Powered by Thrive Inventory since 2019
The Epicurean Trader Achieves Growth By Integrating Shopify & Square With Thrive Inventory
See how The Epicurean Trader grew faster and smarter by syncing Shopify and Square with Thrive Inventory across six sales channels.
Business Details
Business Type
Gourmet grocer & cafe
Integrations
Square POS
Shopify E-Commerce
Meta Shops
Sales Channels
5 grocery storefronts with a cafe
E-commerce
Meta shops
Corporate gifting
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About The Epicurean Trader
The Epicurean Trader began with a simple mission: to bring local gourmet food and beverage products beyond the farmer’s market and into the heart of San Francisco. Recognizing a gap in the market for specialty foods, they opened their first storefront in 2014. The team quickly discovered a strong demand from customers eager for their unique, high-quality offerings.
By partnering with artisan makers and small producers, many of whom are too small for grocery chains like Whole Foods, The Epicurean Trader created a welcoming marketplace where these brands could succeed. Their selection grew rapidly, now featuring everything from artisan Mezcal and goat cheese gouda to small-batch pasta and handcrafted stoneware.
Responding to positive customer feedback, they expanded their concept to include a to-go café, using ingredients from their own shelves to craft sandwiches, charcuterie, and more. The café’s popularity led to the creation of a full sit-down experience, fueling its growth to five locations across the city.
New Locations, New Inventory Challenges
Transitioning from one to two locations is a common milestone, and a significant challenge, for small businesses, particularly when it comes to inventory management. Initially, The Epicurean Trader team believed that receiving all products at a single location would streamline ordering. As Founder and Owner Mat Pond recalls, “We sort of manually handled the inventory, but we weren’t tracking how many bottles we were sending [to the second location]. It made sense financially, but not operationally.”
While consolidating orders helped them control vendor spending, it came at the cost of inventory visibility. As a result, staff at the second store frequently resorted to taking photos of their shelves and sending them to the original location, just to keep track of inventory and coordinate stock transfers. Then it came time for their next location. Mat explains, “As we approached a third store, it became clear that it was really tricky to manage what stores need what. It wasn’t a scalable business model.”
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"To have store level inventory, to move products around, and have one source of truth for inventory. That was probably the original reason we went with Thrive Inventory."
Building The Ultimate Tech Stack: Square, Shopify, And Thrive Inventory
As The Epicurean Trader continued to grow, Mat recognized the importance of optimizing systems and operations. The first priority was upgrading their point-of-sale solution. Mat shares, “We tried a few retail point-of-sales during our evolution. Ultimately we settled on Square. I still believe today Square still has a bit of an advantage in retail. As we started to get into cafes, there were restaurant point-of-sales, but we found that they didn’t really do the retail side well. So for us Square is a good balance between the two.”
With Square’s capabilities to support multiple storefronts, the team next focused on refining their inventory management. They adopted a warehouse model, receiving all inventory at a central location. This approach allowed them to maintain intentional spending while having flexibility in distributing products to each store as needed. However, as Mat notes, “Square did offer some of that functionality, but it just didn’t quite meet our needs. To have store-level inventory, to move products around, and have one source of truth for inventory. That was probably the original reason we went with Thrive Inventory. As our business has grown in complexity, Thrive has added other integrations and features.”
In fact, around the same time they implemented Thrive Inventory, Mat was preparing for their next phase: expanding into e-commerce with Shopify. “On the e-commerce side, in my mind, Shopify is the undisputed best platform. We found that Shopify just has made life a lot easier versus one of their competitors,” he explains. With Thrive Inventory, they were able to launch their online store within six months, seamlessly syncing their catalog and inventory across channels. As Mat puts it, “When we moved from purely retail to a hybrid model it became a lot easier to manage different channels.”
The Gold Standard For Multi-Channel Inventory
Since launching their Shopify e-commerce store, The Epicurean Trader has added two more storefronts, bringing their total to six sales channels with inventory flowing seamlessly between them. Mat explains, “With any new delivery to the warehouse, we create a Purchase Order in Thrive Inventory. Then daily we do Internal Transfers from the warehouse to each location.” With products constantly on the move, the Thrive Inventory In-Transit Report has become an essential tool, giving the team real-time visibility into where every product is headed.
In addition to the warehouse, they utilize two specialized locations in Thrive Inventory that aren’t connected to a point-of-sale system. One is dedicated to tracking high-end wines and whiskey, while the other separates inventory for gift baskets sold both online and in-store. This multi-location setup empowers Mat’s team with complete inventory control, helping them reduce stockouts and optimize reordering across every part of the business.
A key factor in their operational success is integrating the entire team into Thrive Inventory. Every store Manager and Assistant Manager has access to their respective locations, while two corporate employees handle product creation and price tagging. Their e-commerce agency manages SEO and online tags, and their accountant uses the Inventory Valuation Report to close out the books each month. With Thrive Inventory at the core of their operations, The Epicurean Trader ensures smooth collaboration, accountability, and the ability to scale confidently.
Mat is already planning the next phase of expansion: introducing an aperitivo afternoon wine bar with charcuterie at all café locations, further diversifying revenue streams and enhancing the customer experience.
Looking ahead, having a dependable and scalable inventory management system is essential for The Epicurean Trader’s continued success. Thrive Inventory’s integration with the top two small business payment processors, Shopify and Square, allows the business to manage complex inventory needs, support new sales channels, and maintain accuracy at every step. This technology partnership has become the backbone of their operations, positioning them for continued innovation and success in a rapidly evolving retail landscape.
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Power Your Own Success Story With Thrive Inventory
Thrive Inventory gives you control over all your inventory, sales channels, and metrics allowing you to make
the right decisions at the right time.
