Background

Rapid Growth from Taiwan to 80+ U.S. Stores Calls for Robust Surveillance

Founded in Taiwan, 85°C Bakery Cafe has rapidly expanded into an internationally recognized brand, known for its diverse baked goods and beverages. With over 80 locations across the United States, the company faced the complex challenge of managing security and operations at scale—especially with a lean IT team of just seven people. To keep operations running smoothly, they partnered with VIVOTEK, a global leader in security solutions, to deploy the AI-powered VORTEX Cloud Surveillance Platform, which enhances visibility, reliability, and operational efficiency across their retail operations.

Retail is not just about selling things. It’s about building trust and creating relationships. — Ariel, IT Director, 85°C Bakery Cafe

Challenge

Legacy Surveillance Systems Can’t Keep Up with Expansion

• Growth Outpaces Surveillance: As 85°C expanded rapidly across the U.S., their existing surveillance systems struggled to keep pace, resulting in operational challenges. In retail, fast incident resolution is crucial to customer satisfaction. At 85°C Bakery Cafe, their legacy surveillance system became a bottleneck, leading to increased costs, time delays and operational risks.
• Unstable Legacy Systems: NVR failures occurred monthly, taking upward of 25 days to repair with a cost impact of around $2,000 annually for replacements.
• Fragmented Management: Lack of centralized access made it difficult to monitor, retrieve, or share video footage.
• Limited Support: With only a seven-member IT team, managing all systems across multiple stores and scaling was challenging.

Solution

Built for Retail Efficiency: Faster Setup & Deployment and Centralized Cloud Control

To overcome these challenges, 85°C Bakery Cafe implemented VORTEX by VIVOTEK, an AI-powered cloud surveillance solution designed for retail efficiency. For a small IT team managing dozens of busy stores, simplifying setup, streamlining operations, and supporting growth without overhauling infrastructure were critical.

• Hybrid Compatibility: VORTEX unifies over 200 legacy cameras and 150 cloud cameras onto one platform without extra replacement costs.
• Centralized management: It enables remote access control, receives instant alerts, searches the video footage in seconds with AI technology, and simplifies incident handling.
• Rapid Deployment: Plug-and-play setup cuts deployment time by 50%, keeping store launches efficient and streamlined.

Setting up in each location used to take us two to three days… With VORTEX plug-and-play, we’re done in just one day. — Jason Chow, Tech Support Manager, 85°C Bakery Cafe.

Results

Smoother Operations and Better Customer Experience

For 85°C Bakery Cafe, VORTEX made physical security operations more proactive by improving response times, reducing disruptions, and giving staff the tools to stay focused on customers, not equipment. The plug-and-play setup cut installation time by up to 50%, while cloud-based management reduced site visits and operational costs. These improvements not only lightened the technical workload and streamlined daily operations but also strengthened customer trust with faster service and reliable incident resolution. 

With Deep Search, we can find people or items in seconds. If a customer loses something, we trace it and recover it quickly. — Nolan Carter, Facilities Manager, 85°C Bakery Cafe.

VORTEX helps us prevent disputes and track items that go missing. It keeps the entire store running smoothly. When stores run better, customers stay longer and they come back more often. — Ariel, IT Director, 85°C Bakery Cafe.