eventually running service across four locations, the job changed underneath him.

The payment system Ti Amo started with wasn't built for that kind of growth. "Our old system wasn't as intuitive. We were stuck with timing, so customers were stuck in a queue for too long. And then we had issues with connectivity. It would drop, and we'd end up having to do the sale manually anyway."

A dropped connection sounds like a small thing until you're the one standing at the till doing the maths by hand while a queue backs up out the door. This wasn't the admin Chris signed up for. And it was pulling his time and attention straight out of the kitchen.

Getting back to why he started

The switch to Yoco was almost by accident. "I'd banked with one of the major banks in South Africa. I saw they had a little handheld portable card device, and I called and said I'm really interested. It looks super cool. They said we'll send a guy in three and a half weeks."

"So I phoned Yoco instead, and asked what they could do for me. They’ll have a device tomorrow and deliver it. And I had this Yoco device linked to my bank account in five minutes."

That difference between three and a half weeks versus five minutes is the moment Ti Amo's relationship with Yoco began. Everything since has been about one thing: giving Chris back the time the old setup took from him so he can get back to doing what he loves.

Where Yoco shows up without getting in the way

"I had this Yoco device linked to my bank account in five minutes."

None of what follows is why Chris opened Ti Amo. But each of these is a job that used to sit on Chris's plate, and no longer does, thanks to Yoco’s Food & Beverage solutions. 

Order Management: knowing the regulars by name, not by table

Ti Amo doesn't run on table numbers and there's no seating chart to manage. With Order Management, it’s just a name on a tab that grows through the visit.

"It's very easy to record [the customer’s] name and then add to it," Chris says. "It's super simple. That allows us to keep the tabs running. We don't have tables, so not a table number. It's the person's name. They want to order more food, or whatever it is, we can look after them now. And then close it, and it works beautifully."

It's a small shift, but it changes what the team spends their time on during service. At its core, it means less time on the mechanics of the till, and more time on the customer standing in front of them.

Multi-Locations: one menu, four sites, one update

Ti Amo isn't just one restaurant anymore. They now have four sites each running its own menu. Two carry a pared-down menu; while the others run the full Italian range.

"At this site [Nine Yards] I've got a whole Italian range that I don't have at Santo's or the kiosk, and we're able to change the prices without duplicating the item," Chris explains. "It's like immediate."

Before, growing to more sites meant more places for a single price change to go wrong, or simply not land. 

Now with Multi-Locations, a menu update happens once, and every site reflects it, which frees Chris up to do the part of multi-site ownership that energises him: "I'd rather be selling, I'd rather be visiting clients."

Prep Stations: a kitchen that runs without shouting

In a busy kitchen, the ticket has to get from the front counter to the chef. For this to happen without raised voices miscommunications, Chris needed a system that stretched beyond the till. Ti Amo's kitchen runs on Yoco’s printer, which does exactly that.

"I can't believe the world went so long before somebody figured it out," Chris says. "The kitchen's got a printer and it just pops out. The chef calls the order. There's no shouting." 

Because it's wireless, it isn't tied to a fixed point either. "All it needs is a power supply. I don't have to run a LAN cable, or think about where I'm going to put the cable. There's no confusion."

It's a detail that has nothing to do with the food itself. And that's exactly why it matters: it's one less thing standing between the order and the plate.

Voids: peace of mind on every transaction

Running four sites means Chris can't be everywhere at once. Voids are the kind of thing that used to require a level of trust with no oversight until something looked off.

"How can you know for sure that payments have gone through, and these haven't, if your system's not integrated?" Chris says. 

"I had a look at it this morning and there was a void for a large amount. I could see what operator it was, the user, the time, and the location. If something looks a little bit odd, it gets flagged and it'll tell you. It’s good peace of mind."

Having visibility over voids allows Chris to build relationships with his team that are built on trust. That niggling air of suspicion has vanished, and analysing the paper trail is a thing of the past. That's precious time and headspace Chris gets back.

Modifiers: every customer's order exactly as they want it

Part of running a successful food business involves accommodating different tastes and requests. That can look like oat milk for one coffee and almond milk for another. Without the right system in place, this is an entirely manual process, slowing down queues and leaving room for error. 

That was until Ti Amo set up Modifiers in his Yoco system. It’s done once, and is ready for continuous use. 

"We loaded the Yoco system. It was pretty easy. Modifiers have helped us a hell of a lot. The ability to put a different charge onto each modifier: the oat milk, almond milk, all are sorted out. There's the capability to add anything. It’s very convenient for us, and very fast."

The admin happens once, in the background. The customer gets exactly what they asked for without extra work from Chris and his team.

Back in the kitchen and out the door

“It's our house here, and we welcome you."

With the admin eating less into his week, Chris has been able to put his time back into the part of the business that actually built it: the relationships.

"What I've been able to do now is focus on other parts of the business. Go and visit the buildings we occupy, hand out menus, and bring those relationships back in. Because it's nice when the owner of the business comes to see you. It means more. It's our house here, and we welcome you."

Nobody starts their business to become their own tech support team. Chris Amoretti started Ti Amo Deli to share his love of Italian food with his community. 

With Yoco’s POS system for food & beverage businesses, he has the freedom to get back to the reason he started.

Chasing payments? Manually re-checking a till at close? Losing a table's order somewhere between the counter and the kitchen? 

Yoco is built to help take care of this, so that you can get back to the reason you started.

Explore: Yoco's Point of Sale for food & beverage businesses

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