How Luna Italian Cuisine, a Stuart landmark since 1991, takes phone orders with Maple

Italian · Stuart, FL · Toast

A family restaurant that started as a takeout window

Luna Italian Cuisine opened in July 1991 as a tiny sidewalk takeout window on Flagler Avenue in downtown Stuart, and it has stayed at the same address ever since. When TCPalm marked its 25th anniversary in 2016, owner and chef Dan Horton was still making the sauce, his son Tim worked alongside him as manager and chef, and the kitchen baked up to 1,000 garlic knots a day from generations-old family recipes.

Takeout has been part of Luna since that window, and today much of it starts with a phone call.

Maple answers and sends orders into Toast

Maple answers Luna’s takeout calls, takes each order with its sides and modifiers, and sends it into Toast so it prints in the kitchen. Calls it cannot finish go to staff.

About $79,000 a year in phone orders

At its pace so far, Maple takes about 2,500 phone orders a year for Luna, worth about $79,000, and the calls it answers save the team about 5 hours of phone time a week.

Maple Pro costs $350 a month, so those phone orders come to about 18 times what Luna pays for it.

Yearly figures are rounded and carry the restaurant’s pace on Maple so far over twelve months; they come from Maple’s call and order records and do not forecast future orders. The multiple divides those phone-order sales by Maple Pro at $350 a month; it is sales, not profit. History comes from TCPalm’s June 22, 2016 story on Luna’s 25th anniversary and Luna’s own website.