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Keith McClendon Spared No Expense in Portion Control At the Rare Martini
Although you may spend hours or days fretting over the
confusing excess of technology designed to make your life easier, once
implemented, the end result often is the same.
Technology is a blessing that previous generations were not
afforded, and doing business in today’s world means that each
operator/owner must allot some time to research and determine which
systems will make his or her life simpler, profits higher and business
better.
One man in Birmingham, Ala., is a newcomer to the food and beverage
sector, and upon opening his first venture, he has chosen to tackle
portion control drop by drop.
The Rare Martini, located in Birmingham’s bustling Lakeshore
district, is run by President/Owner Keith McClendon, who says his
previous job in the automobile insurance industry gave him a clear
understanding of risk management. For many, McClendon’s choice of
systems may, at first, seem extreme, but it just may be a future avenue
to cutting one of the largest expenses
operators face.
“The industry standard,” McClendon says, “is that most bars lose
about 20 percent to over-pours, giveaways and bartenders drinking
behind the bar.”
This estimate, for many, has come to be an accepted figure budgeted
in to annual expenses, but it is one figure that advanced technology
may someday eradicate. Through ball bearings in pour spouts, microchips
implanted into pour spouts and even camera live-feed of drink
preparation, today’s bartenders have their ethics on display.
“We use Liquor Monitor by Comcash,” McClendon says. “We began using
it in October when the bar opened, and it controls over-pours,
under-pours, employees drinking behind the bar and also inventory. So,
basically, at anytime, I can see live on my computer every single pour
that takes place. It pops up on my screen what the name of the liquor
is, the size of the bottle, and it matches it up to the drink they rang
up in the computer.”
The Extra Effort
In McClendon’s case, this has saved him long-term expense, but it
has cost him additional time, so there is a definite give-and-take
implement in using technology of this nature.
“We are very selective in hiring our employees, and I don’t allow
drinking on the job,” he says. “During staff training, we let them use
the system. They would pour a drink and watch how accurate they were.”
McClendon considers his particular choice of system as an
additional training tool, since unlike some of the other technology
available that simply stops the flow of liquor after 1.5 ounces has
been dispensed, the system requires a free pour and records the amount
of alcohol poured.
“When they are free-pouring into a Rocks glass, they have to count
and count accurately,” he says. “They are still counting, but they know
they are being watched. I leave (the system) up live when I am sitting
in my office, and I also usually run a report the next day.”
The Final Tally
All in all, McClendon has invested a great deal of money in portion
control that he hopes to recoup over time, in saving the estimated 20
percent that some others are losing to bad bartending skills and
dishonesty. Every one of his 90 bottles is outfitted with a $50 pour
spout with a battery and computer chip which sends the information to a
main system of computer software and cameras that ran him approximately
another $20,000 to install and run.
“I budgeted it into my opening budget,” McClendon says. “I was
looking for something that was ‘new’ technology.” Today, there’s
something new to fit everyone. NCB
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