Spris Restaurant & Bar
Hartford, CT
Alberto Degobbi
Spris (which rhymes with "fleece") is a restaurant and bar in downtown Hartford, CT offering Italian fine dining featuring the Northern Italian cuisine from the Veneto region. As a member of the venture capital group that owns Spris and other restaurants, Alberto Degobbi is highly educated consumer of financial services. From day one, Spris bookkeeping and accounting was outsourced to ARI, based on a recommendation from an associate who is a CPA.
"ARI was instrumental from the beginning in running the accounting associated with this operation," said Mr. Degobbi. "We knew how we wanted things to happen because of other restaurants we owned. We had a template and specific accounting reports we needed and ARI provided those and added even more."
Of Kim Richard, who has been Spris' accounting manager from the start, Mr. Degobbi said, "Kim is always very responsive, very prompt." Mr. Degobbi notes that, "A restaurant needs to keep its operation very lean. Any activity not strictly connected to the operation should not be in-house. The accounting is a pretty heavy task and unless the restaurant is part of a very big operation, you cannot afford to have someone with Kim's level of competence on staff. It is ideal to outsource."
Asked about ARI's pricing, Mr. Degobbi said, "Pricing is always an issue, but we didn't feel a need to compare ARI's pricing based on our experience managing other restaurants.
"ARI is valuable because they help you when things go well, but also when things, the numbers don't add up. They help in giving comparison reports, day-by-day and month-by-month breakdowns. They provide trends to help understand how the restaurant is performing not only within the year but between years and between lunch and dinner."
Would Mr. Degobbi recommend ARI to another business? "Yes, absolutely, we already have recommended them to someone in a similar business. They are competent about a restaurant's needs, the numbers required." In fact Mr. Degobbi is already considering ARI for another venture and that is, perhaps, the greatest testimonial of all.
