Franchising with a Twist: Shaken and Stirred, Bevintel Provides Unique Franchising Opportunity

By BEN HEINEMANN

• Bevintel system dramatically reduces waste and loss of liquor at bars and restaurants

• Low barrier to entry allows anyone to enter a unique aspect of the hospitality industry

• Bevintel saves bar and restaurant owners see 400 percent return on investment

Bartender John walks in front of his staff to address the sorry looking bunch after receiving a report from Bevintel which tracked the liquor usage at his bar over the past three days. “On those three days, just three days, you as bartenders gave away $1769 worth of liquor that was not rung,” hammers John. “Whether it was over poured, given away to friends, or stolen means nothing to me. All three are theft, and all three end now.” The above incident actually took place on an episode of Spike TV’s Bar Rescue, when Bevintel helped reduce the loss of thousands of dollars worth of liquor at Downey’s Irish Pub & Restaurant, located in Philadelphia. And while filmed for TV, it’s a scene that’s repeated at bars and restaurants across the country that are using Bevintel to stop the waste or misuse of liquor. Bevintel was founded in 1987 as a way for bars and restaurants to precisely measure the amount of liquor being sold versus the amount of liquor actually being poured from the bottles. With over 300 franchisees and 500 auditors located in a dozen countries around the world, Bevintel franchisees can almost be viewed as enforcers of good bartending in each market they serve, although your definition of what makes a good bartender might be different. “A lot of bar staff are giving away free drinks,” explained Bevintel Chief Operating Officer Vanessa De Caria. “They have friends that come in and don’t pay, and there’s a lot of missed revenue for the owner. Or people order Grey Goose and tonic, and the bartender pours the well vodka and pockets the difference. Those are the main areas of loss.” De Caria also says the Bevintel system can account for spillage and theft, which is something most bars and restaurants have a hard time calculating otherwise. To set the system up, a Bevintel auditor comes in and weighs each bottle and keg with a scale attached to proprietary software. After the audit, Bevintel sends reports detailing any losses that are cross-referenced with the actual sales during a period of time. The reports Bevintel provides to bars and restaurants can be broken down by categories, like beer, wine, liquor and even energy drinks. With the system in place, Bevintel guarantees to lower shrinkage to under 5 percent and can typically increase the profits by 10 percent with across the board sales increases from 3-15 percent. In addition to being a great tool for bar and restaurant owners, the franchise opportunity Bevintel provides is truly one of a kind. “When you buy a franchise, you buy a protected sales territory and no one else can come into that market,” said De Caria. “We carve out the amount of zip codes in each territory to make sure our franchisees have great territories to work with. Usually, at a minimum, each franchisee has 250 liquor licenses to work with,” which means the minimum potential to have 250 accounts for your territory alone. “We take a lot into consideration when looking at territories – is it seasonal, are the bars and restaurants greatly dispersed, like for example in North Dakota? What a franchisee walks away with is a rich and thriving area that they can do great business in.” To become a Bevintel franchisee, the company offers two different territory sizes to choose from. For a territory with that typical 250 liquor licenses, the franchise fee is $39,900. A territory with 150 licenses is $29,900. Bevintel will finance up to half of the fee internally, something rarely seen with other opportunities. Franchising with Bevintel also launches you into the world of the hospitality market, where you have the opportunity to build great relationships with each account you serve, maybe even earning you a drink on the house every once and a while, although the Bevintel system will certainly pick that up. “We are an incredible low startup opportunity that is fun, thriving and certainly recession proof,” continued De Caria. “In good times or in bad times, people are always going out to have a drink – we have the numbers to prove that.”