Tap Room Playbook Episode 4: Wanna Be Right or Rich?
A lot of brewers start out as an avocation. Say, an entrepreneur has a successful exit and takes some of those earnings and starts their passion project of starting a brewery. That’s actually the way that GoTab got started. Our CEO, Tim McLaughlin, started his brewery after many years as a successful e-commerce entrepreneur.
A lot of brewers start out as an avocation. Say, an entrepreneur has a successful exit and takes some of those earnings and starts their passion project of starting a brewery. That’s actually the way that GoTab got started. Our CEO, Tim McLaughlin, started his brewery after many years as a successful e-commerce entrepreneur.
But that previous business success usually isn’t enough. Most business owners and entrepreneurs aren’t satisfied with just keeping the lights on. After they get up and running, most decide they need to make their brewery a going concern. It’s intuitive. They’ve built something they’re proud of, and that they love, and want to make sure it is sustainable. What’s more, they have employees and customers that they’re committed to. They want to make sure their business is around for a long time.
And that’s when the key question comes into play: do you want to be right or do you want to be rich?
What do we mean by being right? By that we mean, maybe you started as a gritty little spot with a bar and a few barrels and found success with that. But over time, the success wanes, or business stagnates. The market is telling you something. It’s telling you that to grow you need to make some changes.
The places that are expanding and that are opening extra tap rooms recognize that there's a hospitality aspect to the whole thing. The product is good. What else is good? Is there any live music? It's a common thing and that's easy to pull off. Do people like coming to play board games, trivia night, or a cornhole tournaments?
We see so many examples of this. A local tap room in Vallejo for example, a friend of one of our execs, has grown to become a huge part of the local community. They decided to launch a weekly cornhole tournament, with brackets, trophies, the works. They promote their weekly tournament on social media and pull it off with not that much effort at all. Their sales are increasing because they made this minor investment and put a couple things up on social media. All of a sudden, they’ve been able to generate 150 additional customers coming in a couple times per week just because of this very low amount of extra effort. That's the mentality that it takes. What can you give people that they're going to remember? And what are they going to tell their friends about?
Beyond those activations, it’s the little things that can take a mediocre performing brewery or tap room and turn it into a high-performing, revenue generating venue: It's finding out if someone wants another beer before they have to come to you. It's recognizing an empty glass on the table, getting out from behind the bar. You're going to make more revenue. If you have a cool place, that people want to hang out in, that’s the bottom line.
In our next video, we talk about how to lean into growth. The steps to take to put yourself in a position where your brewery is growing and expanding, not staying stagnant.
Tap Room Playbook Episode 2:
When you really think about it, with everything managers need to do in a tap room, the hospitality aspect is often overlooked.
Situated “in the heart of it all, yet tranquil enough to make you feel away from it all too,” The Limelight Hotel Snowmass offers 99 hotel rooms and 11 residences, as well as footsteps-to-gondola access in winter and summer — right in the middle of Snowmass Base Village.
The Situation
Especially over the last few years, the Limelight Hotels IT team had witnessed a significant shift to contactless technology in the hospitality industry. After evaluating friction points in the guest journey, aligning with modern technology platforms in their restaurant was determined to be an effective way to offer elevated contactless dining experiences to their guests while also evolving their technology platforms to continue to support long-term company goals. Limelight Hotel partnered with GoTab to provide an enhanced on-demand dining experience on par with the brand’s reputation for exceptional guest service.
The Solution
Reducing Staff Touch Points Without Sacrificing Guest Experience
Guests are now able to begin a tab from their room or the property’s restaurant by scanning a QR code, texting a link to friends or family members on the ski slope to add in their orders, then meeting up together at the patio or lodge to enjoy their meal and après ski festivities without interruption. By streamlining tasks like inputting orders and processing payments, this eliminates friction for hotel staff and allows them to focus on delivering renowned guest service for a memorable experience. Since partnering with GoTab, Limelight Snowmass has consistently seen higher check averages and sales.
“We found the Point of Sale platforms we were looking at offered the guest and staff limited opportunities to further reduce touch points or improve the traditional restaurant experience. The GoTab platform enabled the guest to take an active role over the flow of their experience while simultaneously reducing touch points and further streamlining restaurant operations.”Nick Giglio, Manager of Hotel IT Operations, The Little Nell Hotel Group
According to the Limelight Hotels team, some of the other platforms that were evaluated were either missing some of the pieces they were looking for, had weak customer support models, or had little willingness to develop integrations to existing hotel platforms already in place. To that end, GoTab integrated with cloud-based platform, Infor. Together, GoTab and Infor are providing dynamic solutions to support central, efficient service across hotel amenities and deliver exceptional guest experiences.
“Previously, guests would call down to the restaurant to begin an order from their room or while they were out enjoying the ski slopes. Using GoTab, guests can now place orders from anywhere on the resort, giving them the on-demand service they want without interrupting their day. GoTab empowers us to give control to the guest, reducing touch points and streamlining overall restaurant operations, making Limelight Hotel the resort of choice for Snowmass.”Nick Giglio, Manager of Hotel IT Operations, The Little Nell Hotel Group
Since introducing GoTab, The Limelight Hotel has seen a consistent level of upsells and items sold per check resulting in additional revenue capture. They have been able to maintain service levels in their restaurants during periods when there was reduced staffing available without significantly diminishing the guest experience.
The Benefits
Eliminate Phone Orders – Take Orders from the Slopes. Guests can start a tab from their room or on the mountain without interrupting the flow of their day.
Future-Proofed Technologies – Delivering elevated contactless ordering via integration with the Infor hotel management platform.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
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