Piada Italian Street Food brings scratch-made Italian cuisine to the fast-casual space, offering chef-curated pastas, salads, and sides with premium ingredients and customizable plates. They place heavy focus on innovation, notably with their popular rolled piada dishes – a fresh take on the classic piadina. To keep their inventive menu as fresh as their ingredients, Piada regularly tests items across salads, piadas, and seafood to increase guest excitement and new orders.

But when it came to evaluating new items, their team lacked the data needed to move quickly and confidently. Testing often meant waiting weeks for manual reports or relying solely on item mix, without knowing who actually ordered a dish or whether they came back for more. They wanted to make faster, more confident decisions – and looked to Bikky for help.

In 2023, Piada wanted to run a single-store test to inform its annual LTO decision. Given the success of a previous burrata add-on, Piada decided to test Burrata Rigatoni as a new LTO.

“We typically do two menu LTOs, one with a focus on pasta. We usually focus on highly craveable dishes that our guests can’t easily make at home. Burrata was trending, so we wanted to iterate on a more elevated fast casual version.”  – Stephanie Bauer

Previously, evaluating the success of an LTO test required manually pulling together disparate data sources, often long after the test had ended. Menu performance questions would surface in meetings, but the team didn’t always have the data readily available. They wanted to easily see who was ordering the new item, whether it drove repeat visits, and how it stacked up to their core menu items in frequency and retention before launching it brand-wide. 

Using Bikky, Piada could evaluate the success of the Burrata Rigatoni LTO as it was actively running. The team analyzed guest retention, reorder rate, check size, frequency, and demographic data at the check level to understand whether the item was a success. 

They found that retention was in line with other menu items, but the reorder rate was not on par with their top-performing pastas. For a premium, tighter-margin LTO, that mattered. It showed that while guests were willing to try the dish, it hadn’t yet proven itself as a repeat favorite.

Still, the test delivered meaningful wins. Check size was significantly larger, and although food cost was higher, the lift supported the same-store sales goals. Among new guests, average orders and frequency ticked up slightly. 

Bikky also showed that the LTO skewed toward older, higher-income guests, a group Piada had been working to re-engage. Rather than immediately promoting Burrata Rigatoni to a broader seasonal LTO, they kept testing. The focus shifted to a deeper question: even if reorders lagged, would guests who tried Burrata return and trade into other core items? The decision wasn’t about whether the dish sold, but if it moved the right guests in the right direction.

“The big win was check size. When we think about LTOs, we focus on premium offerings. Bikky showed us that the demographics skewed higher income and older – a group of guests we wanted to gain back.” 

Ultimately, the low reorder rate for Burrata Rigatoni was the exact insight the team needed. Instead of rushing the item into a broader seasonal rollout based on trend appeal, Piada chose to pause and refine. 

After further testing and evaluation, Piada saw the shifts they were hoping for which gave them the confidence to look for a full system rollout of an updated version of their LTO: Burrata Marinara. 

“In the past, we would have been a little more short sighted and less patient with the data—pulling the trigger too early one way or the other. Now seeing how this LTO impacted long-term frequency by following the data over time, we are seeing great success with the new "Burrata Marinara" item that we rolled out in February.”

Piada’s data-driven approach to reevaluating Burrata Rigatoni and subsequently launching Burrata Marinara made sure the item would have the measured impact they were looking for and truly align with their goals. The team is looking forward to using data to plan future menu adjustments and LTOs accordingly.