Time | KRG Hospitality

The Batching Superpower of Sūpāsawā

by David Klemt

One of our favorite products from WSWA’s Access LIVE 2024 event in Las Vegas can save operators and bar teams time and money.

Access LIVE, the annual Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America (WSWA) event is always chock full of notable items. However, this one in particular stood out to me and my colleagues.

Coming out of Deluxe Distillery in Belgium, Sūpāsawā Seriously Sour Cocktail Mixer is here to make lives easier.

Of course, it’s not surprising that this mixer is so impressive. Sūpāsawā is produced alongside high-quality stablemates, after all: Blind Tiger Handcrafted Gin, Mary White Premium Vodka, and Yusibi Honey Based Aperitif.

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In short, this innovative mixer can replace citrus. Importantly, it’s also widely available around the world. Speaking to the core of our audience and clients, it’s available in Canada and the US. When I asked about availability in the US, I was told it’s in 30 states currently.

Operators in the UK, Europe, Australia, and many more regions should also be able to get their hands on Sūpāsawā.

So, what is this magical mixer, exactly? It’s a simple and clean stand-in for expensive and time-consuming citrus.

Deluxe’s super sour mixer is distilled water, citric acid, malic acid, tartaric acid, phosphoric acid, and succinic acid. The liquid is crystal clear, aroma-free, and an incredibly convenient substitute for lemons and limes.

Real-life Scenario

Consider the following real-life hypothetical that shines a light on Sūpāsawā’s real-life benefits.

Let’s say someone hires an operator for a catered event. Included in this event is bar service, and involves more than pouring wine and beer.

Along with a handful of calls, the client and their guests expect a signature cocktail. Well, batching a cocktail or two ahead of the event would be a smart move.

However, we all know what that means: purchasing and juicing citrus. And we also all know what else that means: labor costs for all that prep.

What if one bartender or bar back could batch a cocktail in less than five minutes? Yes, I’m talking under five minutes for the entire batching process.

That scenario is nearly identical to Deluxe Distillery’s Access LIVE 2024 situation.

Deluxe showed the convenience and superpower of Sūpāsawā at their booth via batching. According to the bartender and ambassador who prepared the standout cocktail, he added all the ingredients—including the super sour mixer—to a jug, shook it, and it was ready to go in less than five minutes.

Real-life Benefits

Does this mean you’ll never have to buy lemons and/or limes again? For the vast majority of bars, no. However, the more drinks you can make with Sūpāsawā, the more you can plan for and control the cost of citrus.

Per Deluxe, operators can expect to save 15 minutes per liter of citrus juiced. The distillery also says each bottle of Sūpāsawā represents 35 pieces of fruit an operator won’t have to purchase. On average, a single cocktail requires just 20 ml of Sūpāsawā, or 2/3 of an ounce. With each bottle coming in at 700 ml, that’s 35 individual cocktails per.

When I asked about unit cost at their Access Live 2024 booth, Deluxe said operators can expect a price of $9 per unit. People who do the math can see the benefit of getting their hands on Sūpāsawā for individual, kegged, and batched cocktails.

In terms of storage, the slim bottle can last for about two years unopened. After it’s opened, Sūpāsawā should last for up to a year. Compare that to the two- to three-day shelf life of lemon or lime juice.

Notably, using Sūpāsawā leads to consistency. Because it always tastes the same, drink consistency is improved. And, of course, using this super sour mixer leads to producing less food waste.

Click here to learn more about Sūpāsawā and what it can do for an operator’s bar program, catering, and bottom line. Oh, and click here for recipes. Cheers!

Disclaimer: Neither the author nor KRG Hospitality received compensation, monetary or otherwise, from Deluxe Distillery, WSWA, or any other entity in exchange for this post.

Image: Irina on Unsplash

Time to Revisit Your Hours of Operation?

by David Klemt

Many operators, in response to the past few years, find themselves slashing dayparts—even entire days—from their hours of operation.

Obviously, this makes sense. Reducing the hours a restaurant or bar is open can control and reduce many costs.

However, the industry is now seeing an increase in demand from restaurants and bars. Today’s consumer craves a return to normalcy. While delivery, carryout and pickup are here to stay, people want to return to in-person dining.

Generally speaking, people like to socialize (at least with their friends). And, of course, restaurants and bars are spaces that fill the human desire to get social.

At KRG Hospitality we certainly understand how reducing hours and days of operation can be effective. In fact, depending on experience level, concept, and market, we sometimes recommend that clients limit their hours and days when first starting out.

However, as guest demand for in-person dining and drinking increases, it may be time to revisit this operational strategy.

Increase Visit Time, Increase Check Average

There’s a battle that takes place in restaurants and bars during each daypart. Operators are engaging an opponent they can’t defeat: time. The best one can hope for is to keep up with or otherwise mitigate the damage done every time the second hand on a clock ticks.

Therefore, most operators fall into two camps: Turn and Burn, and Keep ’em Spending. Hospitality and foodservice professionals are (or should be) familiar with both strategies.

Turn and Burn is about getting butts in seats, getting orders out, and getting those butts out of those seats as quickly as possible to get new butts back into them.

Keep ’em Spending focuses on increasing check sizes through keeping guests in the venue. The thought is that the longer a guest or party is on site, the more money they’ll spend.

Rich Shank, vice president of Research & Insights at Technomic, addresses the latter strategy in a recent Restaurant Business article.

“What is interesting about that is that our dining party often impacts the time we spend in a unit and the amount of money we spend while dining in,” writes Shank. “Even dining in at limited-service restaurants is heavily correlated with how much time we spend inside the restaurant—making time and money a perfect pairing in most restaurants.”

It’s not Just About Hours

In Shank’s Restaurant Business article, the Technomic VP points out that families with children tend to spend the most at restaurants. This has long been the case, and it’s logical. After all, families with children are purchasing more F&B items per visit, and they tend to spend more time per each visit as well.

However, it’s not just about the hours and days of operation, as Shank also says. It’s important that a given concept be attractive to occasion-driven guests. In other words, people gather in pairs and groups for life events.

These events can be as simple yet important as date night, to huge gatherings such as large family reunions or corporate gatherings. So, when operators are reviewing their hours of operation and the days and dayparts they’re open for business, the guest experience and their life events are important elements to consider.

“If you take the time and money relationship seriously, then the idea of throttling down on our dine-in strategies to preserve on costs or to narrow our focus to off-premises occasions only is causing us to miss the occasions that drive check-average,” writes Shank.

It’s also crucial to have a close relationship with data. Operators need to be obsessive with location and guest data. Unless they know their market, location, and guests incredibly well, operators are just guessing before making important operational changes. Guest feedback can be an effective method of knowing if it’s time to increase hours and add days of operation.

Only the operator can know if it’s time to, well, increase time. Yes, costs will go up if a venue is open longer. However, revenue can also soar. Maybe it’s time to finally be available for in-person dining for longer.

Image: Lucian Alexe on Unsplash