Your Secret Treasure Trove of Customer Feedback

Your restaurant runs on customer feedback, right? If the chips are too salty, the fish too dry, the service too slow, or the wine selection too expensive, your customers will call you over and tell you. Immediately. If you think I’m delusional and you think that your customers would never tell you anything truthful about your food or service… well, you’re just not looking in the right places. Today’s post talks about the three main places you can find great customer feedback, and what you should look at. Read more

Why Uncorkd is the Best iPad Wine List Platform

iPad wine and beverage menus are becoming more and more popular as restaurants learn about the benefits of the technology.  Not only do the digital menus provide a significant ROI by increasing sales, they also provide a number of other benefits, from improved staff training to saving time updating menus.

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Keep ‘Em Comin’: 6 Drinks from Around the World

If you’re a restaurant that serves an international food, you probably also sell a large amount of one traditional drink. But what do you offer for the people who want a drink from your country, but who are tired of the same old thing? You really need to broaden your drinks menu to keep them coming back. We’ve all heard that variety is the spice of life, and today’s post serves up a good helping of hot and fresh variety for your restaurant. To serve you, I’ve compiled a list of six lesser-known cocktail drinks from around the world. Read more

Uncorkd How To Launch a New Restaurant Menu

12 Drinking Quotes to Use on Your Menu

As a restaurateur, you know that you have to be unique and distinctive to stand out, so you spend a lot of time carefully crafting your food and your ambiance to create exactly the impression your guests have of your restaurant. And first impressions are everything, right? Read more

Why Wine Tech is so Challenging and How it Can Improve

There is a large problem with the current state of technology in the wine and beverage industry that hinders innovation across the entire supply chain, from producer to distributor to restaurant/retailer and ultimately the consumer.  It’s the reason why many tech startups in the wine, beer and spirits space have a hard time gaining traction; leaving dozens of web and mobile apps in the graveyard over the past twenty years. Whether technology at the table, such as Uncorkd, or consumer-facing apps, the problems all stem from the same place.  There are huge rewards for the companies that can change the status quo and for those that get on board with the technological advances.

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The Secret of a Good Signature Drink

A lot of restaurants offer drinks. What makes you different? Is it the fact that you have a wine list filled with $200+ bottles? Is it that you offer 458 types of craft beer… or that all your drinks are straight from Japan? These key differentiators make your restaurant stand out, but unless you show off your differences, your customers will never know what you have to offer. What you need is a signature drink. Read more

Using Technology to Improve Wait Staff Training

Training your wait staff on your beverage menu can be difficult.  With frequent turnover among servers, new wines, beers, spirits and cocktails to learn and so much else to do, we hear frequently that staff training if one of biggest challenges for restaurant owners and managers.  Most of your staff already has smartphones and tablets, or at the very least, access to the internet.  So why not have your servers brush up on their knowledge away from the restaurant using their own devices?

Uncorkd digital menus make it easier to train wait staff on wine and other beverages.  Servers can use their own iPads or borrow them from the restaurant to study up on all your drinks, reading tasting notes, understanding producer information and learning food and wine pairings.    Many of our customers allow staff to take an iPad home for the night to study up on the menu, which can be very helpful when new beverages are added.

Beyond the iPads, Uncorkd provides a web-based version of the menu, complete with pictures and tasting notes.  Staff can access the beverage menu online from their computers or smartphones, to read up on things as well.  With access to the internet everywhere, there’s no excuse for servers to not be up to date on your latest menu changes.

If you’re focused on ensuring your staff is knowledgeable and well-trained, and all successful restaurants are,  then Uncorkd can better educate your staff (and your customers) on your beverage selections.  Cheers!

Three New Restaurants in Milwaukee Switch to Uncorkd iPad Wine Menus

Three well-known restaurants in Milwaukee have started using Uncorkd digital beverage menus in July.  The restaurants include:

Mason Street Grill (425 E Mason St) inside the Pfister Hotel

Kil@wat (139 E Kilbourn Ave) inside the InterContinental Hotel

Milwaukee ChopHouse (633 N 5th St) inside the Hilton City Center Hotel

All three restaurants feature an extensive wine list currated by Sommeliers and also highlight specialty cocktails, local and craft beer.  If you’re in Milwaukee, be sure to dine at one of these great restaurants to experience the digital menus.

 

It’s Time to Stake Out Your Turf

When you started selling drinks at your restaurant, you (hopefully) assessed your competition to price yourself properly, to offer enticing specials and signature drinks, and to understand what was working and failing for your competitors. You built your drinks offerings around those and hey, you’ve been successful! Give yourself a pat on the back for all your hard work… because now it’s time to do more hard work. Today is the day you really start establishing your “turf.” Read more

increase drink sales with a picture uncorkd

How to Increase Your Drink Sales without Saying a Word

A lot of my tips revolve around training your servers or bartenders to memorize information and repeat it back when needed, or to ask key questions at opportune moments. Sometimes though, words just get to be too much. Here’s a tip to increase your drink sales without having to say a single word. Read more