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5 Tips for Upselling Wine at Your Restaurant

Everybody loves a nice glass of wine with dinner. Whether your guests are raising a glass in celebration or just looking for the perfect pairing to their entrée, wine is a great drink and a good source of income for your establishment.

Upselling is the act of convincing your customers to spend a little extra to enhance their dining experience. When you want your guests to consider spending extra on a nice glass of red, these five tips for upselling wine at your restaurant will help you make the sale.

1. Keep Your Staff Educated

Your servers will be the primary face of your restaurant throughout a guest’s dining experience. When it comes time to recommend a wine to your guests, you want to make sure your staff can explain why they recommend the Riesling over the merlot.

The more your staff knows about the items on your wine list, the more informed they appear. Guests are more likely to trust the opinions of someone who can explain why one white is better than the other beyond it being the more expensive option.

2. Use Easy To Comprehend Menus

Many wine lists are overly-busy, challenging to read, and may not provide the information guests want. It’s good to organize your wine list systematically, make it easy to understand, and keep descriptions straightforward.

Many restaurants now incorporate digital wine lists, which are easy to browse, are fun for customers, and offer information you otherwise may not be able to fit on a menu. Digital iPad menus provide an opportunity to upsell wine with little to no effort.

3. Discover the Best Pairings

Speaking of your menu, it doesn’t hurt to recommend a wine pairing for each entrée. When guests see a recommended white wine underneath the chicken alfredo, they may enquire about it. Including helpful suggestions on the menu and knowledgeable staff to cover any follow-up questions is a marvelous way to upsell wine in your restaurant.

4. Offer Deals and Specials

Everybody loves feeling like they’re getting the best deal. If everybody at the table is ordering wine, perhaps offer a discount on the entire bottle. Consider hosting a happy hour on Fridays where wine is “buy two glasses, get one free.” Creating an enticing deal where customers feel like they’re getting a discount can encourage them to spend more.

5. Know the Story of Your Wine

In the same way your staff should understand why one wine is more appropriate for a situation than another, they shouldn’t be afraid to delve into the history behind this wine. If it comes from a local vineyard or if there’s an interesting story behind the winemaker, a sprinkle of humanity and storytelling adds intrigue when selling wine.

When looking to make inventive changes to your restaurant, start by learning more about the exciting options available from eMenu International. We have everything you need to set your restaurant up with sleek and modern electronic menus.

5 Tips for Upselling Wine at Your Restaurant
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4 Ways To Improve Efficiency at Your Restaurant’s Bar

4 Ways To Improve Efficiency at Your Restaurant’s Bar

Bars are a great source of additional revenue for your restaurant. Whether customers come solely for the bar or want to order a drink while they wait for a table, a first-class bar makes a difference. Explore these four ways to improve efficiency at your restaurant’s bar to make everything run smooth for your employees and customers.

1. Establish Zero-Step Bartending

Zero-step bartending is the idea of your bartenders having easy access to everything they need to make and serve drinks without running back and forth. When you have glasses at one end, the spirits on the other, and the shaker in the middle, your bartenders spend a lot of time running unnecessary laps. Organizing equipment, ingredients, and even your bar’s layout around a singular, easy-to-access point saves your bartender a lot of time and reduces their runaround.

2. Incorporating New Technology

How often do you go to a bar only to struggle to get the bartender’s attention? Many businesses now utilize digital restaurant table menus. Instead of walking up to a crowded bar and flagging down one of the busy bartenders, digital iPad menus allows you to customize and order your drink from your seat, adding it to a queue for the bartender to follow quickly.

3. Sustainable Bartending

Sustainability is a significant factor right now with millennial customers looking for bars. A great way to improve efficiency at your restaurant’s bar is to incorporate sustainable bartending. This process involves getting the most out of your ingredients. If only one drink on your menu contains grapefruit soda, it may be good to either remove it from your menu, alter the recipe, or add new items to take advantage of this ingredient.

Limiting the number of ingredients while still having a solid and varied selection is good for your bottom line, creates less clutter for your staff, and allows for a fast-paced and efficient workplace.

4. Listen to Feedback

As the boss, it’s easy to feel that you know what’s best and how to run everything. The truth is that nobody knows the ins and outs of life behind that bar better than your bartenders. Most workers long for a sense of efficiency because it generally creates a smoother and less hectic situation.

Give your employees an opportunity and platform to express suggestions for increasing efficiency and take the time to see if they’re viable options to improve your bottom line. In a best-case scenario, things move more smoothly for your business, and your employees appreciate having a boss that listens to their suggestions.