Smokin' Oak Wood-Fired Pizza & Taproom is a growing franchise that combines a pizzeria with a self-serve bar wall, offering fast casual dining across the United States.
The company operates five stores, and it plans to expand as many as 75 stores over the next few years. The company was originally designed to offer the old-fashioned way of ordering -- with cashiers or bartenders helping out at traditional bars.
But the company's Omaha store offers an RFID-enabled self-serve pouring booth. The company's CEO, Matt Mongoven, said the model will be replicated in all subsequent stores. The self-service system utilizes iPourItHF RFID self-pouring technology installed by GS Draft.
The franchise opened in 2016 and currently has stores in Rochester, Minnesota, Omaha, Nebraska, and more. In the coming months, the company will open more stores in other states. Of these, Omaha, the first of all of the company's stores to feature a self-filling bar wall, opened in May 2021, and every new store opening thereafter will utilize the same self-serve feature.
Mongovern, a former banker, started looking for a career change after living in London for eight years. So he joined the team of his close friend and new partner Linda Black, who came up with the original concept for Smokin' Oak Wood-Fired Pizza. In 2016, they began developing franchises, and in 2019 they looked into self-serve beer technology to further differentiate the customer experience.
The original self-catering solution was designed for the 4,400-square-foot Omaha site. "I imagined how cool fast casual would be with pizza and a self-service faucet...so I started looking for companies that would provide that technology," recalls Mungovin, who and Blake started working with iPourIt in spring 2020.
Pizza and self-service tap facilities under one roof. When customers arrive, the cashier asks if they would like to use the self-filling bar wall. If they answer "yes", the cashier scans their license, opens the label, and scans the RFID wristband with the restaurant's logo, which has a built-in MIFAREHF RFID chip that transmits at 13.56 MHz, in compliance with ISO15693 standard. The iPourIt software, combined with the restaurant's own software, launches a tag linking to those guests' licenses and wristbands.
"If customers have been there before, they'll know what to do; if not, then we have an attendant on duty, especially when it's busy, to guide them through the self-service process," Mungovin said. "The waiter will explain how the taps work. Principle, but guests usually first observe how other people use it. A wide variety of taps, serving beer, wine and mixed cocktails, are popular with customers. They cover all major types of alcohol and can attract a very wide range of people In fact, the best sellers are probably Mai Tais, Old Fashioneds and Margaritas.”
Above each tap is an iPourIt LCD screen with a built-in MIFARE 1K RFID reader. Darren Nicholson, iPourIt's vice president of marketing, said the software displays on-screen content for each click, including tasting notes and the ABV or IBU scale, which measures alcohol and bitterness in beer. level), or anything that might be relevant to a particular product. The user simply taps the wristband near the screen, and the built-in RFID reader reads the tag's ID, allowing the tap to pour the wine. The amount of wine poured is measured and stored by iPourIt's software, which integrates with Aloha's POS system. iPourIt data is integrated directly into the POS software.
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First of all, you need to set the maximum amount of alcohol for each guest. The bartender then needs to reactivate the wristband, which provides a one-time reactivation by tapping his RFID wristband on the tap the customer wants to access. At checkout, guests must contact the bartender or cashier, deactivate their wristbands and settle the bill. After the payment transaction is completed, the operator prints a receipt. "We want guests to have a very fast experience," Mungovin explained.
Behind the faucet wall is a cooler for kegs for beer, wine and cocktails. "The iPourIt hardware consists of glycol cooling mains that connect to the faucet," Nicholson said. "Restaurants can provide reusable RFID key fobs, cards or wristbands, so use a variety of different types of technology on the market."
Since the system was deployed in its Omaha store, Mongovern has seen something unique about the self-serve beer wall. "What's really interesting is that we can have long lines at the door to order, so that guests often get a wristband that hangs on the bar wall and have a drink or two before ordering."
The system also provides analytical capabilities. The data collected includes demographic data such as where each customer lives, the person's zip code, gender and age. The information is anonymous, Nicholson said. Over the past three years, iPourIt has used data from all of its customers to create a report showing key trends across all stores. These trends include the most popular beer, Michelob Ultra.
For Smokin' Oak Wood-Fired Pizza, the benefits of deploying the solution included lower labor costs for the bar wall and the flexibility to update pricing and promotions. Additionally, the company is seeing valued customers returning and bringing in more customers. “They’re people who’ve been there before, and they enjoy the experience and come with friends. It’s cool to sit and watch guests teach other guests how to use the system,” Mungovin said.
An additional benefit of this solution is a reduction in beverage losses, especially for beer, as the system introduces very little foam, and the self-pour function means customers pour more carefully so as not to waste what they paid for. The software displays the volume of each cask in a dashboard format, similar to a gas gauge needle, prompting from green to red on the operator's display.
Every time a new faucet wall is installed, there is a period of time to set up the system and train operators, Nicholson said. "Self-pouring walls take time to understand, and I think the first thing we do with our clients is a learning curve."
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