SHARIZONA

207.632.8953 - ask@sharizona.com

SCULPTURE HOSPITALITY OF ARIZONA

F.A.Q.s

We Guarantee To Help You

1. Eliminate Over-pouring, mis-ringing and theft in your bar

2. Save time by not having to count inventory every week

3. Drop your pour cost and increase your sales

4. Generate comprehensive reports highlighting shortages

5. Eliminate excess inventory, out of stocks, and wrong inventory

Why is there a need for Sculpture Hospitality of Arizona?

What we typically see when we first go into a bar, before the bartenders know we are there, is shrinkage anywhere between 20 and 35% sometimes more. After thousands of audits from Toronto to Miami to Australia and across the globe there is a need for Sculpture Hospitality because these losses will continue until they are stopped. We have the most effective tool which is accurate information.

Why can’t I just use an “inventory-control program” and have my manager audit our bar?

Many of our clients have tried to do exactly that and ended up concluding that it was more profitable to use our service. There are several reasons why:

* Using our service is more cost-effective. We audit for a living – every day. This means that we are more efficient and can audit your bar for a reasonable fee. Our proprietary software allows us to do a smarter, faster audit. But more importantly, our experience in solving bar problems and the time we take to solve these with you will result in less shrinkage. In many cases, you would be able to reduce shrinkage with your own system but you might have to settle for a slightly higher level of shrinkage (say 10% losses instead of the 4% you achieve using us). Our service pays for itself and our long time customers consider the fee an investment in their bar.

* There is never any danger of collusion or fixing the numbers because we work for you. We are completely independent of your bar’s management structure. The bar staff are not our friends or co-workers. Our only interest is in producing factual results and helping you make more money.

* Most inventory-control programs are based on “tenth-ing” a bottle to determine the inventory count. “Tenth-ing” is ultimately ineffective, however, when you need the ability to isolate an individual bartender to solve a chronic problem.

Our clients sometimes ask us to audit their bar operation on a daily basis to determine exactly who is responsible for losses. This is easily accomplished when weighing bottles and kegs but impossible if “tenth-ing”, simply because of the inherent margin of error involved. Even in the unlikely event that every bottle is “tenth-ed” perfectly, there is still a 10% margin of error, which amounts to 3.38 ounces of liquor per bottle in the USA and 4 ounces per bottle in Canada. Thus, a bartender can over-pour or even steal a shot and this theft would go completely undetected.
We have the ability to audit every day, if needed, to pinpoint a problem individual is ultimately the reason that we can help you convince your bar staff that they will be held accountable for what they do behind the bar.

Why is this not something that can be managed internally or by BAR staff themselves?

Assuming a bars management is doing inventory for the purpose of control rather than simply for ordering, they will typically generate a Pour Cost, also known as a Cost of Goods Sold. They rarely look at comparing usage to sales and certainly not with the accuracy that we provide.

We get our customers to stop focusing on Pour Cost and focus on the shrinkage, the difference between used and sold ounces (or bottles). We do give them the pour cost and the ideal pour cost but what we stress is getting our customers to concentrate on the shrinkage. It is an entirely different perspective for a bartender when the owner (or the manager) says Capt. Morgan was short 28 ounces and the Corona was 39 bottles short last week as opposed to saying my pour cost went up 2 points last month.

If I hire you, won’t I lose some customers who are used to getting a “little extra?”

There is no doubt that you need to look after your “regulars” – something essential to the success of your business. Most of our clients follow our advice to institute a “comp” policy to handle this promotional activity. If your bartenders are in the habit of routinely over-pouring, however, then the cost to you can be very high. We have found that the average over-pour is 25%.

A much better way to look after your regulars is to buy them a free drink every now and again. A liberal “comp” policy has many advantages over routine over-pouring:

* It will cost you a lot less money.
* Your regulars will place a much higher value on a free drink.

Comping can be managed, meaning that you have some control over who gets looked after and how much you are giving away – something that is impossible by letting your bartenders decide who to over-pour and by how much.

I have video cameras in my bar-

Why hire you?

Cameras can be useful tools, but only if you already suspect where your problems lie and want to confirm it. But in order to monitor your whole bar with cameras, to monitor a single 8-hour shift would require you to watch 8 hours of video for each camera you have installed. Most bar and restaurant proprietors don’t have this kind of time. If they did, they would use it to watch the staff directly! As an alternative, if you try to utilize a little spot-checking instead, your staff will quickly discover whether or not anybody is really watching.

What types of losses are found in the BAR industry?

Losses are found at all levels of bar management. Bartenders pour a little extra into drinks for bar regulars. Waiters and waitresses discreetly dole out freebies to friends and more unscrupulous employees flat-out steal while their employers aren’t looking. Below is a long list and detailed description of scams identified and the types of losses a BAR manager might find:

What are the “Core Strengths” of having an external auditing team?

Apart from our accuracy, the key to what we do is that we are an outside, independent service; we are an impartial auditor with no vested interest in the numbers. We save management time. Instead of spending time physically doing the inventory our customers can use that time to take the information to the bartenders and get results.

What are the “Core Strengths” of having the Sculpture Hospitality system in place?

Using Sculpture Hospitality saves money, makes money, and more than pays for itself. The key thing is that just the cost of the liquor that we save our customers, not even the retail dollars, pays for our service. Patron is a dollar an ounce, Grey Goose is a dollar an ounce, Johnnie Black is over a dollar an ounce – just the cost of what we save them in liquor and not even counting bottle beer and draft beer costs; this savings in liquor pays for our service.

We end up working for our customers for free. Why are we in business? Why have we been around for 20 years and are up over 300 franchises? Because we end up working for our customers for free.

My pour costs look pretty good, so why would I consider hiring you?

Even though your pour cost might look pretty good, our clients have learned that it can almost always be even better. Unfortunately, pour cost analysis usually hides losses from over-pouring, mis-ringing or theft. The problem is that every drink you sell has a different ideal pour cost – from wells at 10%–14%, margaritas at 12%–15%, calls around 20%, many liqueurs, cognacs, and scotches at 25%–40%, and wine is even higher – and you have no control over what drinks your customers order.

The result is that it is almost impossible to know if your pour cost is as low as it really should be without matching up usage and sales on each brand.
But don’t just take our word for it. We will be happy to audit your bar for two or three weeks so that you can decide definitively whether or not your pour cost is too high – and exactly how much more money you should be making.

What value does Sculpture Hospitality service provide?

What we help our customers do is get that shrinkage number down below 5%. Once shrinkage is below 5% you are maxing out profit for the bar.

What about Restaurant Scams?

  1. Bartenders can easily bring their own bottle of stock liquor into the restaurant. When that beverage is ordered they pour from their own bottle, never recording the usage or the sale. With 40 shots per bottle at $3 per shot the bartender can make $120, while the restaurant loses $120.
  2. Drinks, such as draft beer which have a high spillage rate and which are generally counted in an estimated fashion, can be sold for cash. If the sale is not recorded, the lost beverage will usually not be noticed, making it possible to take 30 10- ounce drafts per day.
  3. If the restaurant serves double shots at a discounted rate (i.e. a shot is $3 and the second shot is $1) the bartender could ring in a double shot ($4) when two singles were ordered while charging the customer for two singles ($6). The result is the nightly counts are correct and match the sales, but the bartender is up $2
  4. Mixed drinks such as a Bloody Mary may sell for $4.50 while a shot of vodka sells for $3. In this case, the bartender could ring in the shot of vodka, accounting for the single shot of liquor, charging the higher price, thus pocketing the difference of $1.50.
  5. Using the same premise as above, the bartender could sell two Bloody Marys at full price ($4.50 x 2 = $9), but ring a double vodka ($3 + $1 = $4) into the register, thereby making a $5 profit as a result of the discounted rate for the double shot. This obviously would not affect the liquor count, yet the bartender takes a profit of $5.
  6. In order to obtain higher tips and keep customers happy, bartenders have been known to provide free drinks after closing. While the cash may no longer be at the bar, the liquor is. If this is kept to a minimum, or if the bartender has enacted another scam and has leftover alcohol, it would likely go undetected.
  7. Outright theft is possible although not common. Major theft for example is easily caught by management if a full bottle is missing, but is a shot or two in a coffee considered theft, and just how is a restaurateur supposed to catch the culprit?
  8. Bartender and waitress collusion would enable the waitress to request drinks without providing a chit to the bar. The drinks could be added manually to the bill and the customer would pay the amount. In order to adjust the liquor count the bartender would simply ring in a double shot for every two singles taken.
  9. In most cases bartenders, because of the volume at the bar, decide independently if a beer is skunky or if the bottle is chipped and it cannot be sold. The skunky or chipped bottle beer, once approved by management, is then sold to a customer without being rung in.
  10. Drinks can be sold and later in the night recorded as a wrong mix. This would justify the shortage in the beverage count while the bartender pockets the money.
  11. Wine for kitchen use is usually taken from the bar at a cook’s request and recorded by the bartender as spillage or kitchen use so it can be reduced from inventory. A glass of wine sold for $4, but not rung into the register can be placed onto the kitchen use sheet. The bartender keeps the $4.
  12. When a premium liquor is ordered the bartender could pour a bar shot (especially when a mix is involved), and ring it in as a bar shot. In turn, the customer is charged for a premium shot and pockets the difference.

Legitimate Losses

Pubs, Bars and Night Clubs are like any business when it comes to expected losses. Spillage, over pouring, mis-ringing drinks and short deliveries to name a few examples of losses that may not be classed as a “SCAM” however do affect the client’s bottom line and revenue potential.

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