Torro Restaurant Group operates five unique restaurant concepts across Boise and Eagle, Idaho, including Barbacoa, Coa de Jima, Nick's Italian, Ti Amo, and Coa Del Mar. We sat down with Jonathan Klitgaard to discuss how implementing TipHaus and Cheers by TipHaus QR Code Tipping helped streamline tip distribution, reduce administrative workload, eliminate nightly cash handling, and create a more polished guest experience for their tableside service program.
10+ Hours
Saved weekly in manager time previously spent on tip related tasks
$300
Saved weekly in labor costs tied to tip management
3x/Week
Bank runs eliminated, previously withdrawing $15K–$17K per trip
Idaho
5
Full-service restaurant (FSR)
Jonathan Klitgaard, Director of Operations
Torro Restaurant Group was manually managing complex tip pools and nightly cash payouts across 5 high-volume restaurants. Managers spent hours each week handling cash, making bank runs, resolving discrepancies, and managing tip calculations, while tableside staff relied on tip jars and Venmo exchanges that felt unprofessional and created guest “tip fatigue.”
TipHaus automated tip calculations and distributions across all locations, eliminating nightly cash payouts and significantly reducing administrative work. Cheers by TipHaus QR Code Tipping modernized the guest tipping experience for their guacamole and Caesar salad carts by providing a cleaner, more professional alternative to tip jars and personal payment apps.
Reduce tip calculation time by 80% while eliminating manual errors and discrepancies—ensuring accuracy and legal compliance
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Give your team daily access to their earnings. No cash, no bank runs, no stress.
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Torro Restaurant Group operates 5 restaurant locations throughout Idaho’s Treasure Valley region, including Boise and the surrounding suburbs. The group is known for creating elevated dining experiences across multiple concepts, with Barbacoa serving as one of its most recognized destinations. Jonathan Klitgaard oversees operations for all 5 restaurants, managing both the guest experience and operational efficiency across the organization. As the restaurant group continued to grow, the team needed a more scalable and transparent way to manage tip distribution while also improving the guest experience around tableside tipping.
QR Code Tipping & Hospitality: How Torro Restaurant Group is Modernizing the Guest Experience
From busboy to leading operations across five restaurant concepts, Jonathan Klitgaard from Torro Restaurant Group joins Tipped Off to share how modern hospitality leaders are improving guest experience while streamlining operations with tools like QR code tipping and AI. Tune in to hear real-world insights on transparency, operational efficiency, and why authentic hospitality still wins every time.
Torro Restaurant Group faced several operational challenges tied to manual tip management and cash handling across its 5 restaurant locations. Managers were responsible for manually calculating and distributing tips for large teams that often included 15–17 servers per night, along with multiple support staff tip pools for server assistants, expeditors, and food runners. The process required frequent bank runs, sometimes withdrawing $15,000–$17,000 at a time, while daily balancing discrepancies, manual bookkeeping, and cash handling created significant administrative strain for both nighttime operations and daytime accounting teams.
The group was also looking for a more professional and modern solution for tableside tipping at its guacamole and Caesar salad carts. Traditional tip jars created what Jonathan described as “tip fatigue” by making guests feel pressured to tip multiple employees throughout the dining experience. At the same time, many guests no longer carried cash, leading staff to exchanging personal Venmo information with guests who still wanted to leave gratuities. Torro Restaurant Group needed a cleaner, more transparent solution that improved the guest experience while keeping all tipping and reporting fully in-house.
Torro Restaurant Group implemented TipHaus to automate tip calculations, distributions, and reporting across the organization. The platform eliminated the need for nightly manual cash payouts across 15–17 servers per shift, removing the burden of handling large cash volumes and reducing operational friction tied to frequent $15,000–$17,000 cash withdrawals for tip distribution. Automated tip pooling simplified complex distributions across servers, server assistants, expeditors, and food runners, while improving accuracy and transparency across multiple daily tip pools. As a result, daily bookkeeping time for tips was reduced from approximately 1 hour down to 30 minutes, and managers saved an estimated 5–10 hours per week in administrative workload.
To modernize the guest experience, Torro also implemented Cheers by TipHaus QR Code Tipping across its tableside guacamole and Caesar salad carts. Instead of relying on traditional tip jars, the team introduced custom wooden QR code boxes used across 2 tableside carts, allowing guests to tip digitally while still offering a cash option for those who prefer it. This solution replaced inconsistent cash jar tipping and eliminated the need for staff to exchange personal Venmo information with guests, while ensuring all gratuities were fully tracked, declared, and accounted for within the system. The result was a more seamless, professional, and scalable tipping experience that aligned with both guest expectations and operational standards.
Before QR tipping, guests who wanted to tip but didn’t carry cash were exchanging Venmo information with staff, which didn’t feel professional for us. With Cheers by TipHaus, everything stays in-house, tips are properly accounted for, and the experience feels much cleaner for both guests and employees. Operationally, TipHaus has also eliminated nightly cash tip payouts, reduced bookkeeping time by half, and saved our managers 5–10 hours per week.
Jonathan Klitgaard
Director of Operations
See why TipHaus is trusted by 500,000+ hospitality professionals
Torro Restaurant Group's partnership with TipHaus transformed tip management from a time-consuming, cash-heavy process into a seamless, automated system across all five locations. By eliminating nightly cash payouts, reducing bookkeeping time by 50%, and modernizing the guest tipping experience with QR code technology, the team reclaimed valuable manager hours and created a more professional, transparent operation. For multi-concept restaurant groups looking to scale without the administrative burden, TipHaus delivers the automation, accuracy, and accountability that modern hospitality demands.
