Case Study / 2026
Scan. Pay. Earn.
Custom QR-based payment and loyalty integration for Sushiro’s US conveyor belt sushi restaurants, connecting in-store ordering with Square POS.
Custom QR-based payment and loyalty integration for Sushiro’s US conveyor belt sushi restaurants, connecting in-store ordering with Square POS.
Sushiro, operated by Food & Life Companies, Ltd., is one of the world’s largest conveyor belt sushi chains, headquartered in Osaka, Japan. In the US, they operate locations under both the Sushiro brand and Sakabayashi Sushi Tavern (Boston).
Monstarlab has a prior global relationship with Food & Life Companies — the Japan office previously built Sushiro’s WeChat Mini Program for the Chinese market, achieving 20K+ user registrations in 20 days, and supported the Sushiro official app UI and loyalty program optimization.
The Americas team was brought in to deliver the US market payment integration — a cross-regional collaboration that leveraged Monstarlab’s global footprint.
Sushiro needed a custom digital checkout experience for their US restaurants. Customers order food via existing in-store tablets, but payment was not integrated with their US POS platform: Square. They wanted QR-based table-side payment, loyalty integration, gift cards, email receipts, and promotional banners — all branded to Sushiro’s identity.
The existing Sushiro ordering tablets handled food orders, but customers had to go to a counter to pay. No integration with Square POS existed.
Bridging cloud services (Square APIs, AWS) with on-prem Linux servers in each restaurant location required careful middleware architecture.
DIGI Japan owns the Sushiro ordering system and catalog; Monstarlab owns payments. Drawing clear technical boundaries was critical from day one.
The mobile payment experience needed to feel like a natural extension of Sushiro’s in-store tablet — trustworthy, consistent, and distinctly Sushiro.
A T&M engagement with 2-week sprints and bi-weekly Sprint Reviews. Design and engineering working in lockstep, with a globally distributed team across the US, Bangladesh, and Colombia.
Studied the in-store tablet experience via screenshots and video to ensure the mobile payment frontend felt trustworthy and consistent. Designed edge cases, loyalty UX, and email receipt positioning through user testing.
Built a Node.js backend service handling system-to-system communication between the custom frontend, Sushiro’s on-prem ordering system, and Square cloud APIs — with error handling, retry logic, and webhook confirmation.
Tier 1 core payment flow shipped first. Tier 2 features — loyalty, gift cards, promotional banners — layered on as time and budget allowed, all within the 12-week window.
A complete digital checkout system: customer finishes eating, requests the bill on the tablet, scans a QR code at the table, and pays via a custom Sushiro-branded mobile experience powered by Square.
QR code appears on the table screen after bill request. Customer scans with their phone and lands on a custom-built Sushiro-branded payment frontend.
Order creation, payment processing, automated status tracking, and confirmation webhooks back to the Sushiro ordering system.
Node.js backend handling communication between the custom frontend, Sushiro’s on-prem ordering system, and Square cloud APIs with error handling and retry logic.
Deployed on Sushiro’s Linux-based in-store servers to communicate with the local ordering system in real time.
Custom-branded email receipt template via Amazon SES, sent from receipt@sushiro-usa.com with full order details.
Native mobile wallet support via Square Web Payments SDK for frictionless one-tap checkout.
Points-based earn and redeem system. Rewards include discount off order, with a long-term vision for Sushiro’s “dakkozushi” mascot merchandise rewards.
Support for Square gift cards as a payment method at checkout, expanding payment flexibility.
Customizable marketing content on the personal information and receipt screens for seasonal campaigns and offers.
Survey link on the receipt screen to capture post-meal feedback and drive continuous improvement.
The payment interface needed to feel like a natural extension of Sushiro’s in-store experience. Every design decision was made to build customer confidence and minimize checkout friction.
Studied screenshots and video of the Sushiro tablet experience to ensure the mobile payment frontend felt trustworthy and familiar to diners already interacting with the brand in-store.
Payment declined, payment link expired, order updated, payment in progress on another device — every failure state was designed and implemented as a first-class screen.
User-tested two approaches and placed the email capture step after payment, not before — less disruptive, higher completion rates.
Designed a fully skippable loyalty flow with in-context messaging to encourage sign-up without blocking checkout. No forced account creation.
A hybrid architecture bridging Square’s cloud APIs and AWS infrastructure with Linux-based in-store servers in each Sushiro restaurant location.
Deployed to AWS CloudFront at checkout.sushiro-usa.com. Sushiro-branded, mobile-first, optimized for in-restaurant cellular connections.
Middleware service handling system-to-system communication between frontend, on-prem ordering, and Square cloud APIs.
Runs on Sushiro’s restaurant servers. Communicates with the local ordering system and syncs catalog data on daily reboot.
Payments API, Loyalty API, Catalog API, and Web Payments SDK for card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay processing.
Custom-branded receipt emails sent from receipt@sushiro-usa.com via Amazon SES (us-east-1).
Full payment flow design in Figma including all edge cases, loyalty UX, email templates, and promotional banner specifications.
Kickoff, scope alignment with DIGI Japan, in-store tablet study, initial UI/UX design for core payment flow, technical architecture definition.
Tier 1 payment flow development: QR checkout frontend, Square integration, middleware service, on-prem service, webhook confirmation loop.
Loyalty integration, gift cards, promotional banners, Apple Pay/Google Pay, email receipts, edge case handling, QA across devices.
User acceptance testing, production environment setup, domain configuration (checkout.sushiro-usa.com), deployment to live restaurant locations.
Monstarlab owns payments integration and the middleware; DIGI owns catalog management and integration with the ordering system. Drawing this line clearly was a recurring theme from kickoff onward, resolved through collaborative technical sessions and a pragmatic daily catalog sync approach.
When multiple people at a table scan the same QR code, the first payment succeeds and subsequent attempts receive a clear “already paid” response. Split payments are not supported by the QR payment flow, requiring thoughtful UX to set expectations upfront.
The system bridges cloud services (Square APIs, AWS) with on-prem Linux servers in each restaurant location. Deployment coordination, network reliability, and catalog synchronization required careful architecture to ensure a seamless customer experience.
Rather than building a complex real-time sync service, the team arrived at a pragmatic solution: the on-prem service fetches the latest catalog from Square on daily server reboot — simple, reliable, and within DIGI’s operational model.
This engagement demonstrates the power of Monstarlab’s global network. Japan built the foundation. Americas extended it to the US market.
Built Sushiro’s WeChat Mini Program for the Chinese market, achieving rapid adoption and establishing the digital relationship with Food & Life Companies.
Custom QR-based payment and loyalty system for Sushiro’s US conveyor belt restaurants, connecting in-store ordering with Square POS in a 12-week engagement.
US-based leadership with engineering in Dhaka and QA in Colombia, delivering through 2-week sprints with bi-weekly client reviews.
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Olivia Welch | Account Lead / SVP Client Services |
| Todd Chandler | Delivery Lead / Sr Delivery Manager |
| Joey Unnold | Design Lead / Sr Design Director |
| Samuel Muñoz | Product Designer (UI/UX) |
| Cesar Aguilar | Technical Lead / Sr Engineering Director |
| Md. Ashraful Alam | Lead Engineer (Backend, Dhaka) |
| Md. Ariful Alam | Sr Engineer (Backend, Dhaka) |
| Luis Ruiz | QA Lead (Colombia) |
| Patrick Gardella | Executive Sponsor |
In 12 weeks, the team designed, built, and prepared for production deployment a full QR-based payment and loyalty system for Sushiro’s US restaurant locations.
A custom QR-based payment frontend branded to Sushiro, integrated with Square POS for payments, loyalty, and gift cards. Apple Pay and Google Pay support for frictionless checkout. A middleware service bridging cloud and on-prem systems. Custom email receipts, promotional banner capabilities, and a customer satisfaction survey — all within a 12-week, $145K T&M engagement.
Rendering representative of the final experience