Taproom Success Tips, Tactics, and Strategies
Free resources to help your taproom or brewery improve sales, management, and finances
Contribution margin is the portion of every sales dollar that helps to offset fixed costs.
In other words, contribution margin is the number every 'restaurant owner' needs to know in order to achieve profitability in their business.
Let's consider a few examples, courtesy of Mark...
The odds are you didn’t open a brewery to look like the other 8999 out there.
You had a vision to be a place people gathered for the shared love of beer brewed on-premise. You desired to create a welcoming space where those in your community could come together and create memories. You...
The unfortunate truth about food pricing is that the market is in charge.
You're stuck with the market price, no matter what you do.
However, you can use a powerful strategy called Design to Cost, so that you are profitable on your food offerings.
Design to cost works like this:
- ...
When it comes to making money on food in your taproom, the key is to have a narrow menu. The narrower the better.
This does not mean that you don't give your guests choices.
Consider how you can use the Platform Strategy: One basic food item you can make in 10 or 15 different...
In the food game, menu items are categorized as Dogs, Stars, Puzzles and Plow Horses. What are these you ask?
In a nutshell, these descriptions are used to classify items by popularity and profitability.
- Stars are those menu items that are most popular and most profitable.
- ...
We've all been there. You head to the local taproom to hang out with friends and enjoy a few beers. Except, one of your friends is hungry, and there's no food in the taproom.
Enter the Minority Veto.
The rule goes like this: A party of five people will leave if one person is hungry and the...
In it's simplest form, menu engineering is the science of having your guests select the food items that provide them the most enjoyment and give you the most profit.
Sounds easy, but how exactly does this work?
The process of menu engineering requires that you follow a simple rule:
Give people...
Mark Meckler is a chef, professor, and VP of Curriculum for Crafting a Strategy. He says the way to make money on food in your taproom is simple: Use the Platform Strategy.
A Platform Strategy involves using a small number of ingredients to make a large number of menu items.
Think...
