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Leslie

For over nine years Leslie has worked with restaurant companies to help them get a handle on all the data they collect from a variety of sources (POS, back office systems, financial systems, etc.) and use that data to help detect fraud, increase revenues, reduce food costs, reduce labor and increase customer satisfaction.
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Recent Posts

Client Spotlight: Nothing Cool About Microsoft Excel

Posted by Leslie

Client Spotlight: Alamo Drafthouse

Alamo Drafthouse has been named the coolest movie theater in the world. Their mission is to provide good food, good beer and good film all in the same place. They currently operate over 40 locations and have more scheduled to open.

As a Mirus client for over 6 years they've added a number of integrations into their data warehouse including : ticketing point of sale, food & beverage point of sale, scheduled labor, guest feedback and weather.

I had the chance to sit down with Alamo Drafthouse's Integrations Manager, Jake Lawson, to talk about how Mirus helps him manage data and reporting for both the movie and food & beverage sides of his company.

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Topics: Client Spotlight

Resolve To Whip Your Restaurant Data Into Shape

Posted by Leslie

The start of a new year means many people are focusing on getting in better shape. You may even be offering some healthier choices on your menu to meet the consumer mindset. Why do so many people vow to eat better in the new year? No doubt losing weight gives you more energy and confidence. As a restaurant executive getting your restaurant data into better shape can have the same effects on your business. Learn why you should resolve to whip your data into shape and how to successfully do it.

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Topics: Restaurant Profit, Restaurant Operations, Restaurant Performance

Mirus 2018 Year In Review

Posted by Leslie

2018 was a busy year for Mirus. We welcomed new clients and worked with many of our existing customers on exciting new integration projects.

New Clients

  • Sprinkles Cupcakes
  • Kind Hospitality (Multi-brand)
  • Ansara (Multi-brand)
  • Wild Bull Services
  • Ciccio's Restaurant Group

Development

The development team worked hard this year updating and streamlining our solutions. New features and functions allow for more personalization and improved workflows. We added chart drilling, enhanced dashboard performance, upgraded XLS processing and unveiled Dimension Maintenance 3.0.

We’re even testing out the possibilities of AI technology. Soon you'll be able to get restaurant performance information simply by asking smart devices like Amazon Alexa, "Hey Alexa, open Mirus."

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Topics: Mirus Updates

The Brief History of Mirus Restaurant Reporting

Posted by Leslie

Mirus Restaurant Solutions is a leading provider of business intelligence and data warehouse services for the restaurant industry. The past 18 years have provided us with an enormous amount of educational experiences that have allowed us to fine tune and become the innovative company we are today. But just where did we come from and how has that shaped us? Let’s take a trip through time to see how Mirus began, what we’ve learned and how it’s made us who we are today.

The Beginning

It all started as a typical 1998 tech startup in Tampa, Florida. A small group of innovators lead by Brad Anderson formed The Sankaty Group. Like most offerings in the marketplace today, the product was developed as a solution to a problem. Anderson was working for one of his professors who had a consulting business. He was tasked with crunching a lot of numbers to help clients with menu engineering decisions. Using spreadsheets to get the job done proved to be extremely cumbersome. There had to be a better way.

So Anderson began to develop his own data warehouse product to make the task easier. When they weren’t playing softball, drinking beer or watching football the group was writing the initial code for what would become Mirus’ flagship product: Mirus Enterprise. The group was a unique blend of people from both the restaurant and technology communities with diverse backgrounds. In 2001 the Sankaty Group was acquired by Mirus.

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Topics: Restaurant Data Warehouse

Client Spotlight: How Good Smoke Restaurants Handle Reporting For Two Brands

Posted by Leslie

Our clients love us, and we love them right back! We're constantly amazed by their ingenuity and accomplishments. Their ideas and requests are what keep us on the leading edge of restaurant business solutions. Periodically we like to shine the light on our clients, their accomplishments and what they're doing to increase their restaurant profit margin.

Good Smoke Restaurant Group is a barbecue-focused restaurant company which owns and operates two well-known regional brands: Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. They currently operate over 50 restaurants and are poised for growth.

As a Mirus client for over 4 years they've added a number of integrations into their data warehouse including : food cost, inventory, scheduled labor, budgets, speed of service and on-line ordering.

I had the chance to sit down with Good Smoke's Reporting Analyst, Andy Short, to talk about how Mirus helps him manage all the data and reporting for two brands.

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Topics: Client Spotlight

Client Spotlight: How Benihana Increased Efficiencies and Reduced Discrepancies

Posted by Leslie

Our clients love us, and we love them right back! We're constantly amazed by their ingenuity and accomplishments. Their ideas and requests are what keep us on the leading edge of restaurant business solutions. Periodically we like to shine the light on our clients, their accomplishments and what they're doing to increase their restaurant profit margin.

Benihana is an operator of teppanyaki-style restaurants. Their 98 locations include three other concepts: RA Sushi, HARU Sushi, and Samurai.

Benihana uses several restaurant systems. When they came to Mirus they were looking for a way to piece all that information together. Executives were stuck waiting on reports while two laptops ran overnight to generate reports, with some reports taking 4 hours to run. They faced computer processing limitations, manual input errors, and financial analysts spending more time reconciling, mapping and processing data instead of actually analyzing the data.

They had tried other non-restaurant systems which were complicated and lacked user support. Mirus checked all the boxes and provided them with a one-stop shop for data analytics with easy to use tools, real-time data and fast report delivery.

I recently had the chance to sit down with Benihana's Alex Gonzalez, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis, and Meredith Meisler, Financial Analyst, to learn how Mirus helped them break the bottleneck in their reporting.

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Topics: Client Spotlight

Client Spotlight: Why Mirus Is Better Than Excel

Posted by Leslie

Our clients love us, and we love them right back! We're constantly amazed by their ingenuity and accomplishments. Their ideas and requests are what keep us on the leading edge of restaurant business solutions. Periodically we like to shine the light on our clients, their accomplishments and what they're doing to increase their restaurant profit margin.

PR Management Corp is a 63 unit Panera franchisee which operates locations in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. They've been a Mirus client now for over 6 years.

I recently had the chance to sit down with PR Management Corp's IT Director, Charlie Hecht, and although he loves Excel, he admits Mirus is better than Excel when it comes to restaurant reporting.

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Topics: Client Spotlight

Mirus 2017 Year In Review

Posted by Leslie

2017, what a year it was for the restaurant industry. We saw our share of ups and downs having fought through hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. The stock market hit record highs with increased valuations of some restaurant stocks. There were many major acquisitions throughout the industry.

Mirus also had a busy year. This 2017 Year in Review details some of the highlights from the year.

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Topics: Mirus Updates

Restaurant Data Analytics - What Should You Expect to Pay?

Posted by Leslie

How much does it cost? That’s the question that inevitably comes up whenever I’m talking with a restaurant executive about the data analytic services Mirus provides. Sometimes the timing of the question is right on; other times it’s a bit premature.

If I were selling pens or another commodity the price question wouldn’t be that big of a deal. A pen is a pen. You can touch it, you know what it does, how to use it and why you need it. Business Intelligence (BI) Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions, while not new to the restaurant industry (we’ve been around for more than 17 years), are not so straightforward. The benefits and use cases of these solutions are different depending on who you talk to.

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Topics: Restaurant Data Warehouse, Restaurant Custom Reporting

How Labor Affects Restaurant Promotions

Posted by Leslie

As a restaurant CMO the areas of social media, guest feedback and planning the next profitable promotion probably take up most of your time. But what about labor? Wait, Operations is supposed to take care of labor scheduling and staffing not marketing. Before you pass this very important function off to the next guy you may want to see how labor affects the marketing department's efforts.

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Topics: Restaurant Profit, Restaurant Operations

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