WISSLER is a bar and restaurant serving cold beer, tasty cocktails, and maybe the best burger in town. They are located in Spain. The owner of WISSLER, Mr.Duus, shared with us that they aim to give each customer a great time when they are visiting their bar by offering a great atmosphere and not only serving food and drinks.

-Can you briefly describe the story of your business?

My girlfriend and I moved to Spain about one year and a half ago. We have been working here on and off because we have been working in a traveling agency. We knew Spain very well as we have lived before for short periods of time for many many years. We had great jobs back in Denmark but we were beginning to get tired of the daily routine. We needed and wanted something else for our family and ourselves. Therefore, we sold everything we had in Denmark and came here. We found a bar and restaurant business. It is a concept bar. It is a bar but we also provide burgers and sides, simple but high-quality burgers. We focus a lot on the atmosphere and the staff. The whole experience of the bar is more important than drinks and food.

-How is your business going? 

Two months ago we opened our second bar with the exact same concept but in a bigger city. The first one is located in a holiday city like a holiday destination on the Spanish coast. The second one, because of the pandemic, is located in a larger city. During the pandemic, it was really hard to manage a bar in an area that is destined especially for tourists.  It has always been in our desire to scale the business. We plan to open 10-15 more bars in the next 5 years. For my girlfriend and I this isn’t a romantic dream of having a restaurant, we are building a business. We know a lot about hospitality and how to run a business like this but it could have been a different type of business as well. We currently have 10 full-time employees in both our restaurants. My girlfriend and I do more behind the scenes things, we deal with management and marketing and things like that.

 -How did you experience the pandemic year? 

It had been the most challenging year of my whole professional career. It has been pure survival because around 90% of the customers that were supposed to be here, were not here. We have worked with 2-3% of the human capital, which is pretty much nothing. This is why we chose to expand with a new restaurant. It looked crazy to some people that we planned to open a second restaurant in this pandemic but for us, it was to take some of the risks away. Because if you go to a big city, there are always people. Of course, there are curfews and we have to close at a certain time, but again, for the period of time the restaurant will be open, the number of customers will be higher. Currently, in the city where we have our first restaurant, there are no people so no matter how much marketing we can do, it doesn’t make any difference.

-How do you advertise your business?

We do a lot of online marketing. We are very heavy on Instagram and Facebook, both organic and paid and that is our primary focus. This is also our main belief to take a little bit out of the regular marketing on a holiday destination. Normally, a lot of other similar businesses have their promotional guys standing outside of the restaurant inviting people in. But, we plan to connect to the people when they are standing on the beach and planning what to eat tonight or where to go for lunch when they are checking their phones. This is why we are heavily present online. All our menu is also online. People can use a QR code for ordering. This is how we use retargeting and try to keep people connected with us and hopefully come back more than once.

-What makes your business stand out from other similar businesses on the market?

The atmosphere. We come from Scandinavian countries. When you go to a Scandinavian bar, restaurant, or coffee shop there are distinguishing elements.  There is a big focus on the interior design, the lighting, and everything. It is different from businesses here in Spain. We try to take the best from the Scandinavian traditions. Most of all, I think our key advantage is our staff. We do a lot of training for our staff. We work a lot with hospitality so not only to offer a great service but doing excellent hospitality. It means that everyone who walks through our door should be treated as a guest in our home.

-How did you first learn about Loyverse?

I googled around and I found different reviews in a bunch of systems. I have worked with a lot of systems throughout my professional career. At the time, it was important for me to find a simple system. Because there are a lot of big systems out there but for a startup like us it would become very complicated and heavy. This is why my focus was to find a simple system, even though that would mean that it would miss some features it was worth the sacrifice. In addition, Loyverse has the functionality to manage multiple locations which is very important to us.

-What features of Loyverse do you find most useful for your business?

I like the simplicity. I think this is the number 1 feature. We just got new people on board in the new office and they found the app really easy to learn. The app is intuitive. I really like the Kitchen Display System. We have tablets with the KDS in both the kitchen and the bar and I think KDS works really well and it is very helpful.

-What would you like to see in Loyverse in the future? 

I would like to have more reports. I would like to have a report for the time that is needed to prepare and serve the order. We are not a fast-food restaurant but we do sell burgers and this time shouldn’t be too long and I would like to be able to keep track of it. That can be an interesting metric for us to work with. 

Another point is that our shift ends after midnight. We would like to define the period of time the system must calculate as a working day. For example, I would like to have a specific setting in the Back office where I can indicate that the day must be calculated from 03:00 AM to 2:59 AM the next morning. 

Also, happy hour is a feature that is needed for our type of business. 

-What message would you give to young people who want to start a business? 

I think the most important thing is: Just do it. There are a lot of people out there with good ideas, but only the people who really take action and test or do what they planned to succeed. If you ask in the restaurant field, my strongest advice would be to track expenses. We use the Loyverse add-on: Advanced Inventory and for us, it is extremely important. We count everything, we check prices every time we get deliveries so we always know that we are making money off what we sell. I think this is very important in restaurants, bars and coffee shops.  People usually don’t know if they are making money or not. They are usually focused on the food and the experience, and that is very important of course, but it is also important to track the expenses and make sure you are having profit. This is why I love Loyverse because it does the tracking of expenses that I need. If you get all the data in the system, it is pretty simple to keep track and eliminate mistakes. I would like to say to the Loyverse team to keep up with the good work and keep developing even more.