Raglan Roast

Hospitality

Droppah x Raglan Roast: How smart rostering supports a growing coffee empire

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Raglan Roast has always been about more than just a caffeine hit. What began in the early 2000s with a few barefoot surfers, an old coffee machine, and a koha system has grown into 12 cafés across New Zealand, a roastery and online fulfillment facility.

The soul hasn’t changed. The scale has. And when you’re managing a 90+ staff across multiple locations, good vibes need the right systems to thrive.
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We caught up with Celeste and Alanah from Raglan Roast to learn how things run behind the scenes. Celeste manages payroll, HR and general administration across the business, while Alanah works across operations, supporting store teams and helping systems scale as the business grows.

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When growth outpaces your roster

As Raglan Roast expanded, their staffing model became more dynamic: some team members stay site-based, while others move between cafés to meet demand. At the same time, they operate in an industry Alanah describes as “really volatile with staff”, where turnover is high and people are constantly coming and going.

Before Droppah, Alanah described jumping between spreadsheets and Facebook groups just to understand rosters across stores. Time tracking sat somewhere else entirely. There was no single source of truth. As the business scaled, simple questions became hard to answer.

When labour is your biggest cost, that’s not just inconvenient, it’s risky.

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“Once we started growing, things that used to work just didn’t anymore. There was no connection between the roster and the timesheets, so there was always the risk that steps weren’t followed.”

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Why Droppah: One system. Twelve sites. Total clarity.

Flexibility is key to great service, but flexibility without the right system? Chaos!

Raglan Roast didn’t need another scheduling tool. They needed a system that could handle the reality of multi-site hospitality; ownership on the floor, visibility at the top, real-time tracking accuracy, and labour insights that drove decisions.

Most importantly, as Celeste explained, they needed a clean flow from roster to time clock to payroll. That’s where Droppah came in.

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“When we moved to Droppah, it was the first time we automated our rostering.

Now we’re able to toggle between sites at any point in time, we’ve never had that visibility across all our teams before. It’s a complete game changer”

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Running shifts without the admin hangover

Each Raglan Roast café has a team lead responsible for building the roster and approving time. For Celeste and Alanah, keeping that ownership at store level was important, the people running the shift know their café best.

With Droppah, the teams can build shifts around real demand, publish them in seconds, and notify the staff instantly through the Droppah app. And with shift information always up-to-date, there’s no more trawling through the group chat.

The staff can clock in for their shifts using the Photo Time Clock, capturing accurate, timestamped attendance that flows straight through to PayHero, ready for pay day.

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“The people running the shift know what’s actually happening. The automation has made our managers’ lives easier. It frees them up to focus on what’s important. And that’s a real game changer in hospitality.”

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Turning insights into management frameworks

For Raglan Roast, the real shift came when they started using Droppah’s Insights. With consistent data across 12 sites, labour is no longer managed on instinct. Alanah discusses now being able to build structured labour cost frameworks to see a day-to-day breakdown of staff and revenue and have conversations with the teams within the same week.

Labour is their biggest cost. Now it’s also one of their clearest data points.

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“We’re starting to build really amazing labour cost frameworks across each site. Instead of guessing, we can actually show team leads data.… it’s super helpful to build trust within our teams.”

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The Holy Grail: Roster → Time → Payroll

For Payroll, Raglan Roast uses PayHero, also built by the team behind Droppah. This is where the magic really happens, completing the full roster-to-pay workflow.

The flow is simple:‍

Roster: Built in Droppah based on skills and availability.
‍Time: Captured via Photo Time Clock.‍
Approve: Site Leads verify hours with one click.‍
Pay: Data flows into PayHero for a clean, compliant pay run.

For Celeste, the rostering flowing through to the payroll system was the key benefit.

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"For me it was the rostering flowing through to the payroll system. That was the number one benefit. It gives us confidence that nothing is missed before payroll is run.”

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See how Raglan Roast keeps payroll running smoothly with PayHero.

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The business impact? Scaling with absolute confidence.

At its core, this isn’t about software, it’s about giving managers the space to lead. The real business impact is scaling with absolute confidence.

For Raglan Roast, that means growing without losing control, expanding without losing culture, and scaling without adding chaos. As they look toward site #13 and beyond, they’re not just opening more stores, they’re building a smarter operation behind the scenes, with strong systems, empowered teams, and great service driving every new chapter.

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"Our managers are there because they’re great on the floor, not numbers people. Trying to find that balance between efficiency and service can be a really fine line — Droppah & PayHero helps us focus on what's important.”

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Need help rostering your team? Transform your rostering with Droppah. Get started for free.

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Company: Raglan Roast

Website: raglanroast.co.nz

Industry: Hospitality

Customer since: July 2024

Team size: 90-98

Why Droppah?‍