Pizza Ranch

Pizza Ranch Chooses Branch for Seamless Earned Wage Access and Cashless Tips

Pizza Ranch is a family-friendly restaurant franchise with over 200 units across the Midwest. Half of their locations also have an arcade area with games for kids of all ages. Schuyler Noteboom, Operations & Profitability Project Manager for Pizza Ranch, is always looking for ways to enhance the employee experience. One strategy? To switch to an earned wage access provider that offered free, flexible options for employees to access their pay. We spoke with Noteboom about life before and after Branch, and the impact Branch has made on Pizza Ranch’s employees. 

Looking for an EWA Provider That Put Employees First

Prior to using Branch, Pizza Ranch already had an earned wage access solution in place. They had learned that this type of benefit—which allows employees to take an advance of their earned wages ahead of payday—was becoming increasingly important to today’s workforce. 

Noteboom was aware that this type of benefit could be extremely valuable.
‍“If an employee has a car situation, for example, where it breaks down and they suddenly need extra money to fix it—that type of thing can really derail their budget. Oftentimes in life, bills don’t line up perfectly with payday.”

However, their previous provider didn’t have the flexibility—or the free options—their team members needed. And Noteboom also recalls that their previous provider wasn’t reliable when it came to getting employees their advances in a timely manner. 

“There would be periods of time where employees didn’t have access or their funds, and they were frustrated by that,” says Noteboom. 

Another issue was that their previous provider charged fees for advances, which Noteboom wanted to fix. 

“We had team members that would go to advance their wages and be charged money—it’s just not right. This is their hard-earned money, and we wanted to provide them a free way to access that. Any time you have a solution that’s expensive, it takes profits out of their pockets. We wanted to avoid that.”

Schuyler and his team were also going through a P.O.S. change across all locations, which meant they could no longer pay out delivery drivers in cash. Suddenly, they had a group of employees who weren’t able to be paid their tips when they expected; they were frustrated at having to put their tips on paychecks, which came every two weeks. 

It seemed to be the perfect time to make a switch; to explore an option that could really help employees by providing a fast and flexible payments experience—at no cost.

The Start of a New Payments Partnership

Noteboom and his team decided to search for a new earned wage access provider. They knew they needed a company that would be a true payments partner to their business, while also being invested in helping their employees. This meant providing fee-free options and plenty of flexibility. 

“What we were looking for is someone that would truly partner with us to help our team members be successful. We needed someone to come alongside us to offer the flexibility and everything we needed in terms of free options,” Noteboom says

And Noteboom knew that finding the vendor who checked all those boxes would be crucial in terms of recruiting and retention. 

“We’re passionate about the people who are working for us,” says Noteboom. "We know that when we’re passionate about them, they’re going to be passionate about our customers. Retention is critical today.”

Fortunately, they met their match in Branch. Branch’s comprehensive platform now only provides fee-free earned wage access options, but a range of flexible payment solutions that can support franchises, including the ability to deliver digital tip payouts immediately to workers’ accounts as well as offer a direct deposit option. 

Saving Time and Creating a Better Employee Experience 

By implementing Branch, Pizza Ranch can now offer their employees an earned wage access solution with fee-free options, meaning their employees no longer have to pay to access their hard-earned cash. Several Pizza Ranch locations are also rolling out same-day digital tip payments so that employees will be able to access their hard-earned tips immediately after a shift instead of having to wait two weeks to have them placed on a paycheck. 

By switching to Branch, franchise owners have not only reduced costs with flexible, digital payment solutions, but also freed up valuable time—enabling them to focus on delivering an even better guest experience.

“Our managers have loved it for its simplicity. Once a store is set up and the data is flowing, managers can be really hands off,” Noteboom says, allowing them to focus on other tasks. 

Noteboom has seen firsthand just how simple getting set up is; he was visiting a Pizza Ranch location when one of the employees was getting started with Branch and was amazed at the simplicity of onboarding.  

“I sat with that team member as he got set up and I think it took him 60 seconds. He had the app downloaded, his account set up, and he had linked to his earnings which immediately showed him how much money he had available. We were both amazed.”

Branch’s earned wage access has worked so well for their employees that they’ve seen 60% more employees use Branch than their previous earned wage access provider. They currently have over 90 of their franchise locations on board, and Noteboom expects that number to continue to increase. 

Even with any issues or questions that have come up along the way, Noteboom cites how helpful Branch has been in constantly finding an innovative solution.  

“Initially we had a few issues on our end getting set up, so I quickly jumped on the phone with Branch and they fixed it. Within two days of our call they had a solution in place to eliminate the redundancies we were experiencing,” he says.

Since making the switch to Branch, Noteboom has considered Branch a critical component to Pizza Ranch’s ongoing strategy for driving retention and employee morale, while making the payments process more seamless for everyone involved. 

“Branch is one of those things that we know is going to continue to drive retention for our restaurants, and it’s going to continue to drive excitement for our employees,” he says. 

And Pizza Ranch managers have further echoed this sentiment. One Omaha-based manager shared, “After talking with my employees about their experience with Branch – they love it. [My team members] were impressed with the service and the customer support. Branch will certainly help me with recruiting and retaining my key staff members.”

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