How a Mexican restaurant grew drink and guacamole sales by 36% using automated employee incentives.
- Challenge: Increase drink and guacamole sales
- Approach: Use SocialCrowd to motivate employees
- Results: 36.1% growth of margaritas sales, and 35.9% growth of guacamole sales
- Opened in 2004
- Modern, vibrant restaurant
- California-based
- “True Mexican Hospitality” motto
- Challenge: Increase drink size upgrades and special sales
- Approach: Use SocialCrowd to motivate employees
- Results: 127% growth of upgrades sold in 3 quarters
- Opened in 2011
- Vibrant tropical-themed bar
- Miami, Florida-based
- Live Latin music and dancing
Hear what Zocalo has to say about their experience!
The Challenge
Zocalo wanted to increase sales of two guest favorites—the Cadillac margarita and their freshly made guacamole. Management saw an opportunity to turn these items into stronger revenue drivers with a little more focus from the team.
The challenge was finding a way to:
- Keep staff consistently motivated over time, not just during short-term contests
- Provide clear visibility into progress without managers having to track everything manually
- Create a program that energized employees while still fitting seamlessly into daily service
Zocalo’s leadership knew that if they could give employees a clear, engaging way to connect effort with reward, the results would follow.
The Approach
Zocalo decided to use SocialCrowd to launch campaigns designed specifically around margarita and guacamole sales. The platform integrated with their POS, automatically capturing every qualifying sale and updating employee progress in real time.
In SocialCrowd, Zocalo designed two incentive campaigns where employees could earn between $5-$35 for every 30-150+ Cadillac margaritas sold, and between $5-$25 for every 20-100+ guacamoles sold. This structure kept things simple for managers while giving staff a steady source of motivation and recognition.
“We’ve been using SocialCrowd for about a year now. It’s been great for employee incentives – it’s not only increased our sales…it’s been a great way for our staff to get different gift cards and things like that so they can treat themselves. It’s like a bonus for all our staff!”
By automating these incentives, SocialCrowd helped allow Zocalo to resolve the issue of one-off contests that faded quickly. These campaigns created an ongoing sense of competition and achievement for their staff that carried through each quarter.
The Results
%
Cadillac margarita quarterly growth
%
Guacamole quarterly growth
By Q4 2024, they had 8,300 margarita sales.
By end of Q2 2025, that number grew to 11,300, a 36.1% sales growth!
Similarly with guacamole, Q4 2024 resulted in 11,400 sales, and by end of Q2 2025 that number grew to 15,500 sales, a 35.9% sales growth!
