A panel of seasoned beverage-alcohol leaders shared their best practices yesterday on generating beverage-alcohol profits in restaurants. The speakers’ operations — T.G.I. Friday’s, O’Charley’s and Darden Restaurants — together represent more than $1 billion a year in beverage-alcohol sales.
The Improve Your Beverage Margins education session is one of several free seminars at the International Wine, Spirits & Beer Event, which concludes today. The IWSB Event is part of the NRA Show.
David Commer of Commer Beverage moderated while industry heavyweights George Barton, vice president of beverage and bar, T.G.I. Friday’s, Stuart Melia, corporate beverage director, O’Charley’s Inc. and Doug Jackson, senior director of beverage development, Darden Restaurants, presented strategies for increasing beverage margins. Together, the panelists have more than 100 years of industry experience.
Session participants learned the three main ways to increase beverage margins: increase traffic, increase the number of drinks offered and charge more for current drinks.
The panel drew from its chain experience to recommend that operators build partnerships with dealers, distributors and vendors to secure discounts and invest in technologies to aid audits and controls. Know your supply chain and find where you can lower expenses, they advised.
The panelists also offered words of wisdom that operators large and small can use right away:
- Focus on sales-builders instead of cost cutters, even though the economy is putting pressure on many operators to lower prices to accommodate value-conscious consumers.
- Price it right. The least expensive drinks are not necessarily the best-selling, the speakers said. Melia pointed out that the best-selling wine on any menu is normally the second to the least expensive wine on a list.
- Find people to imitate. "You must ask: What do the best of the best do? Who is doing a phenomenal job who you can track?" Barton said.
- Work with your staff team. If you hold your employees accountable for how much they pour and adhere to recipes, they can help you eliminate waste that can erode bottom lines. It’s not always about creating the strongest drink, but the best tasting one.
This and other IWSB education sessions are available for purchase on audio CD or for download at http://www.dcprovidersonline.com/nra/?event_id=NRA6. Recorded versions of many other NRA Show sessions are also available at http://www.dcprovidersonline.com/nra.
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