For more than 30 years, Chile Verde Cafe has brought the flavors of New Mexico to Central Ohio, today welcoming guests from its Gemini Place location near Polaris. It is known for Hatch chile-driven recipes, premium ingredients, and authentic New Mexican flavors that keep regulars coming back.  

As the Polaris dining area has grown into a restaurant destination, Chile Verde needed its digital presence to match its offline reputation and long-standing catering success. The real opportunity was to strengthen overall brand awareness and refresh its digital footprint so that new and existing guests could more easily discover, explore, and order from the restaurant online. 

Together, these campaigns sustained local awareness around Polaris Fashion Place, drove incremental in‑store visits, and built a high‑value email list that Chile Verde now uses to market seasonal dishes, holiday gift cards, and catering offers year‑round. 

The Challenge: A Legacy Brand in a Crowded Market 

Chile Verde was already well-known among loyal customers, but awareness with new audiences had room to grow. The restaurant wanted to: 

• Reach more nearby diners searching for New Mexican food and local catering. 
• Reinforce its differentiators: authentic New Mexican cuisine, premium ingredients, and decades of catering expertise. 
• Modernize its digital experience without disrupting daily operations. 

Behind the scenes, Chile Verde’s technology stack was fragmented. The team used Toast for POS and online ordering, but the website lived separately and wasn’t fully aligned with marketing, paid media, or conversion goals. The result: missed opportunities to turn interest into orders and catering inquiries. 

MJ2’s Role in Turning Tradition into a Connected Digital Experience 

MJ2 approached the engagement as both a strategic and technical partner. The goal was to translate Chile Verde’s rich offline story into a cohesive, high-performing digital ecosystem that could support awareness, online orders, and catering growth. 

A key differentiator was how MJ2 chose to build. Rather than forcing Chile Verde into a single “preferred” web platform, MJ2 met the restaurant in the environment it already trusted and used every day: Toast. MJ2 rebuilt the website directly inside the Toast system and later expanded efforts into email marketing from that same platform, aligning promotion, ordering, and guest communication in one place. 

Custom Website, Defined by the Client 

For MJ2, this engagement highlights an important philosophy: a “custom website” means whatever custom looks like to the client. 

• For some brands, that may be a high-dollar custom WordPress website with enhanced functionality and complex integrations. 

• For others, like Chile Verde, it is a streamlined, purpose-built website inside a platform they already are vested in—Toast—that keeps operations, marketing, and customer experience tightly connected. 

MJ2 is platform-agnostic, focusing on the best-fit solution for each client. Whether building in Toast, WordPress, or another digital platform, the emphasis is on aligning technology with real-world workflows so that marketing strategy and daily operations work together instead of competing. 

Website Rebuilt in Toast: Aligning Marketing and Operations 

By rebuilding the website within Toast, MJ2 helped Chile Verde create a digital front door that reflects its brand while remaining tightly integrated with its POS and online ordering. 

Key improvements included: 

• Unified experience from promotion to checkout: Customers can now move seamlessly from menu exploration or a catering offer to online ordering or contact, reducing friction and drop-off. 
• Streamlined management for the Chile Verde team: Updates to menu items, availability, or pricing flow through the same system used to manage in-store and online orders, saving time and reducing errors. 
• Platform-agnostic approach: MJ2’s philosophy is to build in the platform that best supports each client’s real-world operations—whether that is Toast, a traditional CMS, or another system—so marketing strategy and technology are aligned rather than competing. 

This approach gave Chile Verde the benefits of a custom website without introducing new, complex tools to maintain. 

Paid Media Strategy: Keeping Chile Verde Top of Mind 

With a refreshed digital foundation in place, MJ2 implemented a comprehensive marketing strategy designed to keep Chile Verde top of mind in the busy Polaris dining corridor and to grow key revenue drivers. 

Tactics included: 

• Paid media centered on the heavy-traffic area near Polaris Fashion Place to sustain local visibility and attract nearby diners. 
• Campaigns and messaging that highlighted catering services to local businesses and event planners. 
• Email marketing built and deployed directly from Toast to promote offers, seasonal menus, and key initiatives like the holiday gift card promotion. 

This multi-channel approach ensured that guests encountered Chile Verde across the platforms they already use, while the restaurant captured first-party data to support ongoing promotions and repeat visits. 

Results: Awareness, Gift Cards, and Catering Growth 

Chile Verde saw wins that went beyond metrics. A stronger digital presence and cohesive marketing strategy translated into: 

• Increased brand awareness in and around the Polaris dining area, ensuring Chile Verde stayed visible as competition grew. 
• Significant gains in holiday gift card promotion performance, driven by coordinated paid media and on-platform marketing. 
• Growth in the catering business, fueled by clearer promotion of catering services and simplified paths for guests to inquire and order online. 

The refreshed digital footprint, anchored in Toast and supported by paid media and email, gave Chile Verde a more modern, connected way to engage both regulars and new guests. 

What’s Next: Deepening Retention and Repeat Visits 

Looking ahead to 2026, MJ2 will expand support into weekly email marketing for Chile Verde. The focus will be on: 

• Driving repeat visits with timely, relevant offers and menu highlights. 
• Showcasing Chile Verde’s authentic New Mexican recipes and premium ingredients. 
• Continuing to grow catering awareness among local businesses and event planners. 

As Polaris continues to evolve, Chile Verde now has a modern digital foundation—and a strategic partner—to help ensure its next 30 years are as strong as the first. 

Why This Engagement Is a Sweet Spot for MJ2 

The Chile Verde partnership sits squarely in MJ2’s sweet spot: comprehensive digital marketing that unifies strategy, technology, and execution. 

• Custom web development, defined by the client’s needs and platforms—not by a one-size-fits-all tech stack. 
• Integrated campaigns that combine web, paid media, and email to drive both awareness and measurable business outcomes. 
• A practical, operations-aware approach that meets clients where they are, whether that is Toast, WordPress, or another system. 

For Chile Verde, that meant a refreshed digital presence, stronger brand awareness, and clear gains in gift card sales and catering. For MJ2, it is a blueprint for how to help other restaurants and local businesses modernize their marketing in the platforms they already trust.