At a Glance: How Levain Bakery Powered Their 19-Location Expansion

* Tech Vision: CTO Gustavo Cardona, a former NASA data analyst applied an “engineer’s point of view” to the cookie business.

* Visibility Boost: A partnership with Marqii that streamlined Google Business Profiles, leading to a 13% increase in “noticeability” in just four months.

* Core Engine: Toast serves as the exclusive POS, utilized for its robust API and Kitchen Display Systems (KDS) to sync high-volume storefronts.

* Freshness Guarantee: Using PDQ (Pretty Damn Quick) as an Order Management System to ensure e-commerce customers are only charged the day their cookies are baked and shipped.

When you think of Levain Bakery, you might picture the legendary six-ounce cookies and lines stretching around New York City blocks.

But behind that warm, gooey center is a sophisticated technological engine designed for growth.

The leader of the company’s tech vision? Gustavo Cardona who’s tech journey led him from NASA to a cookie company that has scaled to almost 20 locations.

I was lucky enough to spend time with Gustavo inside Levain Bakery where I got a chance to try their absolutely amazing treats.

A former engineer who once worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute on data for the Hubble telescope, Gustavo treats the bakery’s tech stack like a precision instrument.

His “small but mighty” team uses an “engineer’s point of view”— A/B testing new tools to ensure they maintain the brand’s soul while operating at an enterprise scale.

LEARN MORE about the story of Levain Bakery on our Restaurant Influencers video podcast series on Entrepreneur.com.

1. The Operational Heart: Toast

For Levain, Toast is the central nervous system of every physical bakery. Gustavo moved the brand to Toast specifically for its customizable platform and robust API.

In a high-velocity environment like Levain Bakery, the back-of-house needs to stay perfectly synchronized with the front-of-house rush. He highlights the impact of Toast’s Kitchen Display Systems (KDS):

“First of all, back of the house, simple KDS. All the orders come through... storefront and marketplace, it’s all that.”

This integration allows the team to manage a high volume of orders in real-time without losing the “neighborhood bakery” quality.

2. Owning the Map: Marqii & Google Business Profiles

One of the most significant hurdles for a growing brand is digital “fragmentation.” With 19 locations, keeping Google Business Profiles accurate and engaging is a massive undertaking.

Levain utilizes Marqii to solve this. By centralizing their profiles, Marqii acts as a single source of truth for location data and store hours.

* The 13% Noticeability Bump: On the advice of the Marqii team, Levain simplified their naming convention on Google (changing specific neighborhood titles to simply “Levain Bakery”). The result was a 13% increase in noticeability in just four months.

* Search Optimization: Marqii helps them capture customers who aren’t just searching for the brand, but are searching for keywords like “best chocolate chip cookies in New York.”

3. The Digital “20th Location”: PDQ

Levain’s e-commerce business has become so large that Gustavo considers it their 20th location. To manage the complexity of shipping a perishable product, they rely on Pretty Damn Quick (PDQ) as their Order Management System (OMS).

PDQ allows Levain to execute a custom “bake-to-ship” workflow:

“The day we bake it, the day we ship it, the day we charge it. Because now we know you’re going to get your cookies.”

This logic ensures that customers are only billed once the product is fresh and ready for transit, maintaining the high standards Levain is known for.

4. Data-Driven Insights: MRI Software & Verkada

To understand the “Levain Impact” in new markets like Beverly Hills or Chicago, the team relies on foot-traffic intelligence. By using MRI Software integrated with Verkada camera systems, Levain tracks traffic patterns moving both inside and outside their stores.

This data is funneled into Tableau, which Gustavo also uses as an inventive intermediary to bridge data from the Toast API into their NetSuite finance platform. This high-level visualization ensures every expansion move is backed by hard data rather than guesswork.

Levain’s success proves that high-tech and high-touch aren’t mutually exclusive. By empowering primary partners like Toast to handle operations and Marqii to dominate search, Gustavo Cardona has cleared the path for his team to focus on what matters most: the community and the cookies.

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