Scannabar Liquor Control System - Client Testimonial

The Sawmill Restaurant Group
Scannabar Long Term Case Study

The Sawmill Restaurant Group is a thriving, Edmonton based seafood restaurant concept established by Mr. Tom Goodchild in 1976. The Samill Restuarant Group offers 5 fully licensed food and beverage operations in Edmonton including The Original Sawmill Restaurant, The Sawmill Pacific Fish Company, The Sawmill Prime Rib and Steakhouse, Tom Goodchild’s Moose Factory and the Sawmill’s Banquet and Catering Centre.  The Sawmill Restaurant Group’s philosophy of dedication and insistence of top quality products and exemplary service consistently keeps them rated as one of Edmonton’s top restaurants.

Tasker Goodchild, District Manager of the Sawmill Restaurant Group, approached AM/PM Service in February 2001 with a simple need, he wanted an affordable, easy to use liquor control system, that offered a free pour solution, would take stock of their extensive wine selection and most importantly produce immediate results.

The liquor inventory solution would also have to enable daily inventory counts and not consume hours of the Bar Managers time to produce the desired results.

AM/PM Service had a unique solution to offer, one that could satisfy the Sawmill’s current needs of a complete liquor control solution and most importantly continue to adapt and grow with their needs in the future.  Scannabar was the product of choice.

Before the first site was installed Mr. Goodchild indicated there was no major liquor percentage problems, rather a huge time commitment on the Bar Managers part to do a weekly inventory and an occaional problem with some drinking on the job.  The extensive wine and back bar selection provided many opportunities for human error while counting stock, and if a problem occurred with shortages or missing wine bottles, no one knew when the problem occured or who to hold accountable.

Mr. Goodchild expressed some additional benefits he could see being effective with the Scannabar installation.  These would include daily inventory counts of the back bar liquor and wine, which would allow shortage problems to be taken care of that shift.  As well he hoped the tighter liquor controls would reduce his liquor percentages, which would increase his bottom line profit.  He also was looking forward to the real time inventory reports, especially the Global Inventory Report that would produce a complete count and dollar value of all liquor and wine on the premise with a few clicks of the mouse.

Scannabar was installed at one of the Sawmill Restaurant Groups busiest locations, Tom Goodchild’s Moose Factory in May 2001, with a roll out planned for the other 4 locations.  Mr. Goodchild took a keen interest in the implementation of the Scannabar solution, as he wanted to become well versed in the product to ensure they fully understood Scannabar and its functions to evalluate whether Scannabar was the ultimate solution for the Sawmill Restaurant Group. The first installation was carefully monitored for a month to ensure the results were accurate.  Mr. Goodchild indicated he was impressed with the immediate results the Scannabar system was able to produce and how easy it was to get the results. “The Scannabar system produced the results we required”.

After the first month an analysis was done on the cost effectivness of Scannabar versus the results it produced.  Overall Mr. Goodchild indicated that he saw immediate benefits in accountability of the bartenders and reduced the amount of time and labour dollars spent in getting the results. He further indicated that the accuracy of the system was better then he anticipated and the fact that he could get his daily, weekly and monthly control repotrs at anytime was great.

A decision was made to install the rest of the Sawmill Restuarant Groups restaurants in a controlled roll out. Recently during the second anniversary of the installation of the first Scannabar system, AM/PM Service asked Mr. Goodchild if the Scannabar system has made a significant difference in the restaurants liquor operations, Mr. Goodchild responded “I have definitely noticed a change in our overall liquor percentages at all locations” as well he added “I cannot imagine running any of the locations without Scannabar. We cannot afford not to have it”.