The customer data platform built exclusively for multi-unit restaurants.
Since opening its first location in Philadelphia in 2012, honeygrow has built its brand around a simple but powerful idea: fresh, made-to-order stir-fry, salads, and honeybars that guests can feel good about eating. In an increasingly crowded fast-casual landscape, honeygrow’s commitment to customization, bold flavors, and wholesome ingredients has helped it stand out.
We recently sat down with Amy DePaoli, Head of Marketing at honeygrow, to learn how the brand is using Bikky to better understand their core customer, refine and expand their menu offerings, and enter new markets with confidence.
Using Bikky to identify their most loyal guests has transformed how honeygrow makes decisions, allowing them to move away from guesswork and act from a unified, guest-first perspective.
“Prior to working with Bikky, we had a hunch of who our guests were, but we didn’t know for certain. And we really needed to validate that before moving into some of these new markets,” Amy said.
The data revealed that honeygrow’s primary guest is the suburban mom, who often serves as the family’s purchaser and ultimate decision-maker. That insight has shaped the brand’s marketing approach, from the visuals they use in campaigns to how they think about product positioning and communication strategy.
This clarity has rippled across the organization. Menu development now considers the preferences of the suburban family, marketing materials showcase people who look like actual honeygrow customers, and new locations open in areas where their target demographic lives.
honeygrow’s approach to menu development is built on creativity, customization, and bold, better-for-you ingredients. LTOs are a key lever for driving guest engagement and introducing customers to new flavors and categories.
“LTOs are a core part of our strategy,” said Amy. “They keep things fresh for our guests and give us a platform to experiment with bold new ideas.”
One standout success: the Chesapeake Crab Stir-Fry, a fan favorite that returns seasonally and drives repeat visits among loyal guests. Bikky helps the honeygrow team evaluate LTO performance by looking at whether guests order a new item multiple times, or revert to other menu staples after trying it once.
Guest data also helps the team identify top-selling items from its core menu—or spot and diagnose issues. Take the Sweet Soy Five Spice Stir-Fry. Despite strong internal confidence in the dish, Bikky data revealed a lack of repeat orders. That sparked important conversations about how it was being presented: Could the name, description, or the dish itself be improved to help it resonate better with customers?
“In today’s environment, we have a very small window to make that great first impression.” Amy noted, “making every detail all the more important.”
As honeygrow continues expanding across the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, data helps the team understand how different guest segments behave and how to meet them where they are.
The brand’s early footprint focused on dense cities like Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Pittsburgh, where the business skewed heavily toward lunch. But in the immediate wake of the pandemic, as honeygrow expanded into the suburbs, order patterns evolved: dinner became just as important to sales as lunch, reflecting the shift in customer base from working professionals to young families.
“With Bikky, we’ve been able to hone in on different guest segments and understand what they’re ordering,” said Amy. “It really varies restaurant by restaurant, which helps us tailor how we approach each new location.”
These insights are especially valuable as honeygrow eyes new geographies like Ohio, Virginia, and Maryland. Bikky’s data helps validate where honeygrow’s offering will resonate most, ensuring that decisions around expansion are backed by more than intuition.
Today, honeygrow’s marketing, culinary, operations, and finance teams use Bikky to inform strategy and day-to-day decisions. Whether testing new menu items, optimizing existing ones, or selecting new store locations, robust data allows honeygrow to put the guest at the center of every decision.
As the brand continues to scale, it’s not compromising on what made it special in the first place: fresh, flavorful, customizable food that customers can feel good about. Now, equipped with comprehensive insights from Bikky, honeygrow is ready to bring that vision to more communities—one stir-fry at a time.
The customer data platform built exclusively for multi-unit restaurants.