The Tech You Need for Your Bar and Grill

Your bar and grill is more than just a place to get a drink and a burger. It's a place where people gather, hang out, and return again and again. Naturally, creating that kind of space requires all the basic building blocks — great food, great service, and great atmosphere. But it also requires just the right mix of technology.

And most of your competition agrees. According to a report from leading restaurant technology solutions provider Toast, 95% of restaurant owners see tech as a business booster. There's a good reason for this agreement.

The right combination of bar and grill technology makes it possible to deliver the best possible experience to your guests, to create the best possible working environment for your team, and to maximize profitability even as costs, trends, and tastes shift.

But which restaurant technology solutions are absolutely essential for your bar and grill? We'll tell you everything you need to know in this comprehensive bar and grill startup guide.

It all starts with your POS (point of sale) system. That's because modern restaurant POS systems for bars do a lot more than just process orders and take payments. Today, most leading POS systems include restaurant technology solutions for just about everything you need from payroll and inventory to marketing and kitchen workflow optimization.

The Bar and Grill POS Checklist

But which are the best restaurant POS systems for bars? Here are a few things to look for.

Restaurant POS Systems for Bars Should Have These Features

• Comprehensive payment processing: Support swipe, dip, and tap (Apple Pay/Google Pay) payments through mobile handheld device and/or counter-mounted payment processing terminal.
• Mobile order integration: Ensure compatibility with both first-party and third-party mobile ordering apps.
• Kitchen display systems (KDS): Get real-time communication between front and back of house, as well as clear, accurate order visibility at all times.
• Advanced data analytics: Receive insights on sales, food costs, customer preferences, foot traffic, and more.
• Intuitive interface: Provide a hassle-free dashboard so:
  • Servers can access the menu, make customer modifications (like "hold the mayo"), and place orders
  • Management can update the menu, add specials and limited time offers, and specify discounts
• Cloud-based system: Avoid the hassle of maintaining an "on premise" server.
• Robust customer support: You're a restaurant owner, not a tech expert. When you need help with something, you need it now.
• A great network of supported integrations: When you want to add on additional services, you don't want to be hamstrung by lack of integrations.

How Restaurant POS Systems for Bars Should Work

• Smooth in-person and mobile ordering experience for your customers
• Easy set-up with built-in ordering, payment processing, and inventory tracking
• Quick, easy payment processing with tap, swipe, and mobile payment options
• Seamless integration with loyalty programs, payroll management solutions, and scheduling tools
• Access to add-on features like inventory management software, advanced market research tools, and even custom website builds.
• No hidden fees, no long-term contracts, and low monthly rates for sales, data, and accounting tools

Your POS system may be the foundation of your tech stack, but there are plenty of other restaurant technology solutions you'll want to think about adding. That's why it's so important to begin with restaurant POS systems for bars that include easy integration with the rest of your bar and grill technology.

The next essential item in your bar and grill startup guide is an inventory management system.

Food Inventory Management

Top food inventory management tools can help your bar and grill reduce waste, maximize efficiency, and cut costs with features like real-time stock level monitoring, automatic reordering, and AI-powered cost forecasting.

Whether you choose an independent inventory management system or the add-on provided by your POS system, look for a solution that does the following:

• POS system integration: Direct communication with ordering, payment processing, and accounting systems
• Real-time inventory tracking: Stock level monitoring, real-time alerts, and automated reordering when supplies of individual items are low. They can also scan invoices as they come in and automatically update item pricing in the system.
• Recipe management for food and cocktails: Ideal for consistency, they provide easily accessed information on a tablet for cooks and bartenders to check as needed. Modern recipe management tools enable videos and photos for training, allergen information, and tools for scaling up recipes.
• Cost analysis tools: Because these solutions use "live pricing" based on the most recent invoice, changing prices will be reflected in the costs in real time. When connected with your POS, you can monitor profitability and let you change menu prices as needed.

Why You Might Need It

• Your bar and grill has a large selection of dishes.
• Happy hour and drink specials change frequently.
• Your operation includes multiple locations.

In any of these cases, a good inventory management system can streamline food ordering, reduce waste, and help you find ways to control costs.

Why You Might Not

• You run a smaller bar and grill operation.
• Your menu is relatively simple.
• You work with a small number of distributors.

AI Phone Answering

AI phone answering systems use increasingly sophisticated AI-powered voice agents to handle your incoming customer calls 24/7. AI phone agents can answer calls, take orders, book reservations, and provide business information without help from humans.

This means your bar and grill isn't missing calls (and potential revenue) during busy shifts or after hours.

What It Should Do

• Integrate with your tech stack: Ensure compatibility with your bar and grill POS (point of sale), reservation system, and mobile ordering system.
• Handle customer questions: Provide useful answers to all kinds of questions about restaurant hours, menu, items, prices, and more.
• Take multiple calls at once: Field all incoming calls at once, reduce customer wait times to zero, and easily transfer to human support when needed.
• Identify upselling opportunities: Use customer ordering patterns to identify and suggest add-ons in real time.
• Process transactions: Complete credit card sales and end-to-end reservations without the need for human assistance.

Why You Might Need It: If your bar and grill is missing calls due to short-staffing during busy shifts, and after closing time, you could be missing out on revenue. This bar and grill technology can turn your missed calls and long call wait times into easy orders and reservations, as well as improve the experience of in-person customers waiting for the greeter to get off the phone.

Why You Might Not: If your bar and grill takes most of your orders and reservations online, so the phone isn't ringing all the time, you may not need an AI phone answering service.

You have a few options for how you handle mobile ordering and delivery, but it's important to understand the costs and opportunities that come with each of these restaurant technology solutions.

Why You Need a Mobile Ordering Platform for Your Bar And Grill

More than ever, customers expect your restaurant to offer mobile ordering and delivery for travel-friendly items like burgers, wings, and tater tots. Restaurants that meet these expectations by providing fast and convenient mobile ordering and delivery tend to see higher sales. The key for your bar and grill is to choose the right combination of restaurant technology solutions.

What Mobile Ordering and Payment Platforms Do

Mobile ordering platforms are apps that allow your customers to place orders for takeout and delivery online or using a mobile device. With first-party ordering apps, you process these orders directly on your bar and grill website. With third-party ordering apps, your restaurant is listed on the third-party provider's website and on their mobile app. (We'll talk more about the differences between these options in the next section.)

Key Functions to Look For

• Digital ordering: Take online and mobile orders and process payments.
• POS integration: Mobile orders should automatically flow into your POS system and into your kitchen order queue.
• Real-time analytics: Monitor sales performance across all of your ordering channels.
• Delivery service: Gain direct access to a pool of delivery people or gain access through partnership with a third-party service provider.

Adding Delivery Services

You have a few options for delivery services, and there are pros and cons to consider with each.

First-Party Delivery

First-party delivery means you process delivery orders directly on your bar and grill website and/or mobile app while handling delivery with your own staff of drivers.

• Pros of First-Party Delivery: You don't have to pay high commission fees, you have more quality control, and you have more control over the speed of delivery.
• Cons of First-Party Delivery: You have to hire your own drivers and you may miss out on the visibility that comes with listing on a third-party platform.

Third-Party Delivery

Third-party delivery services include big national vendors like DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats. With third-party delivery services, your restaurant is listed on the vendor's website and mobile app. Customers place orders through these apps, you fulfill the orders, and the vendor's driver completes the delivery.

• Pros of Third-Party Delivery: You'll get convenience, access to drivers, and visibility on the industry's biggest marketplaces. In fact, as delivery sales continue to grow for restaurants across the industry, vendors like DoorDash and Grubhub have become extremely important marketing channels.
• Cons of Third-Party Delivery: These delivery services charge extremely high commission fees — sometimes as high as 15 to 30 percent — which can hurt profit margins. You also don't get access to your own data with many third-party delivery services.

Hybrid Delivery

A lot of restaurants today are choosing a hybrid strategy for delivery services. Hybrid providers let you process delivery orders directly on your own website just like first-party delivery. In exchange for this service, you'll pay a flat fee per delivery instead of a commission.

• Pros of Hybrid Delivery: Hybrid delivery vendors have negotiated flat rates with those big third-party delivery services, which means you get access to their drivers at a lower cost. You also get to keep your own data when you work with a hybrid delivery vendor.
• Cons of Hybrid Delivery: If you skip third-party delivery in the interest of saving money on the fees, you'll lose the visibility these apps provide. That's why many restaurants do both — offering ordering on their own site while also listing on one or two delivery platforms.

Delivery Platforms

Whether your delivery platform lives on your own website, you take orders through a third-party provider (like DoorDash, Grubhub, or Uber Eats), or you do a combination of the two, there are some key features you'll need to look for.

What Your Delivery Platform Should Do

• Payment processing: Complete mobile payments quickly and seamlessly so that your customers enjoy an easy and convenient ordering experience.
• Delivery service: Provide direct access to delivery drivers or provide access to delivery through partnership with a third-party provider.
• POS compatibility: Integrate with your POS system for streamlined processing of mobile orders no matter what channel they come through.
• Marketing compatibility: Integrate with your website, social media profiles, Google maps, and your restaurant's mobile app (if you have one).
• Delivery tracking: Provide real-time order and delivery updates, alerts, and GPS location to both customers and to your staff.

Your bar and grill has the potential to be more than just a restaurant. You could be using your kitchen to prep for catering gigs, and you could be using your dining room to host events. Events and catering are both great ways to add new revenue streams and create business during off-peak hours and seasonal slowdowns.

But it's important to think of these revenue streams as a regular part of your business. Use your marketing channels to promote your catering services, your event space, and your calendar of public or ticketed events.

Why You Should Add Catering & Events to Your Bar and Grill

• Additional revenue streams: Catering and special events can give your bar and grill exposure to entirely new marketplaces and customer bases.
• Predictable labor and inventory: Events and catering gigs are scheduled ahead of time, which makes it easier to plan for the amount of food and labor you'll need.
• Opportunities to offset seasonal slowdowns: Book private in-house events and offsite catering gigs during offpeak hours; host open or ticketed events to bring in traffic during slower seasons.
• Improved brand recognition and menu awareness: Connect with new potential customers through offsite catering appearances.

Tools That Make It Easier To Do Catering & Events

• POS system: Process large orders and payments in person, over the phone, or online.
• Inventory management: Monitor stock levels in real time and plan for bulk orders with more precision.
• Staff scheduling tools: Easily adjust your restaurant staffing plan to handle large catering orders or in-house events alongside everyday staffing needs.
• Event management software. Tools like TripleSeat help restaurants manage the customer journey from the initial call through the contract phase, and management aspects of the event itself. They also have built-in event orders and internal comms tools for your team.
• Marketing platforms: Promote your catering packages through email, SMS, and loyalty programs, as well as on any third-party platforms you use for delivery (like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub).

Starting a food truck is another great way to create a new revenue stream for your bar and grill. Food trucks typically come with lower startup costs, lower operating costs, and less intensive labor pressures than brick and mortar operations.

How a Food Truck Could Boost Business

Adding a food truck or a fleet of trucks to your bar and grill operation is a great way to create more visibility in your community through appearances at festivals and events. This makes your food truck both a source of revenue and a powerful tool in your marketing toolkit.

Why You Should Consider a Food Truck

• Add a new revenue stream: Tap into a whole new market by serving some of your best bar and grill staples at festivals, community events, and popular pedestrian areas.
• Increase brand and menu awareness: Gain visibility with locals who haven't been to your brick and mortar location.
• Create business during slow periods: Book your food truck for community and private events with a focus on your bar and grill's offpeak hours and slow seasons.

Hiring and retention are two of the biggest pain points for bar and grill operators. Restaurants often deal with high turnover and labor shortages. That's why it's so important to hire the right people and just as important to create an environment where employees stick around.

Recruiting the Right People

Better retention begins with better recruitment and hiring. Start by targeting the right combination of line cooks, bartenders, servers, hosts, and dishwashers you need for kitchen workflow optimization. Your staffing needs may change seasonally, and your labor needs may grow as your operation grows. As a result, your restaurant staffing plan may include the following:

• Permanent employees: Prioritize candidates with restaurant experience, interest in leadership opportunities, and full-time availability.
• Seasonal hires: Use local and online recruitment channels to bump up your part-time staff size during holidays, outdoor dining season, and other busy periods.
• Temporary staff: Use on-demand hiring platforms like Poached or Qwick to find short-term workers who can pick up shifts during busy seasons.

Hiring and Onboarding With Ease

Whatever combination of hiring channels you use, it's important that you create an easy, streamlined hiring process. The right restaurant technology solutions can improve your outreach efforts and automate some of the basic steps in the hiring process. These are top priorities in a competitive labor market. If you're looking for effective hiring and onboarding tools, here are some things to keep in mind.

• Speed is a factor: You have to move quickly to scoop up the best candidates before your competitors do, so this means your hiring process has to be fast, efficient, and responsive.
• Accuracy is essential: Make sure you have all of your employee paperwork in order and all of your information correct so that you can onboard new employees without any delays.
• Streamlining the process: Your recruiting tools should be able to filter out unsuitable candidates, automate steps in the application process, and get the most qualified new hires out on the floor as quickly as possible.

Take Training Seriously

Training needs to be a part of your workplace culture and your restaurant staffing plan. A good training program is obviously important when it comes to teaching new hires food safety rules, restaurant procedures, and role-specific skills. But it's just as important to provide ongoing training to your seasoned employees in order to keep food safety certifications up to date and create opportunities for them to acquire new skills.

A bar and grill can be an extremely dynamic workplace, so it's also important to tailor your training to specific roles. The training process will be a bit different for kitchen workers and food handlers than it will be for servers and bartenders. You'll also want to consider management and leadership training, whether for new hires or for promotions from within.

What Your Bar and Grill Training Should Cover

• Food safety: Include training on food handling, food storage, hand hygiene, and any programs for which your state and local health departments require certification.
• Customer safety: Provide education on all common allergens (e.g. wheat, soy, and peanuts), as well common dietary restrictions (e.g. vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free), and include guidelines on preventing cross contamination.
• Restaurant operations: Provide comprehensive training on daily areas of operation including education on your menu, instructions on how to use your POS system, an understanding of how roles and responsibilities are delegated, and an appreciation for your restaurant's core mission.

How To Do It

There's obviously no substitute for in-person training, which is why your training program should include some real-world instruction and guided experience. But a lot of restaurants today are also using training apps and restaurant technology solutions to support this in-person training. Mobile training apps usually include a combination of pre-recorded instructional videos, online training modules, and even tests for evaluation and certification.

Mobile training apps make it easier for both new and experienced employees to refer to training manuals and documentation. Though some smaller bar and grill operations may still rely on printed training manuals, many restaurants are finding it easier to reach employees and track their training progress using mobile training apps.

Automate Your Staff Scheduling

Creating an efficient restaurant staffing plan for your bar and grill can be complicated. Your employees expect flexibility, work/life balance, and clear communication. Your customers depend on a fully staffed kitchen, bar, and dining room for a good experience.

Shift scheduling tools can support the type of kitchen workflow optimization you need in order to deliver on all of these expectations. Many restaurant POS systems for bars already include shift scheduling tools. But for more specialized and customizable tools, you may want to go with an independent provider that offers the following features:

What It Should Have

• Customizable timesheets: Create and update shift schedules with user-friendly tools and templates.
• Shared dashboard: Enable communication between managers and team members about vacation days, scheduling conflicts, sick days, and more.
• Mobile access: Optimize scheduling, updates, and communication for mobile devices so team members can access them from anywhere.
• SMS text alerts: Notify team members of last-minute shift openings and approvals for time-off requests.
• Reporting and insights: Make data-driven decisions about how many team members you need for upcoming shifts.
• Integrations: Ensure compatibility with your POS system, payroll processing system, and HR tools like payroll, hiring, and onboarding.

There are a few key ingredients for an effective marketing strategy, whether you're just learning how to promote a new bar and grill or you're a long-time owner looking for new ways to bring in more business.

For starters, you'll need a great website and a plan for social media marketing. But you should also consider strategies like loyalty programs, reputation management, and direct marketing through email and SMS (texting).

In this next section of our bar and grill startup guide, we'll take a look at all of your options and the best restaurant technology solutions to help you with each one.

The Basics of a Bar and Grill Website

Your website is the engine for your online marketing machine - your most valuable resource for building online visibility, creating a good first impression, and showcasing your brand. Your bar and grill should have a fresh, visually appealing, and informative website.

The more info you can include in your landing page, the better you'll rank in local search. Include some recent (good) reviews, an "about" section, a button for online ordering, and links to your social media accounts. And remember, the number one way people find where to go for their next meal is Google Maps! Make sure your website is linked to your Google Business Profile.

What It Should Have

• Basic information: Provide location, hours, and a few words on the type of food you serve.
• Reservation booking: If you offer reservations, make it fast and easy for your diners to book a table.
• Mobile ordering: Whether you offer first-party/hybrid ordering on your website, or you do deliveries through a third-party provider, make information and links visible on your website.
• Mobile-friendly menu: Your online menu should be easy to read, integrated with your mobile ordering system, and optimized for mobile devices (meaning, don't just post a PDF of your paper menu).
• Professional high-resolution photos: Share appetizing images of your food and your restaurant in order to showcase quality, convey trust, and strengthen your brand identity.
• Booking inquiry form: Provide a dedicated, easy-to-use form for booking catering services or private onsite events.
• Event promotion: Display your events calendar and sell tickets, or link to a third-party vendor for ticket sales.
• Digital marketing tools: Feature your loyalty program, get data-driven insights, and automate email/SMS marketing.
• Social media management: Integrate with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

How Your Bar and Grill Website Should Work

• POS integration: Your site should be compatible with your payment processing and mobile ordering systems.
• User-friendly maintenance: You should have access to tools that make it simple to update menu items, change pricing, promote new specials, and more.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): Your site must make strategic use of keywords and key phrases in order to be visible on Google and other search engines.

Building a Website

It's important to choose the right website builder for your specific needs. Many website builders give you the option to design your own website using their suite of tools, but most website builders will also provide the option of a full, end-to-end custom website build for your bar and grill.

Pros of Doing It Yourself

• The DIY option is typically far more affordable.
• Many providers offer easy-to-use templates and tools for web-building.
• You'll have full internal control over updates and changes without relying on a third party.

Cons of Doing It Yourself

• Doing it yourself will require time and effort.
• The result will likely not be as professional looking as a custom build.
• You may have trouble adding new capabilities as your needs grow (e.g. adding a merch store or offering gift cards).

Pros of Outsourcing to a Website Builder

• Hiring a vendor to do a full web design takes the burden off of your team.
• Outsourcing will likely result in a more professional product, and a site that is optimized for things like user experience and SEO.
• Many web developers also offer branding services and mobile apps.

Cons of Outsourcing to a Website Builder

• Outsourcing web design will cost you more than the DIY option.
• You may have less flexibility and slower turnaround when you need changes or updates.
• Some builders charge fees for things like ongoing maintenance, support services, and software licensing.

Maintaining Your Bar and Grill Website

When you choose a website builder, you'll also want to think about your future maintenance needs. You need a website that is easy to update so that information remains accurate as menu items, seasonal specials, and hours of operation shift. Whether you choose a DIY option or a full-service custom build, make sure you will have the access and the ability to make updates as needed.

Use Loyalty Programs and Gift Cards To Find and Keep Customers

Loyalty programs have a proven track record for driving repeat business. Whether you use the loyalty program provided through your bar and grill POS system or you have an independent loyalty program provider, your loyalty program offers an opportunity to reward your best customers while leveraging a treasure trove of data.

What Your Loyalty Program Should Do

Your loyalty program is a way to reward your customers for their repeat business, and just as importantly, a way to use the data from those customer interactions for meaningful insights. Look for a loyalty program that lets you do the following:

• Customize reward programs: Create your own rewards programs based on accumulated points, membership tiers, and personalized gifts for occasions like birthdays and membership anniversaries.
• Gather feedback: Encourage happy customers to share positive reviews and reach out to unhappy customers to find out how you can make their experience better.
• Collect data: Analyze customer behavior and sales patterns and use these insights to create personalized rewards, provide targeted outreach, and improve customer experiences.

Gift Cards

Offering gift cards can be a great way to bring in new business for your bar and grill. And gift cards are commonly available through your loyalty program, or at least through the same vendor that provides your loyalty program. If you wish to sell gift cards, there are a few things you should know first.

When you sell a gift card, you are collecting payment upfront for services to be rendered later. This can be beneficial in a few ways including:

• Improved business, visibility, and word of mouth
• An immediate cash infusion
• The fact that a certain percentage of gift cards will never be cashed

On the other hand, you should remember that any outstanding gift cards may be cashed at any time up to their expiration date. So when you sell gift cards, you should expect to take a slight hit to your daily or nightly margins on random dates in the future.

With that in mind, we do recommend that you ask your loyalty program vendor about any support they can provide in monitoring and tracking outstanding gift card amounts and expiration dates.

You Need To Be on Social Media

Social media marketing must be a major part of your broader marketing strategy. Your social media presence provides opportunities for engagement in your community, visibility to new customers, and the opportunity to deepen your brand identity.

You need to create and post platform-appropriate content for social media sites like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Use social media profiles and platforms to:

• Keep your restaurant top of mind: Promote happy hour specials, seasonal menu items, and scheduled events both public and ticketed.
• Share compelling visual content: Post high-quality, high-resolution photos of your food, your happy customers, and your team.
• Get up-close-and-personal: Create short, fun videos offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse at your kitchen action.
• Connect with your customers: Engage directly with members of your local community by liking and responding to both positive and negative comments, reviews, and posts that mention your bar and grill.
• Gain visibility across platforms: Tailor your content to the strengths of each social media channel (for instance, posting short-form videos on Tik-Tok, eye-catching photos on Instagram, and engaging community content on Facebook).
• Convey your brand identity: Establish a consistent visual aesthetic, find your own unique voice, and share personal stories.

Tools

Social media management can take a lot of time and effort. However, there are plenty of useful social media marketing and management tools that can help. These tools can cross-post content on multiple platforms, launch targeted ad campaigns, and even create content for you. For example, our own social media post generator can take your original images, clean them up, and automatically generate ready-to-post captions.

Pros of Using Social Media Marketing Tools

• Reputation monitoring: See online reviews and social media mentions wherever they appear, and respond to both positive and negative reviews in a timely manner.
• Content management: Social media marketing tools can help you create content, schedule posts, and cross-post on multiple platforms.
• Data analysis: Get data-driven insight into how your social media posts and ad campaigns are performing.

Cons of Using Social Media Marketing Tools

• Cost: The effectiveness of your social media ad campaigns can vary, which means you may not always be getting your money's worth. Be sure that you have ways of measuring your ROI (return on investment) through metrics like impressions, click-throughs, and conversion rates.
• Limitations: Some social media marketing tools do not support all the features available to you on platforms like TikTok or Instagram, which may mean you're not getting the most out of your posts.
• Over-automation: Good social media marketing should feel human and authentic. If you depend too much on prescheduled content, it could come off as robotic and impersonal to your followers.

What To Look For

• Full integrations: Social media marketing tools should be compatible with all major social media platforms as well as with your bar and grill website.
• Pre-scheduling and cross-posting: Social media management tools are especially helpful for pre-scheduling content. This means you can create a calendar of content, and schedule all of your Instagram photos, TikTok videos, and Facebook reels to post days or even weeks ahead of time using a single platform.
• Content creation: Many social media managers now provide AI-powered tools to help you create photo, video, and written content faster and more efficiently. For example, our social media post generator uses AI technology to produce ready-to-post captions for your photos.

Reputation Management Is Crucial

Online reviews can have a huge impact on your bar and grill's reputation and sales. Many new customers will discover your bar and grill on review sites like Yelp and Tripadvisor. These reviews and ratings influence where people eat and how they view your brand.

So it's important to keep track of, and (when necessary) respond to, your online reviews. But keeping track of all your mentions and reviews across all review sites and social media platforms is a big job. That's why reputation management tools are so valuable.

What To Look For

• Comprehensive monitoring: Crawl the web for any reviews or mentions of your bar and grill on review and travel sites as well as across all social media platforms.
• Feedback loop: Request feedback from diners and encourage positive reviews from happy customers.
• Responsiveness: Get tools and templates for addressing negative reviews quickly and effectively, as well as thanking customers for positive reviews.

Email and SMS Marketing

Email and SMS (texting) provide direct access to and engagement with your customer base. They are two of the most cost-effective marketing tools in your toolkit.

What You Can Do With Email Marketing

• Open the lines of communication: Create an open channel for ongoing connection with your customers.
• Provide updates: Inform your customers of menu changes, changes to your hours of operation, the opening of your outdoor bar space for the season, and more.
• Promote specials: Share regular happy hour specials, seasonal menu changes, upcoming events, and limited time offers.

Pros of Email Marketing

• Email is a relatively low-cost way to reach a very targeted audience.
• This channel makes it easy to segment your audience and create personalized marketing campaigns that go to the customers most likely to respond.

Cons of Email Marketing

• Your messages could easily be lost in a crowded inbox or spam folder.
• Low open rates could prevent your messages from reaching your customers.

What You Can Do With SMS Marketing

• Real-time outreach: Reach your customers directly on their mobile device with updates about today's menu or daily specials.
• Near-term promotion: Send out coupons for this weekend's brunch menu, next Friday's happy hour, or your special menu for the fast-approaching holidays.
• Reminders: Text customers with alerts about upcoming public and ticketed events like trivia night, Monday Night Football, or Yacht Rock cover band night.

Pros of SMS Marketing

• Text messaging is the most immediate way to reach your customers with time-sensitive promotions.
• This channel can produce higher open and response rates compared to email.

Cons of SMS Marketing

• Text messaging can feel intrusive to some customers, especially if you overdo it.
• This direct type of marketing requires strict legal compliance with rules about customer opt-in and list management.

Both email and SMS marketing are most effective when you use them in coordination with a loyalty program. With a loyalty program, you can use both channels for more personalized messaging and promotions.

Other Types of Marketing and Promotion

Here are a few other more traditional marketing strategies you'll want to consider, especially for direct outreach in your local community.

• Post-purchase marketing: Receipts with promos or coupons as well visible QR codes on receipts and other printed materials
• Print materials: Flyers, posters and signage for upcoming events and specials
• Community involvement: Sponsorship and participation in festivals, community events, local fundraisers
• Direct mail/door hangers: Menu and coupon distribution in the neighborhoods surrounding your bar and grill

Obviously you don't need to run out and buy every single tool mentioned in this comprehensive bar and grill startup guide right away. Just start with a few essential pieces of bar and grill technology like the right POS system, inventory management tools, and a great website.

From there, every bar and grill will likely have different needs and priorities. So it's really all about understanding your options. To stay in the loop, sign up and have our newsletter sent directly to your inbox every week. We'll keep you current on all the latest industry headlines, trends, and tech.