Written in Partnership with Amir Bakian
When you walk into a well-managed restaurant, you hear the sound of glasses clinking and the pleasant chatter of patrons. You see servers seamlessly gliding from one task to another and the bartenders pouring colorful translucent liquors and squeezing limes, making three perfect cocktails at once. It is an orchestra playing in perfect harmony.
To create that harmony, restaurateurs have to be sure all parts of the restaurant ensemble: staff management, food preparation, customer service and certainly inventory, are working efficiently and effectively. That can be extremely difficult.
Heart of House, an inventory management platform is hitting the market soon, allowing restaurant management to streamline their inventory, eliminate human error and get to focusing on why they went into the restaurant business in the first place, hospitality, to create amazing experiences for guests.
After graduating from California State University, Heart of House founder, CEO and aspiring actor and musician, Brendan Charles, worked in the restaurant industry as many have, in order to supplement his dream of one day acting. “I was a bartender for eight or nine years in different bars. I kept facing the same frustrating problem of having to apologize to guests for not being able to make a specific drink because we were out of the right liquor. It gave me the idea for an inventory management system that could constantly keep the bar and restaurant stocked by going off data from the point-of-sale system.”
Charles’ “fallback career” in the restaurant industry turned into his main career after doing it for so long. “After COVID, I found myself working in a few different bars at the same time. I’m thinking in my head, okay, well, ‘We have this POS system that knows exactly what bartenders and servers are ringing in, and so why couldn’t I build something that essentially skipped the middleman? The middleman is the person doing the ordering and therefore, bypasses the human error of not purchasing the liquor needed, and creates a platform that just goes straight to the supplier and orders the product.”
Charles started building a team to bring his idea, Heart of House, to fruition. “I hit up my friend Marcello whom I have known since middle school. He is very technically minded and is the Heart of House CTO. He has done all of the software engineering, the coding and building of the product. Together, we have been working on the MVP.”
“This entire process is kind of like solving a puzzle. And for me, it’s just about solving problems because I’m not technically minded. I don’t know how to code, that’s all Marcello. But he doesn’t have the industry background that I do. Together, we make a great team.”
The duo has encountered a few obstacles, but these challenges are serving to improve the product. “We have been revamping our solution based on feedback and validation so that it integrates with POS systems. We’re going off reports from the end of the night for other POS systems. Because of that, there are just a lot of different things that we need to take into consideration. When the POS rings in a martini with Grey Goose, that report is going to look different than if it was rung up with a bottom shelf vodka martini. There are a lot of new challenges that come with that, but the scope is a lot smaller, which makes it much easier for us to reach our goal.”
Actor, Musician, Turned Founder
Charles is a musician and feels those aspirations have been beneficial to his role as a founder and leader of Heart of House. “I believe my background in acting and communications, particularly with my degree, has greatly contributed to my skills as a presenter, and my ability to effectively share our product and its value. Similarly, my experience in leading my band, The Call from Upstairs, has taught me valuable lessons in project management and leadership, which I apply to my role as CEO. I’m using those skills every day to build Heart of House.”
The success of a well-managed restaurant is like a symphony, every component must harmonize for a flawless performance. Just as each instrument contributes to the overall harmony, effective staff management, attentive customer service and meticulous inventory control are essential for orchestrating a memorable dining experience. Heart of House, an upcoming inventory management platform, is the conductor that every restaurateur needs. By streamlining this inventory process, allowing them to eliminate human error and misorders, they can focus on the performance, delivering exceptional experiences.
Discover more about Heart of House and how it can help turn your restaurant into a symphony.
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