At a Glance
Operator: ISM Brewing & Kitchen
Location: Long Beach, California
Opened: November 2023
Owner: Ian McCall
Concept: Independent brewery, full kitchen, taproom, distribution, memberships, and private events
GoTab solutions: POS, mobile order and pay, QR ordering, Easy Tab®, handheld POS, memberships and subscriptions, guest segmentation, open integrations
Highlights
- Connected staff-assisted and mobile ordering so guests can use multiple ordering methods on the same tab.
- Allowed tabs and food-delivery locations to move with guests as their parties change tables.
- Built monthly membership tiers around packaged beer, weekday traffic, food, events, and community.
- Increased recorded monthly discounts from approximately $2,000 to $6,000 while membership revenue reduced the estimated effective discount rate from as much as 2% to about 1%.
- Connected GoTab with specialized platforms supporting scheduling, food costs, beer costs, tax compliance, loyalty, and marketing.
The Challenge: Learning to Operate Three Businesses in One
Ian McCall began brewing professionally long before he became a restaurant owner. He entered the industry in 2004, later worked at Beachwood Brewing, and spent nearly six years as head brewer at Riip Beer Company. In 2023, he returned to the original Beachwood brewpub location in downtown Long Beach—this time as its owner.
He opened ISM Brewing & Kitchen in November of that year.
McCall brought deep experience in brewing, production schedules, raw materials, and inventory. Running a combined brewery and restaurant introduced an entirely different set of responsibilities.
“I wasn’t running a single business,” McCall said. “I’m running a brewery, I’m running a restaurant with a full kitchen, and I’m running a distribution model as well. So it’s almost like three businesses in one.”
ISM initially retained the previous operator’s POS and added several modules within the same ecosystem. Costs grew, but the larger challenge was operational visibility. McCall was learning restaurant management while trying to bring labor and food costs under control.
At the same time, the venue’s counter-service model was creating lines, and its QR ordering system did not reflect the way guests used the space.
The Guest Experience Challenge: Parties Don’t Stay Put
ISM is a social environment. Guests may begin at a small patio table, move when friends arrive, visit the bar, or expand into a larger group over the course of an evening.
The brewery’s previous QR codes were permanently associated with individual tables. If a guest opened a tab at one table and moved, subsequent food orders continued to be routed to the original location. Orders came back to the kitchen when runners could not find the guest.
“We weren’t keeping up with the flow of social interaction and the community,” McCall said.
Lines created another point of friction. Guests could find themselves waiting to order their next beer while still holding the one they were drinking. Some wanted bartender interaction, while others preferred to sit down and order directly from their phones.
ISM needed a brewery POS system that could support those different behaviors without separating them into disconnected checks and service models.
The Solution: One Tab Across Multiple Ways to Order
With GoTab, ISM introduced a hybrid service model that lets guests decide how they want to order.
Guests can:
- Start a tab with a bartender and access it from their phone.
- Sit down and begin an order by scanning a QR code.
- Reorder from their mobile device without returning to the bar.
- Place an order with a food runner or another team member carrying a handheld POS.
- Move to another table and update their location while keeping the same tab.
- Share access to a tab with other members of their party.
The experience preserves personal interaction without requiring it at every step. Guests who want recommendations or conversation can order with an employee. Those who see a line—or simply prefer mobile ordering—can serve themselves.
“There are these different groups that utilize the system in different ways,” McCall said.
For ISM, the goal is not to direct every guest toward the same channel. It is to keep the experience connected as the guest moves among them.
Building a Membership Around Regular Visits
ISM also uses GoTab to operate a tiered monthly membership program based on its “Friends, Family, Fresh Beer” identity.
The $49-per-month Friends tier includes two four-packs, a standing 10% discount, additional weekday savings on house beer, merchandise opportunities, and quarterly member events. The $99-per-month Family tier includes four four-packs and adds a food benefit that can be used for children’s meals or appetizers.
Each membership is associated with the guest’s phone number. When the member opens a tab, GoTab recognizes the account, applies eligible discounts, and tracks the redemption of included items.
ISM designed its richest recurring benefit around Monday through Thursday, traditionally its slowest days. Members receive an additional 25% off house beer during that period, on top of their standard 10% benefit. By focusing the offer on beer produced in-house, ISM can encourage off-peak visits using a product with favorable margins.
The included four-packs provide another reason to return. Members may come in to redeem their packaged beer, then stay for food and drinks.
The Results: More Structured Benefits, Lower Effective Discounting
As membership participation increased, ISM’s reported monthly discounts grew from approximately $2,000 to roughly $6,000. But those gross discounts did not account for the recurring membership revenue supporting them.
After subtracting the membership fees collected, McCall estimates ISM’s effective discount rate declined from approximately 1.5%–2% of monthly sales to closer to 1%.
The structure also gives employees an alternative to informal giveaways. Friends and regulars can receive established membership benefits rather than relying on discretionary discounts that generate no recurring revenue and are harder to track.
The result is a program that combines meaningful customer value with better control and visibility for the business.
An Open Technology Stack for Better Decisions
As McCall learned the operational side of the business, he assembled a technology stack built around specialized tools. ISM has used or adopted platforms including 7shifts for scheduling and team communication, MarginEdge for food costing, Beer30 for brewery management and beer costing, DAVO by Avalara for sales tax management, and Fishbowl for expanded loyalty and guest marketing capabilities.
Sales data can flow from GoTab into the systems that help ISM understand food and beer costs. McCall acknowledges that implementing and maintaining these tools requires substantial work, but the resulting information supports better decisions.
“Once it’s mostly complete, the information is pretty powerful,” he said.
GoTab’s open approach allows ISM to select tools it considers best suited to each function rather than limiting the brewery to modules from one provider.
“GoTab has been very willing to work within the pieces of software—the pieces of tech—that I think are the best in the industry,” McCall said.
Preparing for More Private Events and Personalized Hospitality
ISM is also expanding its private-event business, including bookings for its patio and sections of the restaurant. Shared tabs make it easier for groups to place orders across the venue, with additional opportunities to use event cards and RFID credentials as that business grows.
Guest segmentation creates opportunities beyond memberships. Located beneath and near hundreds of downtown residential units, ISM can use unique QR codes to enroll residents from specific buildings, apply benefits automatically, and measure which neighborhood partnerships generate visits.
By identifying members, residents, or other guest groups when they order, ISM can also make hospitality more personal—whether that means recognizing a regular, offering a sample of a new beer, or making a member-only item available.
Technology That Works the Way a Brewery Works
ISM’s evolution demonstrates that brewery technology has to accommodate a complex operation. The same business may function as a production brewery, restaurant, neighborhood gathering place, membership community, and private-event venue.
For McCall, the right platform is one that allows guests to move naturally, gives regulars a reason to return, connects the systems behind the business, and produces better information for decision-making.
Discover how GoTab’s brewery POS helps breweries and taprooms connect ordering, shared tabs, memberships, events, integrations, and guest data in one flexible platform.
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