Ala Carte Entertainment

Getting set up with BevSpot

After discovering the web-based solution that BevSpot offers and deciding to tentatively roll it out to their locations, Ala Carte Entertainment was understandably a little nervous coming into the process of onboarding. Many of their staff are seasoned industry veterans who have had difficulties with technology in the past.

Denise Blue Ytsen, Ala Carte Entertainment’s Corporate Operations and Beverage Director, was pleasantly surprised to find that BevSpot knew exactly how to walk them through the process.

“The great thing about the relationship we have with BevSpot is that they totally get that restaurant and bar managers aren’t necessarily tech-savvy. They very much hand-held us through the onboarding process, starting with me.”

Starting with the one location that already had a beverage management solution in place, they quickly found success getting BevSpot set-up and made the decision to begin expanding to all of their other locations.

“It worked great. BevSpot’s onboarding team was really supportive. The constant flow of emails was pretty amazing. I certainly was very appreciative of all of that.”

The Outcome

After successfully rolling out BevSpot to their locations, Denise has already seen improvements in all of the locations in total sitting inventory, which has been reduced by 13% group-wide, and overall liquor costs. There are also added benefits to BevSpot’s inventory and ordering platform that she didn’t expect and found difficult to quantify.

“There are so many great side-effects. Not only are we lowering liquor costs, but our managers are going to be better managers. They are getting more hands-on with their liquor product. They are completely in-tune with what their staff is selling and what they need. We certainly did not have that before. The ease of access to the data propels that.”

With the advancement that Denise has seen in each location, it gave Ala Carte Entertainment the confidence to make a change to their entire inventory process across the board: moving from a four-week inventory timetable to performing liquor inventory weekly.

“It was the perfect opportunity to get the GM’s on board with that change. Inventory was such a tedious process before with pencil-and-paper. It was just not an effective solution.”

Moving to a more timely inventory process and coupled with the data that BevSpot’s software platform provides, Denise was able to immediately hone in on what Ala Carte should be expecting with their beverage programs and exactly where there were unexpected holes.

“It’s led to lots of situations where we looked at cameras and actually were able to find undocumented incidents of employee theft and waste. We found purchasing errors. I found two or three instances of where our wine distributor was overcharging us. Mistakes that used to carry on for two or three months are now immediately solved.”

Throughout the entire rollout and even past that, Denise found a lot of comfort knowing that BevSpot’s in-house customer success team had her back. Taking her direct feedback and immediately implementing it into the system that Ala Carte Entertainment uses, the service that Denise experienced really helped to solidify the value that BevSpot provided.

“BevSpot feels really customized to us. It seems like within days they create something new for us to look at.”

With the data and value that BevSpot provides to her, Denise is eager to see how the partnership continues to develop in the future.

“There’s lots of different things we’re doing with BevSpot. I think, for the future, there will be a number of different initiatives that I’m going to suggest to make it even more valuable for us, and I just know BevSpot won’t have any problem doing that for us.”