Bubble Nini is a stylish business serving up cups of bubble tea in all corners of New South Wales, including Chippendale, Waterloo, Circular Quay, Haymarket Darling Square, and Zetland. Dedicated to making a new generation of the iconic drink – healthy, fresh, and free from preservatives – it’s no surprise they’ve grown since the last time we spoke in 2020.
We caught up with Lara (who manages all the locations) to chat about how business has been going.
Bubble Nini’s beginnings
Before we get into where Bubble Nini is today, let’s recap how they came to be.
With a booming bubble tea industry, Lara wanted to join in and do something different – creating a store that was half florist, half bubble tea. Fresh flowers were displayed at every store daily, starting a unique business with sweetness coming from beyond the cups.
Unfortunately, the florist side of things became unfeasible when COVID came around, but, thanks to Lara’s ingenuity, the signature style of the business hasn’t gone anywhere. “We still decorate our stores with preserved and dried flowers,” says Lara. “We still have a flower studio you can order from but we don’t have florists in the stores anymore.”
During the challenges inherent to the pandemic, Bubble Nini pivoted and moved to strict deliveries during its peak, and made special delivery cups to ensure customers got their drinks perfectly and in a COVID-safe way.
It’s safe to say that this business knows how to adapt and bounce back, which is a testament to their ongoing success.
The Bubble Nini difference
Bubble Nini puts a lot of effort into making their drinks – arriving one and a half hours to two hours before doors open to prepare ingredients so they’re nice and fresh for customers.
“We’re trying to make a healthier version, a new generation, next-level bubble tea. So, we’re using fresh fruit and real tea, not just the tea powder,” says Lara. “We also try to make bubble teas for everyone, even those who are lactose intolerant.”
Speaking on what sets Bubble Tea apart from its competitors, Lara says, “a lot of bubble tea places, they store milk tea overnight so in the morning they can use last night’s product, but we cook everything in the morning. Also, other places might use old pearls, but we make fresh ones every day.”
Where is Bubble Nini now?
Bubble Nini has expanded since we last spoke – adding multiple new locations to their list including one with a café: Aurora by Bubble Nini.
Lara says it’s been an exciting time. “Customers used to come into our stores with coffees from Starbucks and other places, like iced teas or long blacks, and say they want us to add pearls into it. We got a lot of these requests and we said no initially, but that gave us this amazing idea… Bubble tea with coffee. Bubble Tea is Taiwanese culture and the coffee is Australian culture. We mixed those two things, and it tastes delicious! This idea led us to start our new venue Aurora by Bubble Nini.”
How Tyro helps Bubble Nini do business
Every Bubble Nini location uses Tyro EFTPOS and, with hundreds of orders daily, Lara’s glad to have an EFTPOS solution they can count on.
Lara says their staff don’t have to manually key in amounts due to the POS integration, which saves them a lot of hassle. “It’s great for us because we have a lot of part-time staff. Tyro is very simple to use, and I find it easy to train our staff on it.”
As a busy manager, being able to easily set up Tyro in new stores has been a gamechanger – allowing Lara to get back to other important business. She says the roll-out process has been quick and straightforward. “We email the Tyro team and provide them with all the information they need, and then they send us the device. A few days later, we receive the device, call the activation team to integrate it with our POS system, and we are good to go. We’ve done this three times with the three new venues we have set up.”
An easy, efficient set up isn’t the only thing Lara loves about Tyro. “Tyro’s technical support service is so helpful. It’s great that it’s available 24 hours. Every time we have an issue, we call Tyro Support and get help within minutes,” says Lara.
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