Profits on Tap

Giamartino, John Paul. Killer Apps: Profits on Tap. HT Magazine, January 2007 http://www.htmagazine.com/HT/archive/0207/0207_08.html

In this article, Paul Giamartino talked about how he feels the beverage side of F&B was just important as the food side when dealing with ways to boost restaurant revenues. It has also been a great challenge to keep an accurate and current inventory of draft beer. To understand beverage cost and pour cost, the only way to really know was to perform periodic physical counts, which proves to be very intensive. Draft beer, even in a physical inventory is extremely difficult to audit because it is in a giant keg and is hard to measure. The solution was purchasing a system called U.S. Beverage Net. The system was computer based monitoring system that automatically measured each pour of draft beer and reconciled it with the restaurant’s POS system. Over time they were able to recognize large variances in how many ounces of beer were sold and what exactly was poured. It turns out they ended up pouring more beer than was actually sold. Knowing this now, they were able to hold their bartenders more accountable for performing accurate pours and not wasting or giving out too much. Since its successful performance in this unit, they were able to roll out the whole system seven more of their nine locations. The staff embraced the system as saw it as a way to help improve their efficiency.

I have always been fascinated with beverage inventory solutions. In our recent class Cihan showed us some very interesting beverage monitoring systems that he found at a trade show. Some work off of weight. Others work off of bar-coding systems and scanning a label. Others simply work off of using a very expensive looking computer monitored pour spout that is actually capable of monitoring the amount of liquid flowing through it. Personally, I believe this is the best and most efficient way to monitor your beverage inventory accurately. You are able to understand just how much is being poured into each drink and on average how long it takes to empty a bottle. You could easily tie this in with your ordering system that alerts you to order a new bottle or keg when par levels get low, it could even prepare the order for you. Inventory is a time consuming and sometimes extremely inaccurate when it comes to both food and beverage, but more especially beverage because you have to measure the amount of liquid in each bottle or keg. I see this solution described above as the best solution out there, and I think all the other methods of weighing or scanning are obsolete, this is the best way and its on the cutting edge, why go for something more labor intensive?