State Park

Signing up for BevSpot

Heather was one of BevSpot’s first users. Let’s take a look at how her bar management processes have changed since she signed up.

When State Park first opened, Heather and her team were using an inventory system they were comfortable with—a combination of clipboard and Excel, like many bars and restaurants. They managed their inventory, ordering and pricing across several spreadsheets and documents. When BevSpot approached Heather the first time, State Park had only been open for six months, and she was still getting comfortable with the business. When we came around the second time, she was ready. “It’s been a great fit, and we really love the powerful website app that BevSpot is,” says Heather.

Making the Move from Excel

There’s a lot to update with Excel—different documents, older versions and newer versions, and there’s always the possibility that a staff member could enter a number incorrectly. This is a theme that Heather and her team were always coming back to: Storing information in several different documents meant they had to update it in all those different documents.

“With BevSpot, when you confirm a delivery and enter your invoices, you’re automatically entering your new products. That automation is really useful because it doesn’t feel like a big hassle. We’re constantly launching new products in our bar, and BevSpot has been really helpful in getting the pricing correct and the products in the system.”

“Whether it’s a new menu, or prices, or a product itself, just to have all that information in one place is so useful.”

Working with Technology

A big concern for Heather is having a strong channel of communication between her team and the products they use. “The BevSpot team has been very hands-on in helping us use BevSpot, which is exactly what we look for in the products we take on.”

She recently switched POS systems because, while the one they were using had been around for a long time, it still didn’t provide an option for her, as the customer, to offer feedback.

“BevSpot has such a great feedback function. It’s really easy to send off any ideas, feedback or issues. I only wish the other products we use were that open about accepting feedback.”

How She Uses BevSpot

Heather’s team helps her take inventory, counting the bottles on their phones while they’re all logged in to BevSpot at the same time. “For us, in the crazy food business, we’re standing around a lot and we’re on our phones, and because BevSpot is a web app, as opposed to just an app or just a website, I can get the exact same experience whether I’m on my computer or on my phone in a tiny corner counting inventory, which is great.”

State Park has a large beverage menu, and cocktails are a frequent order here, so they’re often creating new buttons on their POS or pressing buttons that have never been pressed before; it’s a complex process that’s familiar to many bars, and it provides no transparency into drink costs and prices. But now, instead, BevSpot’s sales dashboard is a place for Heather to review a new drink with her co-owners. “If we haven’t sold a cocktail in a while, and we decide to do a special, we can log in to BevSpot and review our cocktail program. We can see if the markup is where it should be, and then run it as a special.”

“Using BevSpot, we know all our drink prices are correct, as opposed to the price that exists in our POS, which is usually out of date.”

The Results

For Heather, BevSpot has had a huge impact on her often-changing beverage program.

“Checking our invoices and easily adding new products to the system makes us more prepared when we’re ready to launch a new beer, wine or spirit. It already has a price and it’s almost immediately finalized. And that’s huge, because the day we want to launch a new drink can be hectic—having to reprint the menu, update the staff, and make sure we’re pricing everything properly—so just knowing that the product and price is already in the system is a huge relief.”

Besides that, Heather’s Bookkeeper loves that her invoices are more organized. Heather has been doing inventory on her phone since using BevSpot, which, she says, is much faster than holding a laptop and entering the numbers on an Excel spreadsheet.

“The time I’ve saved doing inventory is just getting better and better.”

Heather has maintained a good pour cost at State Park, and she uses BevSpot to monitor it. “It’s great to be able to keep an eye on my pour cost and make sure it’s staying at a good level whenever I enter inventory or create new menus.”

“When I go through BevSpot to check my invoices, I can immediately see if I’m missing one. Before, it was harder to tell whether or not I had them all.”

What’s Next?

The team behind State Park is opening two new restaurants this year, and Heather already has the accounts created in BevSpot. “I’ve been poking around in there and setting up my distributors and reps, and I’m starting to drop some products into the inventory for those two new concepts, which is fun to do in my downtime—it’s so exciting. I’m very optimistic about launching two new locations with BevSpot.”