Luna Grill

Fast Casual60+ Locations

How Luna Grill partnered with unPLUG to unify web and app ordering on Brink, then turned first-party digital into a same-store growth engine across 60+ locations.

+334%

1P Digital Sales Increase

+256%

Net Sales Per Store Per Month

About The Partnership

Luna Grill is a fast-casual Mediterranean brand known for fresh, high-quality ingredients and a premium yet accessible dining experience. With 60+ locations and an active new-restaurant pipeline, the brand has built its reputation on flavor, hospitality, and a guest file that comes back often: roughly 20% of guests drive about 50% of sales.

That frequency is why first-party digital had to match the in-store brand. Before unPLUG, web and app lived on different stacks: Koala for web ordering and Punchh for the app, both Olo partners, but not one guest experience. The brief was to modernize the look, make the app more rewards-forward, and bring those two worlds together on PAR Brink, with Punchh remaining the loyalty system of record.

Integrations: PAR Brink, Punchh

"unPLUG's partnership is one-of-a-kind. Through consistent collaboration, we are supported with the tools we need to optimize and adjust our digital strategies based on real-time data, guest engagement, and emerging business needs."
Maddie Nixon
Digital Marketing Director

The Challenge

Luna Grill already had first-party ordering and a large loyalty file. What it did not have was one digital experience. Web ran on Koala. The app ran on Punchh. Both connected through Olo, and both felt like different products. Koala’s web UX had pieces the team liked, but Koala did not have an Android app, so the vendor set was already shrinking. The driving force for a rebuild was a more modern look and a more customizable, rewards-forward app, and a way to make web and app feel like the same brand.

"We had Koala for web ordering and Punchh for the app. Even though they were both Olo partners, they seemed to be very different UX experiences. One of the things we had been talking about is how do you bring those two worlds together," said Maddie Nixon, Digital Marketing Director.

The goals were written down from day one, using the conversion and abandonment detail Koala could already report: raise conversion, cut cart abandonment, lift loyalty participation and signups, grow app orders and app revenue, improve Punchh redemption, increase LTO mix, and grow delivery orders and delivery AOV. At launch the brand still had on the order of 500,000 loyalty guests. Functionality came first. The marketing consequence of that was retention: do not abandon people who already loved Luna Grill.

The other gap was the in-store guest. A large share of volume was still dine-in only. If those guests never entered the digital file, paid media and lifecycle would keep talking to a thinner audience than the restaurants were actually serving.

How We Solved It

The strategic approach and key implementations that drove success

Demand Capture Optimization

unPLUG rebuilt Luna Grill’s owned storefront into a single web and mobile system on Brink, so the app and website could finally share one conversion-focused guest journey. Direct POS integration also unlocked something an aggregator path could not: first-party-only menu. Build Your Own Bowl launched in 2025 as an app- and web-exclusive product, a reason to order on Luna Grill’s channels that does not exist on Olo. Guest identification sits in the same flow, so a visit on owned digital feeds Punchh rather than sitting in a separate ordering silo.

"The customization, the ability to come to you and give feedback directly, there is real value in that. We get to speak with the head of engineering once a week. We have been able to do a lot of custom things we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise," said Maddie.

Unified web and mobile app ordering infrastructure on Brink
Embedded guest data capture across all digital touchpoints
First-party-exclusive menu (including Build Your Own Bowl)
Integrated connection between POS, ordering, and Punchh loyalty

Transaction Optimization

Once the storefront was trusted, marketing could use it as a conversion tool instead of a brochure. unPLUG tightened campaign-to-checkout with deeplinks from paid media, LTO placement on the app home screen, and consistent routing so SMS, offers, and ads land in cart. Frequency challenges, which Luna Grill already ran, now close each quarter inside the new app because they work harder when the path is owned.

The team also learned when not to force the app. For net-new paid media, extra steps can block the first ticket. The play is to win the transaction, then make rewards obvious. Web, launched after the app, is that first-order surface: 40,872 orders in August 2026 that did not exist at baseline, at $37.25 AOV, 27% above the app ticket. App orders still grew from 31,836 to 71,997. System AOV rose 22.3%, from $26.37 to $32.25, and items per order rose from 2.55 to 2.75. Discount rate fell from 11.43% to 9.71%. The channel got bigger without buying the volume with heavier promotions.

Two-click deeplink journeys from campaign to checkout
Optimized pathways for SMS, LTOs, and promotional campaigns
Cross-channel routing for consistent guest experiences
Event-driven triggers tied to guest behavior and engagement

Guest Recognition & Loyalty

The growth sequence revealed itself in the work. First, make it functional. Next, retain the existing Punchh file and pull more current guests into loyalty. Then acquire new members directly into the app. The surprise win was inside the restaurant: check-in and in-store ordering turned dine-in-only guests into digital guests.

"One of the biggest growth areas we've seen is folks using the app in the restaurant. That's been huge for us, because we converted dine-in only guests to digital guests, even just by them checking in at the restaurant to make an order," said Maddie.

Restaurants made that a focus: help guests download, check in, and order on owned. Active identified guests on first-party digital went from 19,269 to 56,817. Repeat guests, those first seen in an earlier month, now drive 83.9% of first-party net sales, up from 33.8%. Net sales per active guest per month rose from $43.56 to $50.44. The economics of joining are straightforward: Luna Grill’s loyalty guest LTV is about $356, so the $5 signup offer pays for itself quickly.