Acme Oyster House, a six-unit Louisiana-style seafood chain based in New Orleans, has been serving up fresh seafood since 1910. With a focus on quality and tradition, they shuck more than 3.6 million oysters each year—nearly 10,000 a day. Their commitment to Gulf-sourced ingredients and time-honored techniques has made them a staple in the region’s dining scene for over a century.
After nearly 100 years of operating in one location, Acme Oyster House has expanded by opening four new restaurants. But managing inventory, purchasing, and usage data across multiple locations became increasingly complex, making it harder to maintain control over F&B costs. While they were satisfied with their Great Plains Dynamics accounting software, relying on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets was no longer enough. To keep up with their expanding operations, they needed a more robust, fully integrated inventory system.
Acme Oyster House chose Restaurant365 as its inventory solution, a decision backed by Jeremy DeBlieux, Director of New Business Development, who noted, “I have extensive experience with other inventory systems, and I recognized Restaurant365’s superiority.” With its powerful inventory management and in-depth reporting capabilities, Restaurant365 proved to be the ideal fit for Acme’s operational needs.
After an intensive setup process to define all inventory, prep, and menu items within the Restaurant365 system, Acme Oyster House quickly identified key operational challenges. Restaurant365’s reporting highlighted two main areas of concern: portioning and ordering. Theoretical cost reports revealed discrepancies in portioning for certain recipes, including one instance where an ingredient used in a single dish showed significantly higher actual usage than expected. This variance drove up food costs, prompting Acme to investigate further. They discovered the recipe wasn’t being followed accurately and, after retraining staff, corrected the issue—bringing usage back in line and ensuring cost targets were met.
Before, we tracked theoretical food costs using a series of spreadsheets. This was inaccurate and cumbersome. If an item’s price changed, it had to be changed in each recipe and for each restaurant.
Acme Oyster House
Another major cost savings came when a Restaurant365 report comparing inventory item costs across multiple locations uncovered an ordering issue.
Acme discovered that a vendor was charging different prices for the same items at different restaurants, highlighting the need for standardized purchasing. To address this, they leveraged Restaurant365’s price enforcement features—allowing price ranges for some items while locking in fixed prices for others. With centralized pricing management in place, Acme saw a 3%–5% reduction in food costs across all locations. According to the Director of New Business Operations, overall COGS dropped 2½ points, from 2002 to 2003. He noted, “To call this a significant reduction is an understatement.”
We expected to lower our food costs, but we didn’t know they would go so much lower, or how quickly it would occur. Restaurant365 is the tool that made it possible.
Acme Oyster House
After successfully using Restaurant365 Inventory & Purchasing features for two years, Acme Oyster House decided to transition to Restaurant365 for general accounting as well—eliminating the costs associated with owning and maintaining separate software.
Acme’s CFO Sheri Baker explains, “Our Great Plains software was a few versions old, so we had to decide whether to continue with Great Plains, or make a change. Because we already used Restaurant365 for inventory, we looked at what it could provide for general accounting. We determined that because it is so geared to our industry, and there was no additional software cost, it was just the obvious choice.”
While Acme continues using Restaurant365 for inventory, the full migration to its accounting system is underway. The team looks forward to streamlining operations with features like centralized bill pay, inter-company transactions, and other industry-specific tools designed to simplify financial management.
5% saved
on food costs
2.5% points reduced
in overall COGS
Standardized vendor pricing
across multiple locations
Discover how you can start achieving savings like these for your business
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