This past week the Uncorkd team participated at our first CMAA conference, which is the association representing country clubs and private clubs throughout the country. Uncorkd, as the leading iPad wine and beverage menu platform for the club industry, was excited to attend to network with our existing clients and meet new clubs interested in enhancing their club with technology. Read more
Are you the kind of restaurateur who is proud of your vast wine list? Do you boast about the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of bottles you stock? I’m sorry to tell you this, but even though your wine list may be awesome, it’s probably killing your sales. Today’s article clarifies why a long wine menu cuts into your customers’ wine purchases, then gives you the method to fix that problem — fast.
There are some great technology innovations happening in the wine industry as you know, but now even wine producers themselves are adopting ways to improve the guest experience at their wineries. Robert Mondavi Winery, for example, was searching for a way to enhance the wine tasting experience while keeping up with modern times. That’s when winemakers at the Napa Valley vineyards came up with the idea to create an app that helped consumers leave the winery with long-lasting memories.
Technology use among restaurants is seeing fast paced growth, and restaurant operators are beginning to understand the importance of mobile and tablet technology to improve their top and bottom line. According to Hudson Riehle, Senior Vice President of Research for the National Restaurant Association, use of technology is expanding among all age groups. No, it’s not just teens who want to use the latest technology for their dining experience. Our customers report even consumers in the 65+ age bracket enjoy using iPad menus to choose a wine or beverage for their meal.
By now you’re hearing about iPad wine lists or iPad drink menus popping up at restaurants around the world. There’s a large number of solutions out there to choose from and finding the right solution for your restaurant can be difficult. Here I’ve broken down some of the top considerations for you to think about when evaluating tablet menus for your restaurant. Read more
iPad wine menus are popping up across the country. But it isn’t only celebrity chefs using the technology. Although you can find iPad beverage menus at Gordon Ramsay’s or André Rochat’s restaurants, restaurants of all sizes across the country are using electronic wine menus, from independent operators to regional and corporate operators nationwide.
One of the hesitations we usually hear from prospective customers is around cost. Having all of these iPads must be so expensive. After all, using paper is cheap, pennies. Let’s break down the costs a little further… Read more
The last few days has seen quite a bit of news about Olive Garden and their parent company, Darden. Starboard Value, a hedge fund that is one of the largest shareholders of the public company, has recently put forward a slate of 12 new board prospects to replace the entire board of Darden. Now, Starboard has released a 300 slide deck blasting the inefficiencies they see with Olive Garden and other concepts like Longhorn Steakhouse, while outlining turnaround steps they would take to get the brands on the right track. According to Starboard, Olive Garden is missing out on $56 million in annual earnings by not taking basic steps with their beverage program.
If you are in the hospitality industry, I highly recommend taking a look at Starboard’s analysis and proposal for yourself. But after spending hours reading through their materials, I’m going to highlight several things called out in the report that all restaurants should be focused on to improve the guest experience and bottom line. While there are a lot of problems identified and solutions proposed in the report, I’m going to focus on alcoholic beverages based on our experience at Uncorkd and provide information on how to improve your beverage sales. Read more
How do you deal with market upsets? The restaurant industry is known for its ability to introduce new and innovative approaches to how food is served, consumed, and perceived by the public, but when something comes along that shakes up the industry as we know it, that’s what’s known as an “upset.” Upsets make it impossible for you to do your job the same way you always have—and today we’re talking about an upset in the food tech space that you never saw coming.
Here at Uncorkd, we’re not just interested in digital wine menus (though we sincerely hope you’re interested in them), we’re also interested in all the other new and exciting technology that people in the hospitality industry are using to make their business run smoother. Today, we’ll be looking at restaurant tech your guests can use to pay you faster and easier—without having to wait all night for a check or change. Here are four mobile payment apps that you may want to check out.
You did your job. You heard everyone talking about why you need a restaurant website, so you went out and got one. You even got yourself an awesome gimmick so that you’d stand out on Google. Either you struggled over learning how to create the site yourself, or you hired someone else to create it for you. The good news is that now you can breathe easy. After all, you have an online presence already. You’ve checked that task off your list. Now you can return to what you really love: food.
Sorry to break it to you, but in today’s world, restaurants can’t just create a site and then rest on their laurels. They need to keep that restaurant website up to date. Here’s why. Read more