With nearly every industry today utilizing technology to innovate and more forward, it might seem strange the bars and other nightlife businesses haven't brought tech to the other side of the velvet rope. But a new startup in Chicago wants to automate the process for buying bottle service and paying nightclub cover charges in an effort to bring Windy City bars into the 21st century.
InstaBottles, founded by Northern Illinois University graduate Udit Agarwal, is a startup currently in beta but has begun partnering with Chicago nightclubs to provide them with a platform for reserving tables, paying for bottles, and taking care of cover charges before showing up to the club.
Frustrated by the arduous process of trying to call and reserve bottle service ahead of time, and having to haggle bartenders on price, Agarwal wanted to create a more efficient process and bring more transparency to paying for booze at bars.
"In doing research, I found out the nightlife industry is not utilizing the best technology that's available," he said, "which is causing some inefficiencies, for both the customers and for the bars."
Agarwal says InstaBottles is free for bars to use, with the company generating revenue by taking a percentage of the transaction when a customer buys a bottle or pays to get in the club. InstaBottles also provides businesses a tool for collecting customer analytics, something that many in the industry have been lacking, Argarwal said.
So far Argarwal says InstaBottles has signed a handful of bars to its platform, including Detention and Primary. And there are around 20 bars that are in the process of coming on board, Argarwal added.
"Currently most bars just use the pen and paper method for keeping their records," Argarwal said. "Maybe a Google sheet for reservations. But they don’t have any customer analytics or any data they're collecting. We provide a tool for them to do that."
InstaBottles expects to go live next month.
Image via InstaBottles
