Paradise Grapevine is a Toronto-based winery, wine bar, and bottle shop that was co-founded by industry veterans, Dave Everitt and Christian Davis – two best friends who have been in the local beer and wine scene for a long time. Fast forward eight years later, and Paradise Grapevine has become one of the most beloved wine brands in the city, with two locations in the West end – a wine bar on Bloor Street and a wine bar and patio event space on Geary Avenue.
We sat down with Paradise Grapevine’s Co-Founder Christian Davis, Director of Marketing Gabe Meacher, and Operations Director Kristen Lamaire to find out how TouchBistro powers their day-to-day operations and helps them extend their business beyond the bar into events.
Key Takeaways
- Paradise Grapevine was facing the challenge of finding technology that could do the double duty of helping them operate two wine bar locations and run local events.
- TouchBistro was able to provide a solution with an all-in-one point of sale (POS) that could help the bars run smoothly on a daily basis and function as an on-site POS during events.
- TouchBistro supports Paradise Grapevine’s everyday bar operations and powered the brand’s massively successful 600+ person Holy Waters event.
The Challenge: Running a Multi-Faceted Business Efficiently
Paradise Grapevine is not your typical restaurant, but a multi-faceted business that spans food, wine, retail, and events. Gabe explains further, “The brand has two parts: making great wine for local Toronto brands and licensees sales, and the in-bar aspect of the business.” To support the company’s robust operations, the team was on a search for a POS system that could support the brand’s unique setup and business model.
The Solution: Introducing TouchBistro POS
The solution to Paradise Grapevine’s hybrid model turned out to be TouchBistro’s all-in-one POS and restaurant management system, which the team implemented back in 2018.
Co-Founder of Paradise Grapevine, Christian Davis, explains “I was looking for speed and functionality.” Kristen adds, “We were looking for a solution that could be updated directly in the POS, as opposed to many systems that require a backend computer system for everything.”
As Davis explains, running a bar is a high-volume and high-transaction business. Choosing a POS system that is efficient and built for bar-specific workflows like tab management, pre-authorization, seat-by-seat bill splitting, and quick-tap modifiers, was essential. Beyond processing orders rapidly, the system also needs to be able to seamlessly support other areas of the business, like patio service and events.
TouchBistro POS checked off all these boxes for Paradise Grapevine. As Kristen sums it up,“TouchBistro’s price point and ease of using the system made it a no-brainer for Paradise Grapevine.”
The Results
Eight years on, the implementation of TouchBistro’s POS has supported Paradise Grapevine’s growth and success across all components of the business.
Smoother Day-to-Day Operations
The biggest benefit of using TouchBistro’s POS solution is the ability to streamline day-to-day operations with ease across Paradise Grapevine’s unique setup.
“TouchBistro is a very fast and efficient system. The amount of people that come into the wine bar and the frequency of how we have to organize things to get bills separated is kind of unique to a restaurant experience. We really do a lot of single serve things; a lot of transactions are happening over and over again. Our team is very happy with the speed of the system and its ability to break things down,” Gabe shares.
In addition to seamless bar service, TouchBistro also supports the Paradise Grapevine’s rotating menu. “Real-time updates and the ability to make changes on the fly was important to us,” Kristen adds, noting that TouchBistro makes it incredibly simple to create new items and re-organize the menu.
Beyond the bar and dine-in service, Paradise Grapevine also operates as a brewery event space for private events. As Gabe explains, “We have winery private events that are going on and TouchBistro makes it easy for us to handle both that and our wine bars on the same platform. Being able to operate TouchBistro in one way at one of our locations and in another way at our other location, simultaneously, is vital for us. Especially when we need to process large transactions through the system. That’s why we use TouchBistro, because that ability to do it all on one platform is not available with every other system.”
Ease of Use for Staff
Part of the reason Paradise Grapevine has been able to streamline day-to-day operations so efficiently is because the system is incredibly easy for staff to use. “The staff love the search button and being able to make changes on the fly. Feedback from staff is positive and TouchBistro is highly functional compared to other POS systems I have used in the past,” says Kristen.
She also notes that the mobility of the system is a huge plus. “TouchBistro is great because it can be moved around and can be taken with you everywhere you go,” she adds.
Christian further emphasizes the ease of TouchBistro, noting that “Using the iPad feels very intuitive if you’ve ever used an iPhone, which 95% of people have.”
Improved Guest Experience
But it’s not just the Paradise Grapevine team that benefits from TouchBistro, its customers do as well. Paradise Grapevine’s business model involves a significant number of quick transactions daily, which requires a high-functioning POS to keep up and ensure guests’ orders and payments are processed quickly. As Christian explains, “Having a speedy POS system ensures that guests have a quick transaction at the bar and we can minimize the wait time from ordering the drink to receiving the drink.”
Kristen adds, “The function to print or email a bill is also great for customer service – and not wasting paper!”
Beyond the Bar Service
Of course, the bar service is just part of Paradise Grapevine’s business model. Over the years, the brand has used its Geary Ave location for hosting exciting bar events and parties during patio season. As Gabe shares, “The venue is a great space to allow us to show women’s sports games, big events like the men’s World Cup, or a dance party on a Sunday afternoon.” The goal of these events is to bring locals and the restaurant community together to help make local wine culture more accessible and culturally relevant in Toronto.
Most recently, Paradise Grapevine successfully hosted its 4th annual Holy Waters Wine Festival at its Geary Ave location, bringing together 30+ Ontario wineries for a full-day experience focused on tastings, programming, and community. And the success of this event was due in part to its partnership with TouchBistro.
How TouchBistro Powered the Holy Waters Wine Festival
TouchBistro was brought on to be the official sponsor of the Paradise Grapevine event, which had over 600 guests in attendance. TouchBistro robust features not only support Paradise Grapevine’s daily operations for bar and dine-in service across multiple locations, but also allow Paradise Grapevine to run events of this scale with ease.
During the event, the POS was used as a stationary setup to keep transactions contained to one space. Gabe explains, “There’s the retail transaction piece of having to load in all these different types of transactions from all our vendors into a single system, instead of each of them selling wine individually at their own stations, which would have been chaotic. TouchBistro was vital in making those transactions happen smoothly and keeping them contained to one system, in one area.” The system also supported the additional transactions, such as food, and spending at the bar during the event.
Gabe also shares how impressed the staff were with the ease of using TouchBistro during the event and the company’s broader partnership. “Internally, everyone was just very excited that this thing they use every day was also going to support us in a capacity that’s not purely transactional. TouchBistro cares about this thing we’re doing and makes people feel supported,” Gabe explains.
While this was the first time TouchBistro was an official sponsor of Holy Waters, it was ultimately Paradise Grapevine’s most successful edition of the event to date. “We even had 35 people just walk up and buy tickets at the door,” Gabe adds.
Gabe helped breakdown the results of the event:
- Sales: $10,300 retail sales across all the various vendors, in addition to the door spend and dollars spent at the bar by attendees.
- Number of attendees: 679 people (including those who had purchased tickets at the door).
The Future of Paradise Grapevine
Building on the momentum of the event, Paradise Grapevine is looking ahead to the next couple of years. Moving forward Gabe is ecstatic about having some of Paradise Grapevine’s products in the LCBO, growth in the wine production side, and building the brand in general with wanting to be really ubiquitous in Toronto. As Gabe sums it up, “We want to be more accessible and people become more interested in and buy wine.”
With all that said, this is only the beginning of Paradise Grapevine’s partnership with TouchBistro. As Paradise Grapevine continues to grow, TouchBistro is proud to power the Toronto-based company with its day-to-day operations and support its many future events.
Megan is the Content Marketing Specialist at TouchBistro, where she uses her passion for food to write about the restaurant industry. She’s a big “foodie” at heart, and you can always find her enjoying a delicious meal at a restaurant with friends and family, or cooking one up at home. She also loves relaxing with a good book and making progress at the gym.
The right POS should help you increase sales
The right POS should help you increase sales.
