Lure Fish House: Reeling in Operational Costs with COGS-Well

At Lure Fish House – a family-owned seafood restaurant with multiple locations across California – the focus is always on quality.

They're known for their fresh and sustainable seafood, locally grown produce, wines from nearby vineyards, and delicious cocktails. Boasting a dynamic menu with seasonal favorites like mussels, fish, and lobster, Lure needed a restaurant inventory, recipe, and cost management system that could keep up with the unique nature of their operation.

Lure uses COGS-Well across seven locations for restaurant inventory management, including counting inventory, ordering, transfers, waste tracking, and usage and cost variances. The system is also used for full recipe management for both food and beverage. It’s a tech upgrade that has brought major improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and operational insights.

We sat down with Peyton Strait, Director of Procurement, and Greg Meeks, Beverage Program Director, to get an in-depth look at the benefits they're getting from the system. 

Outdated Tools, Limited Insight 

Before implementing COGS-Well, the team at Lure Fish House was grappling with a clunky inventory system that was limited in analytics and not built to meet the demands of a multi-location restaurant operation. 

“It was difficult for us to create recipes, stay organized, and get an idea of what our theoretical food cost was,” said Peyton. “That was a big selling point for COGS-Well, which has been a massive improvement for us.” 

“I’ve watched the trust in the system grow exponentially with the managers and the general managers across all our locations, which really speaks to the progress that we've made with COGS-Well,” shared Greg. 

Restaurant Inventory Management Without the Headache

Inventory Counts 

Inventory counts, which used to take hours, are now done much faster thanks to COGS-Well’s mobile-friendly interface and support for storage location organization, according to the Lure team. They use shelf-to-sheet organization – what Greg calls “a godsend” to organize inventory efficiently across each restaurant location.  

“Having tablets, opening up COGS-Well, and going right through counting inventory is nice and easy for us,” according to Greg. 

Automating Ordering 

Lure has streamlined what used to be a scattered, manual process by managing its food and beverage orders through COGS-Well. Most of the brand’s food vendors and all of Greg's alcohol vendors receive orders via COGS-Well.

"A lot of places I've worked, and other people I still know in the industry, are still doing their bar and liquor orders via a text message or somebody on the phone. We have been able to automate that. It's easier for us to watch budgets, especially when money and time are tight," shared Greg.

Managing and Costing Recipes with Ease 

Lure has created recipes for all their menu items for both the restaurant and the bar. COGS-Well’s easy-to-use recipe management tools make this possible.

“I’m up to 3,600 recipes of every possible way someone can order a cocktail in my world,” said Greg Meeks, Beverage Program Director. “I can build batch recipes in COGS-Well and repurpose what’s in the system. I don’t have to start from scratch every time, which is a big time-saver.” 

“When it’s time to cost out new menu items, COGS-Well makes this seamless,” Peyton explained. “If it's a new fish, I'll take everything except for the protein out of an existing recipe and then add the new protein. We save a lot of time with costing exercises because back in the day, we just did everything by hand over and over again.” 

“When it’s time to cost out new menu items, COGS-Well makes this seamless."

Gaining Insights to Reduce Costs and Increase Profits 

Lure imports the sales mix from their Aloha POS system daily. The combination of recipes for each food and bar menu item, and the quantity sold, allows the Lure team to get added insights into their performance. 

Peyton shared, “We use the menu engineering report to see where our food costs are landing and if we have any problem children. That information helps us make educated menu decisions on what we're going to remove or replace.” 

Peyton and Greg look at the theoretical costs and inventory usage for each restaurant and compare them to the actual costs and usage. Each restaurant also tracks waste and transfers for added control and insight.  

“We can say to managers, ‘You had a much higher variance in sea bass or mussels compared to some of our other stores.’ And that starts a conversation on why that was the case,” Peyton said. “We can discuss different practices around reducing waste.” 

Lure also uses COGS-Well to track inventory cost changes and trends. “We just brought in Alaskan halibut, and we're about to have a season for local sea bass,” Peyton said. “The price of Maine lobsters is really high this time of year. Same with artichokes and asparagus. Some seasonal vegetables tend to get crazy, and COGS-Well allows us to monitor them." 

Support, Just One Call Away 

According to Peyton and Greg, COGS-Well’s support has been excellent.  Several new features and reports have been added to the software at the Lure team’s request, and the team mentioned that COGS-Well’s responsiveness has been great.  

“When it comes to them stepping up and helping out, I couldn't ask for better. I remember once, Glen from COGS-Well took time away from his vacation with his wife just to reach out to help me sort out something I broke." 

The Bottom Line 

The Lure team has taken advantage of COGS-Well’s extensive tool set. They use COGS-Well for counts, ordering, receiving, transfers, recipes, waste tracking, menu analytics, and variance control. Inventory and recipe management that once took hours are now streamlined, saving valuable time every week. COGS-Well is a system that not only fits the Lure Fish House business model – it also evolves with it.