Munchie Mania: How Cheba Hut Turned Their Add-On Menu Into a Frequency Driver

‍

Cheba Hut had two goals for its first big loyalty campaign: get guests coming in more often, and get them to try menu items they'd never ordered.

The target was the "munchies" category, the add-ons that go alongside a sandwich order. Dips, cheese bread, cookies, pretzel mugs. Because these items sit next to the core order rather than replacing it, trial here builds check size instead of shifting it.

The mechanic was simple. Over five weeks, a new free munchie dropped into every loyalty account each week. A $5 minimum spend on each reward kept baskets healthy and made sure the free item rode along with a real order.

What happened across ~85 locations:

• 34,000 munchie redemptions over five weeks, tied to just over $870,000 in check revenue after discount
• Loyalty transactions per day up 18%, loyalty revenue per day up 16.5%
• Unique members engaged up 38% month over month
• Guests with zero visits in the months before the campaign averaged 1.36 visits during it
• Occasional visitors roughly doubled their visit rate

The numbers that prove it was incremental:

• 98% of guests who redeemed still bought a sandwich on the same check
• Average check in that cohort went up $1.37
• 75% added the redeemed item to their order rather than substituting for something they would have bought anyway

The free item created new trial. It didn't give away margin on an order that was already coming.

The takeaway for operators: high reward frequency over a short window moves visit behavior, especially among guests who have gone quiet. Pairing it with a spend minimum and targeting a complementary category is what keeps the lift incremental rather than cannibalistic.