How The Rayback Depends On POS Data To Maximize Beverage Sales

The Rayback opened in 2016 with the deep belief that their strength was in supporting local: If the bar were to act as a stage for other small businesses, it would be successful in its own right. 

Now, it’s the highest volume community gathering space in Boulder. The Rayback identifies itself as “Boulder’s only food truck park and full bar, tap house, coffee shop, event space, pup zone, backyard, and whatever else you make it.” The smorgasbord of available options is intentional. They entice the entire Boulder community by offering something for everyone: food from the 25+ partnering vendors, weekly programming, event space for rent, and a friendly area for dogs and kids.

While there’s plenty going on within the fences and walls of The Rayback, their bar staff are focused on doing one thing exceptionally well: beverage sales. 

“We’ve done $3-4k in beverage sales in the matter of an hour,” said Melissa Timm, the General Manager of The Rayback. Two categories make up the bulk of beverage sales, their main revenue source:

• Draft beer makes up 55% of beverage sales
• Cocktail and spirits make up 33% of beverage sales

That kind of sales volume requires an organized, hard-working team, and The Rayback staff is only getting more efficient. In fact, in 2020, cocktails and spirits only made up 8% of their beverage sales volume. That means the team is making 25% more cocktails every day, a much more time-consuming order than beer pours.

This efficiency also requires the appropriate technology to assist and keep up with the hard-working team.

“I don’t think The Rayback could function anywhere nearly as effectively or efficiently, or provide the quality of service to the volume of people that we’re serving on a daily basis without Arryved. I think it’s the only way to be honest.” Melissa says of the POS system they’ve used since opening. 

Melissa can confidently boast her team’s productivity because of The Rayback’s data-focused approach to driving tangible results. Let’s see the savvy Arryved reports that have helped the bar improve processes and ultimately maximize beverage sales. 

Optimizing Labor Benefits Staff & Guests Alike

“Just like any other business, labor is probably one of the biggest expenses and biggest factors of cost and profitability,” Melissa explained about The Rayback’s attention to detail regarding staff-related reporting. “We’re hyper focused on labor. Our front of the house team benefits from that hyper focus because we want to make sure they’re maximizing their ability to make as much money as possible, while of course not compromising the customer experience.”

Here are the Arryved reports Melissa focuses on when determining staffing needs:

Creating An Efficient Staffing Schedule: Hour By Hour Report

This informs when The Rayback’s rushes are, and therefore informs their scheduling needs. That way, no team members lose out on tips from overstaffing, and no guests lose out on drinks from understaffing.

Saving Time On Tedious Tasks: Labor Reports

This includes employee time cards, tip summaries, and the ability to export that information out to their HR software. Automating these administrative tasks saves the team time and headaches. 

Money Motivates: Tip Pool Report

What better way to motivate the team than show them a transparent report of the tips they’re taking home every night? 

With nearly $4k of beverage sales on the line every hour, and an expansive space sprawling significant distances from the bar itself, it’s especially important for The Rayback to keep staff happy, efficient, and motivated to improve. Arryved reports let Melissa and team optimize how to maximize drinks sales and tips, while providing the best guest experience possible. 

Granular Sales Data Improves Process & Inspires Staff

Of course, at such a high volume bar, sales reports are a big determinant of performance and serve, again, as motivation for the team. The Arryved sales reports Melissa focuses on are the following: 

Informing Baseline Sales & Process Improvements: Hour By Hour Report 

This same report helps The Rayback establish a baseline in sales for what the bar does on average in any specific time period. These numbers give the team a framework to understand how things are working, and pinpoint opportunities for process improvements too. 

Plus, the motivational piece is at play again: Arryved reports are accessible via the cloud, meaning any team member with a login can view reports from their phone. Bartenders actually pull up the Arryved Portal mid-shift to check in on drinks made per hour. It then motivates them to work faster!

Further Incentivizing High Performance: Sales Summary Report 

Melissa and team refer to this report every day, multiple times a day. With a team as motivated by performance as their GM is, seeing the progress in sales throughout the day and what exactly they’ll be taking home in their tip pool that night is another incentive.

In Conclusion, Digestible POS Data Drives Performance

The bar business is fast paced. By making reports easy to access and read, Arryved encourages a positive team mentality and motivates team members with real-time results. 

“Arryved informed the initial business model in a huge way. We could serve people really effectively when they’re hundreds of feet from our bar. It informed the staffing dynamic, the serving dynamic… We just save our team a lot of steps. Physical steps!” said Melissa of her stellar team’s use of Arryved reporting. 

The proof is in the numbers: Serving up almost $4k in beverages per hour is a result of a smart team depending on data and iterating as they see fit.

*Featured image courtesy of The Rayback