Make helps Pacific Drive-Ins prevent $1,500 in daily revenue losses

Learn how Pacific Drive-Ins streamlined operations with Make, preventing revenue losses, reducing compliance issues to near zero, and seamlessly managing 700+ employees across the US with only five back office workers.

• Industry: Hospitality

• Use cases: HR, compliance, business operations

• Location: US

Pacific Drive-Ins, a Sonic Drive-In franchise with 16 locations across California and Arizona, serves over 6,000 customers daily. Before implementing Make, they battled hiring bottlenecks, delivery service disruptions, and an ever-growing list of compliance requirements.

Four years ago, Pacific Drive-Ins’ president Jeffrey Gelwix discovered the power of no-code automation. First, his team only automated back-office recruitment. Now, Make powers most of its operations, saving Pacific Drive-Ins a substantial sum in costs and missed opportunities.

“Make showed us that we didn’t need anything else—it just worked perfectly. What started as a solution to one problem has now become the backbone of our business.”

The challenges

Before implementing Make, Pacific Drive-Ins was facing three main issues:

1. Bottlenecks in hiring and onboarding: With 700+ employees during peak seasons and a back-office team of only five, recruiting and onboarding became a cumbersome task. Before automation, processes like job posting, training, or handling documentation were done manually, taking too much time from an already busy team. 

2. Inefficient compliance management: Operating in California means navigating complex labor laws. For example, if an employee skips a break, the company has to pay a missed meal period penalty. Before implementing Make, tracking breaks manually was extremely time consuming and required multiple levels of review to avoid human error, which could result in costly lawsuits and reputational damage. 

3. Logistical and operational disruptions: Managing 16 locations during peak seasons was a heavy load for employees. To ease the burden, employees often disabled the restaurant’s delivery service in food ordering applications without first consulting with management. This led to operational disruptions and a significant revenue loss of an estimated $1,500 per day. 

The solutions

Pacific Drive-Ins turned to Make for an automation solution that would help them address operational challenges head-on:

Automating HR processes

Pacific Drive-Ins integrated Make and Paycor (a human resources information system) to automate recruitment processes. Make workflows could handle everything from job posting and application tracking to employee onboarding and HR database updates. Meanwhile, the Pacific Drive-Ins team could focus on communicating with job seekers on time, keeping interactions consistent. They also saved money by not needing to hire extra part-time staff to assist with recruitment.

Staying compliant with labor laws

To avoid costly penalties, Pacific Drive-Ins created a workflow that seamlessly tracks employee breaks. They used Make to connect Paycor for compliance tracking with Infor, which tracks employee hours. Clock-in and clock-out data from Infor is ingested into Make in order to identify any potential violations. If a potential issue is detected, Make sends real-time notifications to management for immediate action. If a violation has already occurred, it calculates the penalty and records it in the payroll system.

"Compliance used to be a constant worry, but Make transformed it into a seamless process. Now, we don’t just track labor law requirements in real time—we prevent violations before they happen, avoiding fines, penalties, and legal risks.”

Gaining control over delivery services

Pacific Drive-Ins also uses Make to better manage delivery services. First, they can access APIs of food ordering platforms like DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub, and Postmates. That lets them automatically update menus, prices, and opening hours across all 16 locations. Make also oversees Pacific Drive-In’s employee activity–if staff wants to disable delivery service, management receives real-time approval requests. This allows the company to address the underlying issues leading to pauses in their delivery business, preventing financial losses and customer churn.

"Delivery disruptions were costing us thousands in lost revenue and unhappy customers. With Make, we automated and centralized control over delivery platforms, ensuring consistency and protecting our revenue—even during the busiest times."

The results

Partnering with Make, Pacific Drive-Ins could:

• Manage 700+ employees across the US without scaling the team 

• Reduce non-compliance issues to near zero, avoiding lawsuits

• Prevent an average loss of $1,500 per day from delivery service disruptions

• Achieved major savings on operational bottlenecks, legal fees, and lost business 

Why are Make and Pacific Drive-Ins a perfect match?

Over four years, Make has become an inseparable part of Pacific Drive-Ins’ operations, helping a few dedicated individuals run a multimillion-dollar business smoothly. Make’s user-friendly interface lets the team manage workflows without extensive technical knowledge, integrate all their tools, and scale automation effortlessly as they grow.

“Make isn’t just a tool—it’s a partner that helps us run smarter and faster. It’s hard to imagine our business without it now.”

Ready to automate your workflows like Pacific Drive-Ins? Get started with Make for free.