Lane Cardwell

Raising the Bar on the Bar

I am returning from the 2009 Cheers Beverage Conference in Miami. It was a two day gathering of operators, suppliers, distributors, equipment vendors, and all of the other people who make a beverage alcohol program come together for full-service restaurants. I always enjoy going to Cheers because it's educational and...well, it’s just so darned fun. We’re not there to cure cancer, solve the hunger issue, work towards peace, or any of the other weighty issues facing the planet. We are there to improve the way that our customers can get a good drink in restaurants that have bars. And, believe it or not, it’s not always an easy thing to do.

If you are an operator who sent one or more of your people to this event, while wondering if this was the right economic climate to be sending people to a conference in Miami, let me give you an unbiased view. You made the right decision. You can’t quit trying to improve your business just because the economy is in the toilet. In fact, improving it might be the way that you can survive this prolonged drought.

The beverage alcohol business gets more complicated every year. New products are being introduced at a more rapid rate. Trends on what is hot, and what is not, change more quickly and threaten to obsolete any bar program which does not evolve with them. Laws change constantly which affect our businesses and the sale of beverage alcohol. And there is no better forum for touching base with the suppliers and distributors who are such an important part of our ability to breathe life into a beverage program.

Roger Berkowitz, CEO of Legal Seafoods, gave a keynote address this morning titled, “Evolve or Dissolve”. Legal Seafoods won two awards for their bar program, including best overall bar program. Roger walked the attendees through a history of Legal Seafoods, from its inception as a seafood retailer in the ‘50s, to its current ownership of 34 seafood restaurants. Roger highlighted the various points through their history where the concept could either embrace change, or resist it and slowly become less relevant as the years would go by. Roger said that the best way to embrace change is to “Let the fear set in”.

One of the biggest threats to the quality of our industry’s beverage alcohol programs this coming year will be the results of the staff cutbacks that many restaurant chains have undergone over the past six months or so. In a conversation with some large distributors, they told me that they have 14 chain accounts that have nobody currently in the role of beverage specialist, and do not anticipate that these positions will be filled by people who are experienced in this complex field. Every chain has to decide for themselves how best to staff their organization, and what they can and can’t afford, but the beverage experience base for a large number of chains has been greatly diluted in the past 90 days.

                  

The Cheers Conference hosts a wide range of speakers and topics that always reinforce to me the challenges that all full-service restaurants have in implementing and profiting from a cohesive bar program.  Several speakers dealt with the generational differences of customers, and how to appeal to them all, while appearing to target each. Both the Culinary Institute and Johnson & Wales made presentations, reminding us of the unbreakable link between our bars and our dining rooms. Other speakers focused on the trends that were apparent by studying on-premise data, and by analyzing the bar programs of large restaurant chains.

As always, the best way to improve is to benchmark your concept against other chains, but look to the independent operators for new ideas. When it comes to raising the bar in beverage alcohol, the independents almost always will be leading the pack.

Posted by Lane Cardwell on January 21, 2009 | Comments (0)