From ballroom banquets to fridge-friendly food

The Hotel del Prado in Montevideo has been a landmark in Uruguay’s capital for over a century. The grand building once hosted glittering balls and served as a community gathering point, but it fell into disrepair.

Agustin Lombardo and his father made the dream of restoring the hotel to its former glory a reality. They renovated the historic building and transformed it into a vibrant venue once again. Business was thriving until COVID-19 brought events to a standstill.

With no events to cater, the team turned their attention to cooking and delivering fine dining, ready-to-eat dishes with a 10-day fridge life.

Initially, demand was modest, around 80 meals a day. That changed when Agustin joined the business after finishing university. Within a year, he scaled the delivery operation from 80 to 380 meals per day, expanded the team from 3 to 17 employees, and began digitizing every part of their meal delivery operation using Circuit for Teams.

"I'm just trying to figure out new ways to make everybody's job simpler. The systems all around the business were terrifying. Printing some things and manually picking up the phone."

Tech-driven food delivery

Before Circuit, the team relied on spreadsheets and piecemeal systems to manage orders and plan routes.

To streamline things, they built a Python integration that pulls the next day’s orders directly from their website, automatically generating a spreadsheet formatted for import into Circuit. This step alone eliminated hours of manual work.

They're now working on deeper integrations, like syncing Circuit with their backend to automate even more of the daily order and delivery process and improving address entry on their website to prevent delivery errors caused by incorrect formatting.

"It can organize all the stops for the drivers. I was looking at my father and the two drivers, and we were like, "It's a miracle!"

The catering team handles both corporate and individual orders. Corporate clients need deliveries completed early, usually before lunch, so by using Circuit’s time windows feature, they ensure that business deliveries are weighted toward the beginning of each driver’s route. This is essential when there is an office of 30 hungry workers eagerly waiting for their lunch to arrive!

High-quality customer service

The team built its own WhatsApp integration to reduce customer service calls and encourage repeat orders.

Recipients automatically receive a message with their expected delivery time, significantly reducing "Where’s my order?" inquiries. The system also sends order reminders to prompt reorders for the following week and follows up with customer satisfaction surveys.

Their in-house dispatcher still handles urgent last-minute changes by phone because they pride themselves on offering personalized customer service when it matters most.

“The customer service we have received from Circuit is amazing, and I use that as a benchmark for myself and our business."

Agustin has grand plans for the Hotel del Prado. He hopes to expand deliveries even more and take on more responsibility to help his Father step back from the business and enjoy an easier life.

Their sales team is focused on acquiring larger corporate clients and boosting bookings for on-site catering events. As if that weren’t enough, they’re also planning to expand their product range with higher-margin add-ons like smoothies, energy bars, puddings, and snacks.

Note: Circuit for teams is saving thousands of businesses at least 20% on delivery costs. Try it free for 7 days.