Now that I've been using Backbar for eight months-ish, it's faster for me to [take inventory] alone than with another person. It is that efficient.

Kate Wise

Bar Lead at Hotel Vermont

For Kate Wise, Bar Lead at the bustling Hotel Vermont, the job isn't just about crafting excellent cocktails—it's about managing the complex logistics behind every pour. But for a long time, the administrative side of the bar was eating alive the creative side.

Every month, Kate faced a daunting reality: inventory day. It wasn’t just a task; it was a marathon. Armed with a clipboard and a spreadsheet, she would disappear into the storeroom for nearly an entire workday.

"When I first started doing inventory, I think it took me almost nine hours," Kate recalls.

That is nine hours of counting, recounting, and manual data entry—nine hours spent away from her staff and her guests. And the administrative burden didn't stop there. Weekly ordering was a fragmented mess of text messages, emails, and website logins, requiring a tedious cycle of writing, transcribing, and double-checking to ensure the right bottles arrived from the right distributors.

Kate needed a way to stop being a data entry clerk and start being a Bar Lead again. She found her answer in Backbar.

The Transformation: From Manual Chaos to Mobile Efficiency

Implementing Backbar didn't just speed up Hotel Vermont's processes; it fundamentally changed how they operated. By moving their entire inventory and ordering workflow into a single, intuitive mobile app, the friction of the "old way" disappeared.

Here is how Hotel Vermont used Backbar to turn their biggest time sinks into their most efficient systems.

1. Reclaiming 5 Hours on Inventory Day

The impact on inventory was immediate. By ditching the manual spreadsheets for Backbar’s mobile interface, Kate slashed her counting time by more than half.

"I can do inventory in under 4 hours now," Kate says.

But the value wasn't just in the speed; it was in the breathing room it created. That extra five hours didn't just vanish; it was reinvested into the health of the bar. "That's even giving me time to organize, get out recycling, and take out boxes," Kate explains. "There's so much extra time... that I can just get more stuff done."

2. The "30-Second" Training Session

In the hospitality industry, high turnover and complex software are usually a recipe for disaster. If a system is hard to learn, it doesn't get used.

Kate found that Backbar was so intuitive that formal training became practically obsolete. She notes that the learning curve is "almost nonexistent because everything just kind of works the way I think it should."

In fact, the system is so user-friendly that Kate can onboard new staff in less time than it takes to pour a Guinness. "I can train a new bartender on the core functionality in under 30 seconds," she says. This ease of use means Kate isn't the sole gatekeeper of inventory; she can delegate tasks with confidence, often finishing the job faster solo than she used to with a team.

3. Centralizing the Distributor Web

Before Backbar, ordering was a mental gymnastics routine of remembering which product came from which vendor. Backbar consolidated that fragmented process into a single "Add to Cart" workflow.

"I can do it all kind of at once," Kate says. "I don't need to figure out who distributes what because it's just already in there."

What used to take 40 minutes of cross-referencing is now a streamlined process. The platform automatically sorts the order by distributor, eliminating the errors that come with manual transcription.

4. The Office is Now in Her Pocket

Perhaps the biggest shift for Hotel Vermont was the move to a fully mobile command center. Paper invoices have a habit of getting lost, stained, or misfiled. With Backbar, Kate’s entire purchasing history lives on her phone.

"I still have it on my phone. So I can always check pricing, I can check when I ordered, when it was delivered... I have access to all of them," she explains.

This transparency means that even if Kate isn't physically at the hotel when a delivery truck rolls up, she can manage the intake, verify costs, and reconcile the order from anywhere.

The Bottom Line

For Hotel Vermont, Backbar wasn't just a software upgrade; it was a lifestyle upgrade for their management team. They moved from a reactive, manual process to a proactive, digital one.

Kate’s advice to other bar managers still drowning in spreadsheets is simple and direct

"I would recommend Backbar to everyone... I can't imagine that anyone wouldn't see the value in it immediately."

📈 Ready to reclaim your workday like Kate?

Stop counting bottles the hard way. Download the Backbar app today and see how much time you can save.

[Get it on the App Store] | [Get it on Google Play]