Meet Stephanie Rhodes, owner and operator of Agape Juices, a cold-pressed juice bar and clean-food restaurant in Foley, Alabama. Like a lot of restaurant owners, Stephanie spent her first years in business using a POS System that treated her like a number and drowning in a stack of back office work that gobbled up her evenings.
Here’s how Table Needs changed all of that and what her day looks like now.
The “why” came first
Stephanie Rhodes set out to help her family. Seven of her loved ones were fighting cancer or Alzheimer’s at the same time. She dove into research looking for anything that might help them in the battle and kept landing on the same answer: the food we eat is inflammatory, and changing what goes in can change a lot.
That idea became Agape Juices: cold-pressed juices and clean, plant-based food made as pure as she could get it. She named it after the Greek word for unconditional love.
Before she opened, Stephanie drove all over the region visiting juice bars — Birmingham, Fort Walton, anywhere that had a real juice bar — to learn everything she could. Realizing that the closest juice bar to where she was from in Foley, Alabama was two and a half hours away, she knew what she needed to do.
The part nobody warns you about
The first few years were a whirlwind: location, sourcing ingredients, getting those first few loyal customers who helped spread the word about her amazing juices. Everything was starting to come together and run smoothly except in one area: the restaurant tech that was supposed to help her business operate smoothly was a constant frustration.
Stephanie’s previous POS system was the kind a lot of owner-operators unfortunately know too well. Half the time she called support, she’d get someone on the other side of the world who had no idea what she actually did for a living. The other half of the time, nobody picked up at all.
When your card reader goes down mid-rush, “nobody picked up” is not a feature. It’s lost revenue and a line of customers watching you sweat.
Stephanie’s other frustration was the stuff behind the counter. Sales tax. Marketing. The back-office work that eats your evenings after you’ve already been on your feet for ten hours. She’s a juice maker and a relationship builder, not a tech person — and she didn’t want to become one.
“Be prepared to turn your world around. To be all in.”
— Stephanie Rhodes, Owner, Agape Juices
Then Ben walked in
Then a few years ago, Ben Simmons — Table Needs co-founder, CEO, and an active QSR owner himself — came into Agape Juices for food and a conversation. He told Stephanie what Table Needs was building: a platform that takes the operational load off restaurant owners so they can spend their time where it matters.
She decided to take a step. She hasn’t regretted it.
“Ben’s a man of integrity, and he runs the company the same way. That matters.”
— Stephanie Rhodes
What changed
The biggest impact? Support that actually supports. Now when Stephanie calls, a real person picks up. They listen. They get to the root of the problem and solve it. For an owner who says plainly that she’s not a tech person, that’s the difference between a good day and a bad one.
The biggest time saver? Sales tax on autopilot. Through Table Needs’ DAVO integration, Stephanie’s sales tax gets set aside, filed, and paid for her. No more watching the calendar for the 20th. No more sitting down after a shift to do math with the state of Alabama. That’s one more thing she doesn’t have to carry.
The most meaningful change? A company that shares her values. Stephanie didn’t choose Table Needs because of a feature list. She chose it because of how the people behind it show up — and because they stand for something. In her words, she’s grateful for the company and what it stands for.
“Every time I call, I get a real person. They get to the root of the problem and solve it.”
— Stephanie Rhodes
The takeaway for other owners
Stephanie’s advice to anyone thinking about opening their own shop: make sure you have more money than you think you’ll need, and be ready to go all in.
We’d add one more: pick a POS partner who answers the phone.
Ready to stop chasing support tickets and start running your shop? Talk to a real person at Table Needs.
→ No contracts or bogus pricing. Pinky promise.
