Hothams Gin School & Distillery
"The Tabology system works well for us, and we like it because everything we need is in one place. It's the only holistic solution on the market that we thought was only good." Simon Pownall, Director and Co-Founder, Hothams Gin School & Distillery.
Hotham’s Gin School and Distillery has undoubtedly made its mark, with the combined bar and micro-distilling business, which offers Gin School and Rum School experiential events, named as winner of the White Rose Awards 2019 and 2020 for the best visitor experience in Yorkshire, as well as earning Hotham’s a silver medal at the Visit England Awards for Excellence.
The popular spirit schools, at which customers distil and bottle their own gin or rum, operates at weekends, and Hotham’s also has bars in both Hull and Leeds. The Hull venue, the Bar at 55, is currently transitioning to become a members-only VIP bar, targeting the city’s business, political and sports communities.
Hotham’s uses Tabology’s Bar EPOS system across both venues. Simon Pownall, director and co-founder, says: “In Hull, in particular, we’re really using the Tabology system to its full extent. We use the stock management, and reports functions, as well as for table booking reservations.
“The system works hard for us, and we like it because everything we need is in one place. It’s the only holistic solution on the market that we thought was any good.”
One area where the Tabology system comes into its own is in enabling serving staff to spotlight Hotham’s unique drinks range to bar customers. At the touch of a button on the EPOS you can pull up all the tasting notes and descriptions for a product. “As we distil our own spirits, we’re not really taking orders, it’s more of a consultation to find the product to match the customer,” explains Simon.
“Equally, if someone wants a dry white wine we can read out the descriptions to the customer of the various wines available. The ability for the team that wait the tables to have all of the product information available on the iPad works very well.”
He adds: “The interface on the Tabology system is very intuitive, so we don’t have a big training need. After half an hour on the system, they’re off and running. We offer both table and bar service, and every order goes through the EPOS system, and is printed out in either the bar or kitchen. Staff only work from those tickets, so you can guarantee that nothing is going to be forgotten to be rung through the till.”
This control also informs the back office when it comes to restocking and reordering for the bars. “The purchase order function gives us predictive ordering, telling us what to reorder.”
Simon also praises the technical support provided by Tabology. “To be able to send a WhatsApp to the support team in the middle of the night is absolutely fantastic. Nine times out of ten, it will be because we’ve done something wrong, but the guys on support are absolutely superb.
“If it’s not clear what we’re asking, we can send a video of the issue and they’re on it straight away."
"There are very few issues they can’t resolve on the spot, and most of those are self-inflicted.”
To find out more about our Bar EPOS, and how it could work in your venue, get in touch.
