The Story

Amber and her husband bought the Plaza Azteca in Leesburg, Virginia shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic turned the food & beverage industry upside down.

Plaza Azteca Leesburg VA Zira

Amber and team were able to keep the business operating profitably despite the shifting demand to pickup and delivery, but a new problem arose that the young restauranteurs didn’t expect.

With the changing landscape employee hours diminished and the schedules needed to be constantly reworked. Employees found additional hours with other local companies which meant balancing the demands and needs of the business, and the employees with respect to changing demands.

Amber spent an average of 4 hours a week creating the schedule and additional time tracking time-off requests and and time cards.

The Challenge

Amber is very particular about her schedule. She preferred to add notes, and many other details not typically available to her in out-of-the-box solutions. Prior to Zira, Amber also would often need to copy her notes from one pad to the next to make sure she didn’t forget which team members she had promised time off to.

An added layer of complexity arose when Plaza Azteca was faced with a similar problem as many business in 2020, COVID. The novel coronavirus caused a massive disruption in their growing business.

While they were able to keep some revenue flowing, they were forced to operated with a much lighter staff than expected. Because of this they needed to make sure the schedules and hours distributed were fair and in some cases going to their primary staff.


Taking Flight with Zira

When Amber realized she could add custom details to Shift cards in Zira, she quickly built out her Zira location to perfectly match her needs. She also sees directly on her calendar and by the scheduling suggestions who has approved time off and who is the recommended coverage need.

When COVID hit, Amber and the whole Plaza Azteca team were able to take advantage of Zira’s customizable auto-scheduling rules. She simply tagged her primary staff and created a assignment rule that maximized the hours given to those tagged staff members.

Now, with Zira, Amber has smarter, simpler schedules that automatically get created for her. Stop by Plaza Azteca in Leesburg, VA to ask Amber what she does with the time saved!