For the fine dining and casual fine dining restauranteur:
According to Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the Wine Industry Report 2017, wine consumption in restaurants have continued to decline in 2016. The one category that barely grew, was red blends over the $25 mark.
“With all other sales trending lower in volume, the only restaurant category with positive growth is the group of red varietals and blends above $25. That segment is up about 1 percent.”
Top this data with early results from a Quini poll done with servers selected randomly at casual fine dining restaurants in Vancouver, and there is much to be gained from deploying new strategies and tools to maximize wine sales and cheque averages when the customer is at the table. The status quo and current approach to wine training is simply not working, virtually in all restaurants where we ran our poll.
Servers polled indicated that their knowledge of their wines stands at an average of just 4.8 on a 1-10 scale.
That should be worrisome, especially given the big brand name restaurants our team visited.
When the servers were asked if they felt a mobile tool like a tablet with a precise wine recommendation engine could help them with their wine sales and service, the average server response jumped to 8.57.
Full results and more details will be released as soon as we close the poll.
Clearly, new thinking and focus is needed today to approach wine training and table side service in full-service restaurants. Current systems and methodologies are simply not working, as the data indicates.
And if overall retail slows even more, which the trend points to, restaurant companies must expect the challenge to increase further. Attention to high margin areas of the business, like wine sales, becomes even more critical and urgent.
To see how the QUINI SOMM can innovate your wine program and accelerate sales, watch the video and start your 7-day trial here: https://quiniwine.com/wine-industry/sommfreetrialrst
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