It started like how most innovative ideas begin now a day – over a brewski.
The idea was simple: create an easier way for restaurants and bars to display their revolving tap menus to customers. With that, BevPress poured out.
Created by Fyresite, a Tempe-based web and mobile app development company, BevPress is a white-label app system that works in conjunction with a restaurant’s WordPress to display a live tap list online and via smartphones.
Through the BevPress plugin, tap houses can update menus, daily specials, upcoming events and more to both their website and their BevPress app in real-time. From their website, owners can also print a live tap list.
Although BevPress was created to help businesses retain existing customers and improve sales from within, the app also has customer-focused features, Fyresite CEO Jason Turnquist said.
“While there is a social share or recommendation for each beer and food item, the true power is gained from the ability to see the accurate tap list before you get to the establishment, save your favorite beers, and opt in for tap alerts,” Turnquist said.
The tap alerts are push notifications that will be sent to a user’s phone when a particular beer becomes available, he added.
What makes BevPress different than other apps, such as Onthepub and Ambur, is that BevPress functions to aid the restaurants more than the users, Turnquist said.
To serve bars and restaurants, BevPress allows establishments to record statistics of what beers customers requested alerts for and chose as favorites in order to compare alcohol sales numbers. This data is necessary to compare customers’ purchasing habits with the intention of ordering a specific beer in the future, especially for expensive kegs, he added.
So far, there is only one restaurant that currently uses BevPress in the Valley. Spokes on Southern, which was the birthplace of the initial idea for BevPress, uses the app in conjunction with iBeacon technology.
Using a low-energy Bluetooth signal, iBeacon devices — known as beacons — can send messages via apps based on an iPhone user’s proximity to a signal. Through the BevPress plugin, restaurants can create custom notifications that are delivered directly from their beacons to BevPress users.
As of now, an Estimote beacon will be provided when restaurants purchase a BevPress package, Turnquist said.
