Profitech configures POS for each specific customer
By Paul F. Vang
Point-of-sale, or POS, technology in restaurants and bars has come a long way from its humble start in the 1970s.
According to on-line Wikipedia, in 1978 Gene Mosher, owner of the Old Canal Cafe in Syracuse, N. Y., used POS software that he devised himself that ran on an Apple II computer to take customer orders at the restaurant's front entrance and print out orders in the restaurant's kitchen.
In that then novel context, customers would often proceed to their tables, amazed to find their food waiting for them.
As a restaurant owner/operator from 1972 until 1984, Mosher pioneered point-of-sale software for the food and beverage industry to make practical the use of a personal computer as an order entry device (1978) and the printer as a way to communicate orders to the kitchen and bar areas of restaurants.
Mosher later developed the first virtual graphic user interface (GUI) that featured a touchscreen for use in a point-of-sale environment.
In the fast moving world of computer-driven technology, those 30 years might as well be light years when we consider how far we’ve come since that original Apple II computer, which actually used an audio cassette tape for data storage.
Suffice it to say you find more and more restaurants and bars that use POS technology to one extent or another.
Manufacture and sales of POS hardware and software is a crowded field, still including that original pioneer, Gene Mosher, now living in Eugene, Ore., and still operating his own POS product company, ViewTouch.
A Montana player in this field is Bob White, a former Helena bar and restaurant operator (18 years at the Brewhouse), who got involved with POS technology in 2000 as a business partner with Bridger Design and Equipment, a Bozeman restaurant supply company.
He later merged with a computer service business, CP4G of Missoula, and finally branched out on his own in 2004 under the business name of Profitech Hospitality Group.
White acknowledges that the POS industry is a crowded field, though he adds, “There are lots of people in the field—but only a few good ones.”
He explains that a lot of people in the POS business came into it from the technology standpoint, while he and his company’s employees approach the business with lots of experience in the hospitality industry.
It’s a balancing act.
“We can’t hire just anybody off the street, not someone with just computer experience, or only as a bar or restaurant worker. It’s tough—most people kind of come along.”
White and his staff of 10 cover a territory including Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and eastern Washington. While the business, like all businesses, is built on sales, White says sales are just a beginning.
“We sell it, prepare it, and support it,” he says.
A big part of that preparation is configuring the software for the specific customer’s operation.
“We do programming, and build data bases to the needs of our customers.”
Because of their prior experience in the hospitality business, White says, “It’s easy for us to put ourselves in a bartender’s or waitress’s shoes.”
White’s company is an authorized re-seller of POS products such as Future POS, Maitre’D, Berg, and Talon DVR, which can be tailored to provide a complete package of restaurant and bar POS services, automated dispensing equipment, and digital surveillance systems. Links to these companies can be found at the Profitech website, <www.profitechmt.coÍm>.
“We work harder,” White says, “It takes a lot of time and effort to build relationships—and once we’re up and running, the relationship is just beginning. We’re going to be together for long periods. We build good relationships by taking care of people.”
Noting the many technological changes in restaurant and bar management over the years, White sums up his business philosophy, “After years in the hospitality industry, we know that we don’t operate the way we did 20 years ago. We offer resources to make business more profitable.”
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, May 2009, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W Granite, Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.