What Makes Pint Insights Different?
Most secret shopping companies send someone to check if your server smiled and the bathroom had soap. That's fine. But if you're in the bar and restaurant business, there's a lot more on the line. Here's what sets us apart:
We only shop bars and restaurants. Not mechanics. Not cell phone stores. Not oil change shops. Every part of our process is built specifically for your industry, not adapted from a generic template.
Our shoppers have worked in the business. When someone who has spent years behind a bar or on a restaurant floor goes out for dinner, they experience it completely differently than everyone else at the table. They're not just enjoying the meal. They're analysing hundreds of details automatically, because that's what years in the business does to you. Every Pint Insights shopper has that instinct.
Our shoppers are trained on draught systems and beer science. Most shoppers can tell you if a pint is off. Ours can tell you why. We train our shoppers extensively on how draught systems work, the science behind beer, and how to identify off-flavours that signal a problem at the bar, including:
- Past-code beer
- Dirty lines
- Incorrect gas blends
That's a level of detail no other mystery shopping company is providing.
We pay our shoppers to work, not to eat. Our shoppers earn significantly more per shop than the industry standard because we expect significantly more from them. That difference shows up in your report.
Who We Work With
RESTAURANTS & BARS
If you run a full-service restaurant or bar, you're probably already getting shopped. But chances are nobody is checking your draught beer. That's a significant gap. The Full House covers the complete guest experience, beer included.
Learn More about The Full House
BREWERIES
You're investing in accounts, running server incentive programs, and training staff on your brand. But do you actually know if any of it is happening at the bar? The Pint Check gives you direct visibility into exactly what's happening at your accounts.
Learn More about The Pint Check
Choose Your Shop
THE FULL HOUSE
A complete guest experience evaluation for full-service restaurants and bars. 70+ criteria. Beer included.
THE PINT CHECK
A focused pint evaluation for breweries. See exactly how your beer is being served at the account level. 20+ checks.
Improve
Don't Take Our Word For It...
"We've been using Pint Insights at 10 of our Canlan locations every quarter since 2019. What sets them apart is the beer focus — our previous shops never looked at draught quality, and that's a big part of what we sell. Having someone come in with a thermometer and evaluate the pour gives us the level of detail we weren't getting elsewhere.
The shoppers clearly understand the industry, and the reports provide concrete information we can bring back to our teams. It's become a standard part of how we manage our food and beverage program.
Draught beer represents close to 50% of revenue across our 10 full-service restaurants nationwide. Pint Insights allows us to use this measuring tool to set a standard for service and operation excellence."
Rob Smith
National Food and Beverage Manager, CanLan Ice Sports
Why Pint Insights Exists
I've stood where your staff stands. I know what actually happens.
I spent 12 years in the restaurant business — starting in the kitchen and working my way through every position until I became a GM at 26, leading a team of over 100 people at one of the top-performing locations in a chain of 20 restaurants.
It was in that role that I first lost faith in mystery shopping. Reports would come back quoting menu items we didn't sell and calling out servers who weren't even working that night. The people doing the shops clearly had no idea what they were looking at. I stopped trusting the reports entirely.
After restaurants, I spent five years teaching hospitality at George Brown College. In 2005, I started a draught service company, where in addition to draught system maintenance and repairs, I offered staff training as a service. I've trained thousands of bar staff on upselling and draught quality and I've been working exclusively in the draught beer industry ever since.
In 2019, several of our Better Beer clients came to us frustrated. They were using a mystery shopping company, the shops were cheap, and the reports were unreliable. Sound familiar? They asked if we could do something better. We did, and the response was overwhelming. So we built Pint Insights to make it available to everyone.
This isn't a side project. It's built on 30 years of being in and around this industry, and a genuine belief that beer deserves better.
If you're ready to find out what's really happening in your locations, let's talk.
Steve Riley steve@BetterBeer.com (888) 811-2337