The Essential Tech Stack for Modern Bar Operations

Is your bar’s tech helping or hurting your business? Learn how to build a seamless, efficient system that saves you time and boosts your profits.

 Many bar owners struggle with clunky systems, hidden fees, and software they barely use. In this episode, we cut through the noise and show you exactly what tech you need—and what you don’t—to streamline operations without breaking the bank.

In today's episode:

• Discover the five essential tech tools that will modernize your bar operations.
• Learn how to avoid costly software traps and pick solutions that actually work for your business.
• Get expert insights on POS systems, bookkeeping, inventory, staff scheduling, and marketing management.

 Don’t waste another dollar on bad tech—hit play now and start optimizing your bar’s tech stack today!

Learn More:
Email Chris
Schedule a Strategy Session
Bar Business Nation Facebook Group
The Bar Business Podcast Website
Chris' Book 'How to Make Top-Shelf Profits in the Bar Business'

Thank you to our show sponsors, SpotOn and Starfish. SpotOn's modern, cloud-based POS system allows bars to increase team productivity and provides the reporting you need to make smart financial decisions. Starfish works with your bookkeeping software using AI to help you make data-driven decisions and maximize your profits while giving you benchmarking data to understand how you compare to the industry at large.
**We are a SpotOn affiliate and earn commissions from the link above.

A podcast for bar, pub, tavern, nightclub, and restaurant owners, managers, and hospitality professionals, covering essential topics like bar inventory, marketing strategies, restaurant financials, and hospitality profits to help increase b...

Transcript

Chris Schneider (00:00.92)
Today on the bar business podcast, discover the essential tech tools that will modernize your bar operations, learn how to choose systems that work together seamlessly, and understand the implementation strategies that won't overwhelm your staff. Today we're exploring how to build the perfect tech stack for your bar. And rather than, I am willing to mention some software recommendations, but understand as we go through this, none of these folks are paying me for this episode, this is just me talking.

And while I am going to talk about specific software and throw out some ideas for y'all, what I want to talk about more about is what it actually takes to develop a great tech stack. And what I would see are the five key areas we should look for for tech. And then what are we looking for within those areas? So we're going to focus on essential tools and practical implementation. So let's start with

the core components that I think you need for a modern bar tech stack. And like I said, there are five things that I look to put into a bar to improve efficiency and make sure things are good. Now, two of these, all of you should already have and the other three, maybe you have, maybe you don't. So the first thing you need is a cloud based POS system. And there are a lot of them out there. know, obviously Toast, SpotOn are the ones that come to mind first for most folks.

I know I was just talking with somebody in Canada the other day and we were talking about Squirrel. Squirrel I have not seen in the US for a long, long time, but evidently it's still very popular as a cloud-based POS system in Canada. Now, one thing I will tell you, all the POS systems, yeah, they're different. Yeah, they have a different usability here and there. But for the core function of being a POS system, most of them are pretty much the same.

They work differently, but the net effect is the same. So you can shop around a little bit based upon deals. You can shop around quite a bit based upon whose credit card processing is cheaper, which is something that I always look at. And you can look at, know, do they allow online ordering and payment processing? Do they have a customer loyalty and rewards program? Do they have a digital menu management system? Because online ordering and payment processing, if you're going to have online ordering and that needs to be through your POS system, you don't want to use this ever piece of tech for that.

Chris Schneider (02:25.954)
Customer loyalty, again, if you're gonna do a customer loyalty and rewards program, do that through your POS system, not through a set of software. Those are the two things in digital menu management for like your website and stuff. Those items there are the things that I think a POS system does great. Most POS systems do those very well.

Now we'll get into some other pieces here in a second where I don't think the POS systems really stand up and I would say go with a different company. And part of the reason why I say that, and this is not to slight anyone or any of these companies, but when you see a company grow really rapidly and increase their products, they tend to buy another company integrated in and it's just a little messy. I've worked in tech before. These things are always a bit messy on the tech end.

And while it's great for the company that's bringing that in and their bottom line and all that, sometimes, in my mind, often, you're better off getting individual pieces of software that really serve individual needs that are specific and set to do that very well. So once you figure out your POS system, the next thing you're going to need is bookkeeping software. Now, bookkeeping software, basically have two decent options in my mind. You got QuickBooks.

And restaurant 365, you could use like zero. But the less powerful accounting systems don't do well with restaurants. Restaurants are very complex businesses. And if you look at something like FreshBooks, FreshBooks is a great product. I have no issue with it. If you're trying to do bookkeeping for a consulting company or a professional services firm or, you know, your Etsy store, you're running out of your house, but for a bar or a restaurant, it's not powerful enough. So that's where I say

Generally speaking, go QuickBooks. I don't always like QuickBooks. I don't always like the way the program works. But as far as capability and what it costs you, it is probably the best thing out there right now. Now, it does take using a specific chart of accounts, getting that uploaded properly, and setting it up right to get really restaurant-specific detail out of it. Whereas if you use something like Restaurant 365, that's all already done for you.

Chris Schneider (04:45.838)
The main difference here though is QuickBooks is significantly cheaper and that's why I tend to steer people in that direction. But Restaurant 365 again has all this preloaded for you. It's set up to just do restaurants and it's not a bad product. It's a good one.

The next piece of software I would say you probably need is some sort of inventory management software. So there are a couple great ones out there. You got Margin Edge, Market Man, and then if you use Toast for your POS, they just bought Extra Chef. So you can do Extra Chef through Toast.

Where I just said sometimes these companies, buy other companies and the integrations aren't great and I'm not so sure about it. I have not personally used Extra Chef through Toast, but I've looked at it quite a bit. I've talked to some people that have used it and it supposedly works great. So if you have Toast, that could be your best option. But Margin Engine and Market Man are both great companies that do very similar work. And the bottom line here is you need something to help you manage your inventory. Because short of having software,

you end up in doing a lot of manual reconciliation.

Now, if you're a data nerd like me, doing that manual reconciliation is not a big deal. If you're the average bar owner though, you don't want to sit and manually reconcile spreadsheets against each other and compare that to your bookkeeping information and run all that through. So having some software there to help you is great. It helps you manage your costs a lot better. You can upload invoices in there. They have OCRs that will read your invoices and then just

Chris Schneider (06:22.69)
help you enter things into inventory without you having to do manual entry. So they're great. They are time saving. I recommend them. The only time when I would say you don't need inventory management software is if you're bootstrapping and starting out, right? Do the manual reconciliation, put in that extra time, save that money. But once you got things cranking, we'll add some inventory management software. Next piece of software I will tell you that you need is staff scheduling and management software. So not.

necessarily payroll. And actually, let me make one. I wasn't going to talk payroll today, but payroll. You guys have heard me say this before. I will say this again. ADP or paychecks are the two I recommend. I do not recommend using POS-based payroll. Just because I've seen a lot of issues with those. And if you've listened to the podcast for a long time, you've heard me refer to a buddy of mine, John, who does a lot of payroll tax.

reconciliation, fixing things with the government, resolution work. And ADPM paychecks never generate clients for him. Almost every other payroll provider has. So just keep that in mind. But staff scheduling and management software, we're talking separate from payroll. We're talking essentially just making and managing schedules. On that, there's one company that I will always throw out there, which is ScheduleFly. All they do is this. It's a small company out of North Carolina. If you guys

probably listen to restaurateurs on Cork, which is Will Brawley's podcast. Will Brawley owns Schedulefly. Talk to him a couple of times. Great dude. Very down to earth. Cares a lot about his customers. And that's a place where you have a single use piece of tech that is fantastic. Now, the other thing you're going to need is marketing management. And when I say marketing management, basically we need to do three things. Guest feedback and recovery.

So getting MPS scores, surveying our guests, database management, so managing your hours and your listings across all those different websites that exist out there with databases, and then monitoring your reviews and review responses. So for database management, the company that's been around the longest that a lot of people know is Yext, and Yext is great for database management, but it's a little pricey and quite frankly, on the restaurant end,

Chris Schneider (08:51.052)
You have a. Either a combo of two tech companies or one tech company that can handle that database management and cover all this without. Paying yaks as well. So our two company solution and this is one that probably a lot of you have heard a lot or and if you've been doing research on marketing management and and guest feedback management and review monitoring, you've definitely come across these names ovation and marquee. They were great side by side.

Ovation handles your guest feedback and recovery. Marquis handles your review, monitoring, responses, and database management. The other company I would throw at you, and I talked with their CEO not that long ago, great person. She's actually the one that mentioned Squirrel. That's how I realized Squirrel is a POS company that exists really and does a lot of business in Canada. But that company is Akira. A-K-I-R-A.

They handle database management, guest feedback, and review monitoring responses. So I would give them a look as well. But Ovation Marquee, that's a classic combo of restaurant tech that people have used that works great. Akira is kind of your up and comer and is worth giving that a look as well. Now real quick before we go, what's important and what's not important when you're looking at software? What's important? Great user interface. It's easy for you to use. For the scheduling and the POS system that you have apps.

for your employees when you're managers. That you're not getting nickel and dimed on price to the point that you're, you know, what you thought was a $200 a month subscription suddenly is a $700 a month subscription. You need to watch subscriptions, right? You see the commercials on TV all the time for Rocket Money and all these other companies that help individuals. As an organization, you need to watch your SaaS spending and curtail that every way you can.

And then the other thing that's important is buying software you'll actually use. A lot of times people buy software and then never use it. They don't implement it properly. So if you're to buy software, use it. If you're not using it, stop paying for it. And also along those lines, even if you're using it, make sure it's providing a benefit to your business that exceeds its cost.

Chris Schneider (11:06.232)
And then what's not important when it comes to software? All-in-one solutions, like I said, to me, not important at all. And quite frankly, the other thing that's not important to me is integrations between different softwares. Yeah, you can use Zappy or yeah, some things are made with native APIs to integrate to each other. Especially when it comes to tying stuff into like QuickBooks and your accounting software and your POS and all that. Sometimes when you integrate, if you don't do it properly, you create a huge mess that is almost impossible to undo. And...

When you integrate, sometimes you have more information in more places. You don't need all your info everywhere. You just need to know where the source of truth is for a specific source of data. And then go to that spot to find it. So too much integration can make things muddled. It can make things difficult to find. And it can actually make it less efficient rather than more efficient in your operation. So to wrap us up for today, building the right tech stack is not about having the most advanced technology. It's about choosing innovative solutions.

that enhance your operations and improve your guest experience.