How an Independent Neighborhood Grocery Grew Spanish-Speaking Foot Traffic

An independent neighborhood grocery store in Southern California grew Spanish-speaking foot traffic meaningfully after deploying Remi in both English and Spanish. The store didn't change inventory, signage, or staffing.

The store

The shop is a neighborhood grocery in Southern California that has been run by the same family for years. It carries a full grocery selection plus a meaningful Latin foods aisle, a fresh meat counter, and a small kitchen running prepared foods. The neighborhood is bilingual. A meaningful share of the customer base speaks Spanish at home; some are bilingual, some prefer to shop in Spanish exclusively.

The owner knew the demographics. The store had Spanish-speaking staff on most shifts. But the gap between "we have Spanish-speaking staff" and "a Spanish-speaking customer always finds someone to help" was wider than they wanted.

The problem

The pattern was visible from the front of the store:

• A Spanish-speaking customer would walk in, look for products in the Latin foods aisle, and either find what they wanted or leave without asking.
• If a Spanish-speaking employee wasn't on the floor at that moment, the customer didn't ask. They didn't ask in English; they just left.
• Specials, weekly promotions, and new-product callouts were posted in English. Bilingual signage existed in some places but wasn't comprehensive.
• The store's word-of-mouth in the Spanish-speaking community was strong but plateauing. New customers from that demographic weren't growing month-over-month.

The owner suspected the store was losing trips it never knew about. Walk-ins who didn't find what they came for, and didn't ask, never showed up in any system.

How they deployed Remi

The bilingual setup was the main reason the owner picked Remi.

1. Activated the Remi tablet near the entrance with the QR pairing code.
2. Uploaded the product catalog via CSV, including Spanish-language product names where they existed.
3. Customized Remi's greeting in both English and Spanish. The opening message asked the customer's preferred language and switched on the spot.
4. Worked with the team to flag a list of common questions — "where's the masa harina?", "do you have nopales today?", "what's on sale this week?" — to make sure Remi handled them naturally in both languages.

No website translation. No new signage. No additional staff hires.

What changed

After running Remi in production for a full quarter:

• Spanish-speaking foot traffic grew measurably over the prior quarter
• Spanish-language Remi interactions accounted for a substantial share of all Remi conversations
• Word-of-mouth referrals in the Spanish-speaking community picked up — measurable through the store's loyalty signups
• Staff reported that customers who used to leave silently were now finding what they came for

The mechanism wasn't complicated. A customer who would have walked out without asking found Remi at the front of the store, asked in their preferred language, and got an actual answer — including aisle location, price, and whether the store had it in stock that day. That's a converted trip.

A few specifics from the quarter:

• Latin foods aisle questions led the volume. Customers asked about ingredients by their Spanish names, and Remi answered in Spanish with the aisle location and current shelf price. Staff didn't have to be Spanish-speaking for the customer to get a Spanish-language answer.
• Weekly specials reached more shoppers. Customers asked Remi "what's on sale this week?" in both languages. The store's promotions, which had been functionally English-only, became functionally bilingual without any new signage.
• Repeat visits picked up. Loyalty signups from Spanish-speaking customers grew month-over-month during the pilot. The owner's read is that customers who had a good first interaction came back, and they brought family.
• Staff confidence improved. Non-Spanish-speaking employees stopped feeling stuck when a Spanish-speaking customer approached. They'd point to Remi, and the customer's experience didn't depend on the employee's language skills.

The owner is careful about the framing here. The store's Spanish-speaking staff are still the heart of the customer relationship. Remi didn't replace them; it filled the gaps when those employees were on break, in the back, or on a different shift. The combination — staff plus Remi — is what produced the lift, not Remi alone.

What's next

The owner is exploring adding a second Remi tablet at the back of the store near the meat counter, where shoppers tend to make the bigger-basket decisions. The team is also testing whether Remi can surface weekly specials in both languages without needing the store to update signage.

The lift in Spanish-speaking foot traffic was the headline. The quieter result was that staff stopped feeling like the bilingual experience depended on which employees were on shift. It's now consistent, every hour the store is open.

If you run a grocery store with a bilingual customer base, see Remi in action. Book a demo, read the grocery stores solution, or look at pricing.