How Hot Cookie cut redundant costs and scaled to multiple locations. 

Established in 1997, Hot Cookie is a San Francisco icon. Since taking over in 2015, Paul Peretta and his partners have grown the brand into a multi-city operation, with two flagship locations in San Francisco and a recent expansion in Palm Springs. As the Chief Operations Officer, Paul describes his role as wearing “30-40 hats a day,” ensuring each store is optimized to deliver the specific experience and products their customers know and love. To guarantee product availability and maintain the high standard across these locations, Paul needed a system that provided visibility without requiring him to be physically present at every storefront. 

The expansion has been highly adaptive, tailored to the unique limitations and climates of each neighborhood. While the original Castro location in San Francisco is a small-square footage, high-volume powerhouse, the expansion to the Pacific Heights location allowed the team to capture corporate and catering demand they previously couldn’t fulfill. Most recently, the Palm Springs location introduced an entirely new category, ice cream, to cater to the warmer climate. This growth has allowed the brand to increase revenue and product availability incrementally, but it has also increased the complexity of managing a workforce spanning specialized roles such as dough makers, trainers, and the cookie crew.

Before adopting a digital solution, Hot Cookie operated like many small businesses – relying on spreadsheet defaults and manual coordination. While these tools felt safe, they created a massive hidden drain on time and limited the company’s ability to see its own data. Scheduling was a manual marathon that involved highlighting cells, entering codes, printing physical copies, and emailing them to staff with ever-changing availability. This process was not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, as any change required the manager to physically edit documents in multiple spots to ensure everyone was on the same page. Without a visual overview, the business was relying on outdated methods to manage a growing workforce. 

The administrative burden extended into the hiring process, which Paul describes as a series of hurdles. The team had to juggle multiple accounts across Indeed, Craigslist, and ZipRecruiter, manually translating candidate information between systems. Once a candidate was found, the team had to rely on a separate, costly Docusign subscription to complete onboarding. This fragmentation meant that Paul and his managers were constantly toggling between screens and systems, losing hours to administrative back-and-forth that could have been spent on the shop floors. 

Furthermore, the lack of a central communication hub meant that problems often stayed localized. Without a dedicated platform for the team to flag maintenance issues or shift changes instantly, there was often a delay in getting critical information to the right people. “You don’t really know what you don’t know,” Paul notes, reflecting on how many operational details simply didn’t have a clear path in the management’s eyes under the old system. This lack of real-time transparency made it difficult to maintain the consistent flow the business needed to scale.

The transition to Deputy allowed Hot Cookie to move out of the daily administrative grind and focus on the high-level strategy required for expansion. By using Deputy’s HR and onboarding features, Hot Cookie eliminated the need for any external document software. Candidates now apply through a single link on the Hot Cookie website that flows directly into Deputy, removing the need for managers to juggle multiple job board accounts. “Everything has been solved on that front; it’s very much all in one spot, accessible to those who have the permissions, and super easy to get to,” says Paul. This consolidation alone saved the company an estimated $4,000 in unnecessary subscription fees each year. 

Beyond the cost savings, the greatest impact came from Deputy’s Messaging Feature, which revolutionized how the team interacts. By creating specific groups for the cookie crew, trainers, and dough makers, the staff began solving their own problems in real-time. This shifted the burden away from management, as seasoned employees could answer questions for newer hires instantly – like locating a breaker switch when the oven flips. “We now get to see problems that we would not have even heard about,” Paul explains. This new level of transparency means that he can see exactly what is happening in any store at any hour. “The speed at which we can provide solutions and be made aware of an issue or something positive is so much faster; it’s just provided a whole lot more communication and transparency for everyone.”

Ultimately, Deputy provided the virtual component that allowed Paul to manage the business with total flexibility. Whether he is at home, on the road, or traveling, he has a single source of truth for timesheets, onboarding status, and team sentiment. This digital maturity enabled him to step away from daily administrative tasks and focus on the high-level strategy required for expansion. “By getting that time back, I was able to dream, think, create vision, allowing me to expand strategically and thoughtfully versus just getting it done.”