Why Restaurants Use Digital Menus

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Technology is changing the way restaurants operate. From online reservations to mobile apps for ordering and payment, customer interactions with restaurants occur more frequently with the click of the button. The movement towards tech-driven service has had its highest level of adoption in the quick service and fast casual restaurant segment. But full service restaurants are increasingly open to new technology that gives guests more choice and information. One new feature restaurants are using to engage guests and rethink the traditional dining experience is tablet-based digital menus. But what benefits do restaurants find in digital menus? Read more

Uncorkd Wine Trends 2017

Orange Wine on the Restaurant Wine List – Trend or New Standard

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The trendiest thing to hit wine consumers lately is orange wine. Many are calling orange wine the new rosé. Sommeliers have been familiar with orange wine for decades and in fact the process of making orange wine goes back over 5,000 years. Put simply, orange wine is using white wine grapes but keeping them in contact with the skin to producer wine with an orangish hue and wonderful, unique flavors and complexities that can be considered a hybrid of white and red. Pretty much the opposite of rosé, where red wine grapes are crushed and the skin quickly removed. Restaurants around the country are adding orange wines to their menu, have you? If not, you need to add orange wines to your restaurant wine list ASAP. Here’s why. Read more

Why Big Whiskey Makes The Best Whiskey

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The whiskey revival is reverberating across the globe. All categories of the barrel-aged brown spirit have experienced continued growth in the past few years. Japanese whiskey is having its moment. Irish whiskey recently achieved the largest growth of all whiskey categories. American bourbon and Tennessee whiskey are at the forefront of the category.

The biggest players on this global stage will be quite familiar to American drinkers. Jack Daniel’s and its iconic black no. 7 label remains the world wide leader in American whiskey. Not far behind is Jim Beam. While these labels are iconic signposts in American culture, they are not the most exciting whiskeys these producers are making. Behind the support of global sales, the biggest producers are using their expertise and long history of whiskey making to create some of the best drams on the market. You may not realize it, but some of your favorite whiskeys are made by the same producers you may scoff at.  Read more

Growth of Cider Industry Inspires Old Drinks to Learn New Tricks

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The growth of hard cider in the U.S. has been noted and written about for some time now. The boom began between 2013-2014, when the cider category grew over 75%. That’s an insane growth curve for a market. Cider has a lengthy history steeped in European beverage lore. Accounts of the fermented beverage date back to the Roman Empire. While Europe holds the mantel of cider (Britain boasts the worlds largest per capita consumption of cider), the earnest beverage of fermented apple juice has begun to capture American palates once again. This market growth has allowed cidery’s to experiment with production and offer innovative new products. Read more

Sparkling Wine Leads Overall Wine Growth

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Sparkling wine continues its growth in both U.S. and U.K. markets.

The overall wine category has grown in the U.S. market for 22-straight years. And its future continues to look bright as many publications and industry experts note that millennials are drinking more expensive wine, and more often, than previous generations.

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Drinks After Dinner: The Wonders of a Digestif

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A meal doesn’t have to end once the plates are cleared. After-dinner drinks are a great opportunity for satisfied customers to extend their night-out with a digestif. It’s also a great opportunity for a server to increase their check-average and for a restaurant to increase sales. Digestifs and bitters can end the meal on a comforting note. Literally. And like many old-world staples, digestifs are pouring back into mainstream culture.

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Uncorkd Why Managers Quit

How To Keep Stellar Restaurant Staff

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The restaurant industry is an insane environment to work in. In a full service restaurant, you have multiple “departments” that are crucially interdependent on one another. Restaurants function as a service assembly line; on that partially occurs in full view of guests. Communication is paramount in this situation. But often, workers are rushed, or don’t share the same first language. This complicated relay is a task restaurants perform hundreds of times on a busy Friday night. There are spaghetti-thin margins-of-error for a restaurant operating during service.

It takes a great staff to perform at a high level night in and night out. Great staff will keep the stress and chaos tucked behind smiles, out of guests’ view. But in an industry that has one of the highest rates of staff turnover, how do you keep a stellar restaurant staff motivated and clocked in?  Read more

Why Restaurant Analytics Are Important

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Food and restaurant tech has surged over the past few years, with consumers becoming the no. 1 adapters to apps like delivery databases Grubhub or Seamless. Now, big chain store behemoths, Starbucks and McDonald’s are creating their own services, launching apps that customers can use to pre-order and pay for items before entering the store.

But for restaurants looking to utilize technology to help bolster business and increase customer loyalty, the focus is on analytics and understanding customer behavior over just simplifying procedure. Read more

Millennials Wine

Growth In Lagers Shows American Pilsners Are Getting Crafty

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When it comes to beer, America runs on lagers. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Just check out this ranking of the top 20 beers in the U.S.

What is surprising, is that lagers have become one of the fastest growing styles produced by craft brewers. Much of this growth has centered in the craft pilsner category. In January of 2015, craft pilsners grew 56% in a year to year comparison.  Read more

5 Reasons Restaurants Should Embrace Tech

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The use of new technology in restaurants is inevitable. Yesterday, NPR published a story about a fully-automated restaurant opening in San Francisco. The quick-service eatery, Eatsa, specializes in quinoa (why?) and tricking hungry patrons into thinking they accidentally stumbled into an Apple store instead of a restaurant.

This is certainly the far-end of the restaurant tech spectrum. It may be the height for some, or the nadir for others.  Uncorkd believes that restaurants should embrace technology for many different reasons.  Here’s 5 of them. Read more