Getting Set Up With BevSpot

As the Dining Room Captain and Sommelier, Timothy manages a number of different areas. “I oversee the beverage program for three locations: a seasonal pool restaurant that’s full-service, a seasonal tent, and a full-service à la carte dining room that features a catering service.”

Like many bars, before signing up to BevSpot, Timothy and his team would take turns doing inventory shelf-to-sheet style—with a clipboard and an Excel spreadsheet. At the end of the month, they had to look back at all their invoices to get a general idea of what their monthly usage was.

“We had no breakdown of beer to spirits to wine, other than a very general overview,” says Timothy.

He felt like his inventory system was all over the place. “It was a disorganized inventory system, at best. Our ordering process was scattered, and inventory responsibilities were delegated to whoever had the free thirty minutes to do a certain location.”

When BevSpot first approached him, Timothy says his biggest hesitation was the onboarding process. But, once he decided to give it a shot, he quickly realized how easy it was.

“Onboarding was an absolute breeze. I sent my inventory list to Customer Success and they called me two days later with some questions. In the course of 45 minutes, I was onboarded and ready to roll with my first inventory.”

How They Use BevSpot

Now, Timothy, his Beverage Director, his Controller and his Bookkeeper either rotate inventory responsibilities or tackle different areas of the country club to complete it at the same time. Timothy admits that when he first started using BevSpot he was nervous to drop his comfortable method of shelf-to-sheet. “I thought it would be easier to have the sheet in front of me. But my boss just about blew me out of the room when he took out his iPhone and did our entire liquor inventory in twenty minutes!”

Timothy now uses his iPhone to take inventory, and he says he doesn’t miss the spreadsheets one bit.

“BevSpot streamlined our inventory process and made it a whole lot easier. I can now do our entire club in the course of four hours, when it used to take me two days!”

He explains how BevSpot has also improved day-to-day operations by keeping their invoices more organized. “Before BevSpot, I had to go back, manually look at our invoices, and code out our categories. Now, I code them in BevSpot. All our Controller has to do is print out the general list of orders at the end of the month to see a breakdown of wine, beer and spirits. His job has become a lot easier.”

 

The Results

In fact, digging into the numbers has been one of Timothy’s favorite parts. With BevSpot, he can see what’s performing and what needs to be tweaked, helping him bring his pour cost percentage down from 30% to 21.2%.

“Because we’re a private club, we sell cheaper drinks, so we usually have a high pour cost. But, last quarter, we ran a 21.2% pour cost, almost like a regular restaurant! I was impressed.”

With this data, he’s now able to dig deeper to see exactly how high their pour cost is for certain products like Johnnie Walker Blue Label. He’s able to go to his team with the metrics BevSpot gave him and show his bartenders why they need to cut down their pour.

“I was able to go to my team, confirm they were over-pouring, and tell them, ‘Look, you’re pouring a half ounce over what you should be pouring. The members are getting a great deal, but we’re losing a ton of money. Here’s why–’”

With BevSpot implemented, Timothy feels more comfortable taking time off. “When I took a vacation a couple of months ago, I was able to set the pars before I left. I had my boss, who’s a Controller, do the inventory while I was gone. I just logged in on my phone and hit SmartPar, and it took me twenty seconds to make sure my orders were in. The beverage side was a piece of cake!”

Timothy tells us BevSpot has really helped him across the board. “BevSpot has really enabled us to delegate to our team more effectively, streamline our ordering processes, and leverage our sales with different vendors to make sure we get the best deal possible. It’s also helped us break down what we’re spending, categorically.”

Looking Forward

Timothy recently upgraded Black Rock to BevSpot’s Category Level Sales reports, and he’s excited to get into the nitty-gritty of his sales metrics, especially metrics surrounding their cocktail program. Based off the data they can now see with BevSpot, Timothy was able to establish Black Rock Country Club as an industry leader and build a relationship with a great local distillery.

“We’ve started a great relationship with Bully Boy Distillers. We’re going to create a craft cocktail list with Bully Boy and look at exactly what our costs are for every single ingredient. We’re hoping they’ll bring our data to some of their bigger clients to show them how much we’re charging for Bully Boy drinks and how much money we’re making on them.”

“We wouldn’t have been able to do any of this if it weren’t for BevSpot.”