The combination of delivery, take-out, and dine-in service is the bread-and-butter of the modern restaurant industry. These avenues open up businesses to new audiences, and help drive revenue across multiple channels. Serving up meals to plenty of hungry customers across all channels isn’t easy, though. That’s why Lindsay Manchua and Tip Horne, co-owners of Lip Eats in Phoenix, Arizona, use Otter’s all-in-one restaurant software. Our digital solutions help this multi-restaurant concept succeed across all their order channels – and more.
Since opening in January 2022, Backstreet Asia, the brick-and-mortar element of Lip Eats, has become one of Phoenix’s leading restaurants for Filipino and Asian food. As a couple, Lindsay and Tip are changing the digital food landscape of Arizona, and introducing creative, innovative menus to their community. We recently caught up with these two restaurateurs to find out how Otter tech helps make their multi-concept restaurant group possible.
What are your roles at Lip Eats and Backstreet Asia?
Lindsay: I’m Lindsay, but everybody calls me Chef Lin. I founded and built Backstreet Asia, and I’m the executive chef at Lip Eats.
Tip: Hey! I’m Tip Horne, CEO at Lip Eats. I run Filanta Wings, Burgers Near Me, Filipino Fried!, Bring Me Breakfast, and some other concepts coming soon.
Tip, can you tell us more about Lip Eats?
Tip: So, Lindsay – Chef Lin – and Tip. We combined our names, like Brangelina, and we got Lip Eats. It’s interesting. We looked at our menu here at Backstreet Asia, and we realized that there’s a number of different items on the menu that people just didn’t order. But we knew that people would order if they were prominent. So we came up with Filanta Wings – combining “Filipino” spices and “Atlanta” wings. That was kind of our demo concept.
Lips Eats is essentially a restaurant management company that has a number of different concepts. It’s able to create everything from a logo to social media. And, all of a sudden, this is like a business! DoorDash, GrubHub, and UberEats say add seven more items. All of a sudden, you’ve got a functional concept. So that’s what we did. Lip Eats manages that whole thing.
How did you get started in the restaurant industry?
Lindsay: I’ve been in Arizona for 18 years, and I started catering in 2007 to get my name out there. I graduated culinary school in 2014. After that, I started managing restaurants and cafes, and worked on the line at casinos and other places. I did custom cakes on-site at the same time! I said that, eventually, I’d open a brick-and-mortar restaurant once my kids were older. For eight years, I learned everything I could about the business. I tried front- and back-of-house, and finally got the chance to open my own place in 2022.
What inspires you as a restaurateur?
Lindsay: I was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. My dad’s side is Chinese, so we already had that business mindset. I’ve been working pretty much all my life. The main goal is to have authentic food. Keep the flavors, but make them better. I also wanted a healthier note. When I created the menu, I had to figure out how to make Asian food healthier. I still wanted it to feel good to eat. We don’t use MSG, and we don’t use oil unless we’re frying. As an athlete, I believe we have to feed our body as healthily as possible. If I eat it, I’ll serve it.
Customers say “Oh my gosh! We eat your food, and we don’t feel bloated!” I take pride in that. For the menu, I always say that I want five-star quality, but at an affordable price. We’re always trying to make the menu better – to make it cleaner. We eat with our eyes, so presentation is number one for me, as well. We’re preparing to expand to Scottsdale, so we want to make sure that the food is elevated here, first.
Lindsay, how do you and Tip complement each other?
Lindsay: (laughs) Well, Tip is amazing! He has a lot of strength, and he puts a lot of effort into his work. We’ve seen a lot of progress. It’s great, because having the experience we have – almost 15 years together – really works. His marketing skills, his knowledge about entertainment… it’s something I cannot do. I don’t know about the marketing and advertising side of the business, but I can cook. He brings clients here.
I love being in the kitchen. I love cooking. It’s something I’ve always ended up doing. I’ve tried many careers in my life, from real estate to other things, and the kitchen is always where I end up. I’ve been in the kitchen since I was 12 years old. I just try to keep learning and expanding my knowledge. My skill set is in the kitchen, and Tip’s is in the corporate-level marketing side. It’s like we’re in the same pot, and we both make it delicious.
What does a great kitchen look like to you?
Lindsay: First, you have to have staff that’s experienced enough to know the line. It’s hard! We love that we can train people. We love people that are willing to learn and stay open-minded. I want them to do what they need to do. We’ve had a lot of events where we’re full-house, and we have to have the sous chef and line cook working together. They do everything in a set order. When they have the knowledge of what a kitchen should be, and they have certain experience, the line goes smoothly. It takes a lot of communication.
Thinking ahead, what are you excited about for Lip Eats?
Lindsay: It’s a lot of things. Our main goal, of course, is getting Backstreet Asia where it needs to be. We want to have entertainment and live shows. Going to Scottsdale is a dream come true, too. The concept that I have for that location is totally different – plating, everything! We’re still going to keep the authenticity and provide the experience of different cultures. Asian culture is different, and a lot of people are now very open-minded to trying new things. So I’m very excited!
In Scottsdale, we’ll be able to create reservations for larger parties and orders: three-, five-, six-, eight-course meals. We’ll have different VIPs coming in, too. I’ve cooked for baseball owners – the Reds, the Guardians, all that. It’s different! The feeling will be different. The accomplishment is different. And I think we can bring that to the table, here on the west side and in Scottsdale.
Tip: Chef Lin is always – pardon the pun – cooking up different recipes. I’ve worked with the Italians for a long time, and what I’ve learned is that you have to have the proper ingredients. Part of our concept is utilizing multiple ingredients across multiple concepts. For those to be interchangeable, you have to put the menus together the correct way. We’ll have different virtual brand concepts for different locations, and we’ll be exploring different markets. Otter allows you to do that. You can try something. You can make adjustments and implement changes.
Do you enjoy creating different food concepts?
Lindsay: Yeah, it’s exciting! It’s like one of those sleepless nights. How are you gonna plate this? What are you gonna put on the plate? What vegetables are you going to match with things? I love baking, too, so we have cakes and pastries and different things that we’re going to add to the menu.
The lumpia is definitely a hit at Backstreet Asia. We make pork and chicken lumpia, and we’re able to add veggie lumpia, as well. That’s totally different from what you get at a Chinese restaurant. It has more components inside. The crispy pork belly – lechon – is number one. All our sauces are made in-house for our wings, our pork, everything. That’s something you won’t get anywhere else. A lot of our customers get nostalgic about it, like: “Oh, I haven’t had this since I was a kid, when my mom used to make it!” It’s just amazing.
Of course, our chicken adobo is great, too. We translate that to adobo wings for our Filanta Wings brand, and it’s a hit.
What was your experience getting on delivery apps like?
Tip: Well, the first thing is people have to like our concepts. Lindsay would try out all different sorts of wings. They’re all good, but which ones are people going to order, and which ones are going to create repeat orders? That was the first thing we had to do: come up with a basic menu. From there, it’s vital that people understand where this food is available, and at what times. That’s where delivery apps came in.
All of a sudden, we started to have these orders on DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub. We had a presence. Once you have that visibility, you’re able to really just mark it. We started marketing strategically to other businesses, and to students at ASU. The problem was that we had an order management tablet for each of our delivery partners. For Backstreet Asia and Filanta Wings, we had Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub – that’s six tablets in the kitchen. If you’ve got two that aren’t willing to work for whatever reason, or one that’s offline, it’s a mess.
What made you interested in Otter?
Tip: We were sitting here at the bar, and I leaned back in my chair, and said: “Oh my gosh! What is it that we need to get all of these tablets in one thing? What can I just put on my phone so I can just process the orders and put it on something in the kitchen – some sort of screen?” And then we had somebody from Otter just walk in, introduce themselves, and say, “We have everything you need. We can put it all on one system.” This is one of those things where you pay for sanity.
Has Otter helped Lip Eats innovate?
Tip: I believe that if you can continuously add concepts, then the sky’s the limit. We feel like we can do anything. We’ve been very aggressive moving into different markets via the CloudKitchens ecosystem. That’s been so seamless with Otter. So that’s been fun. At the CloudKitchens locations, Otter is seamless. It’s perfect. It cannot be any better.
How do you use QR code ordering?
Tip: For my business, the most important thing in the world is food, and there’s no regulation. So I’m going to regulate it. How am I going to regulate it? I’m going to make it simple. I’m going to create a QR code. That QR code is extremely simple. It allows the person ordering the food to get whatever they want from their table. You scan it with your phone, and it takes you to the Otter page. It has a lineup of your menu, and you can select whatever you want, like on Uber Eats or DoorDash. It’s all exactly the same, except you check out with the Otter page, not a third-party page.
Otter lets us take advantage of our QR codes, and offer certain promotional discounts to our customers. We can take 10% off and pay for delivery ourselves. That’s how the QR codes can work. We can use them for marketing purposes, we can help customers save on delivery fees, we can twist and turn and manipulate them however we want to. We’ve used Otter’s QR codes with students, in office complexes, and it’s really working. People are excited about having an option to cut out the middleman.
How would you describe Otter to another restaurant owner?
Tip: You can’t run a restaurant without Otter. It’s impossible. You can try, but it’s not going to be efficient. You don’t want to take on that liability. Other systems don’t always have the best securities in place to protect your personal and private information. As a restaurant owner, you’re taking on customers’ data – credit card information, addresses, telephone numbers, and so forth. You’re responsible for that.
Otter is extremely affordable. When you consider the fact that you can use it to build multiple brand concepts within one system, it’s worth its weight in gold. There’s no way you can do this at an efficient level if you have multiple tablets. It’s just not possible. On top of that, there’s an organization factor. You’re aware of what you’re doing. You’re able to situate your campaigns with your delivery, and you can just do it with Otter. You don’t have to log into anything else.
That’s what puts Lip Eats on the street to success!
Lindsay and Tip aren’t just restaurant owners – they’re innovators in a rapidly-changing food landscape. They understand the value of strong technology for enhancing their kitchens, service, and delivery, and they’re using it to grow. With Lip Eats’ multi-brand concept and Backstreet Asia’s delicious in-house cooking, these two restaurant entrepreneurs have Arizona eaters craving more. Through the power of Otter’s in-house and online solutions, Lip Eats develops its business seamlessly – and profitably.
