Bluegrass Hospitality Group Saves 5,304 Hours in Their First Three Years with TipHaus
Founded in 1998 by Brian McCarty and Bruce Drake, Bluegrass Hospitality Group (BHG) operates over 30 locations across Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Alabama. The group includes six unique concepts: Malone’s, Malone’s Prime Events & Receptions, Harry’s, Drake’s, Aqua Sushi, and OBC Kitchen. With a team of over 3,000 employees, BHG maintains a consistent motto across all concepts: “100% guest satisfaction, 100% of the time.”
$6,800
Saved monthly in payroll corrections and manager time
5,304 Hours
Saved in manual labor across 34 locations in 3 years
100%
Increased transparency from TipHaus’s employee app
Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Alabama
34
Multi-Concept FSR Group
Josh Morris, Regional Market Partner
BHG relied on manual spreadsheets and cash for tip management, creating compliance risks, inefficiencies, and over 5,304 hours of reconciliation work over 3 years due to managers tracking down unclaimed tips across 34 stores.
With TipHaus and Earned Tip Access, BHG automated tip payouts, eliminated cash handling, ensured fair and transparent distribution, and freed managers from manual reconciliations so they can focus on guests, teams, and growth.
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Bluegrass Hospitality Group manages a diverse set of restaurant and event concepts, each with its own operational needs and guest expectations. Managing tips manually across multiple states and concepts was time-consuming and prone to errors, especially with Kentucky’s prior restrictions on mandatory tip-outs. Managers faced the challenge of reconciling tips each week while ensuring fair and transparent distribution for front-of-house and back-of-house staff. We met with Josh Morris, Regional Market Partner at Bluegrass Hospitality, to discuss how TipHaus has transformed tip management across their operations.
BHG faced challenges managing tips across its multiple concepts and states. Prior to implementing TipHaus, tips were handled manually via spreadsheets and cash, creating potential safety risks, liability issues, and inefficiencies. Kentucky’s previous restrictions on mandatory tip-outs limited structured tip distribution, leaving the team without clear, fair rules for sharing tips.
Managers also spent significant time each week tracking down staff who hadn’t claimed their tips on Mondays to reconcile weekly payouts, which amounted to at least 1 hour per week × 34 stores × 156 weeks, totaling 5,304 hours of manual work.
By integrating TipHaus, BHG has completely automated and streamlined tip management across all locations using Earned Tip Access. Staff now receive tips digitally in real time, eliminating cash handling and associated risks, while tip pools and shares ensure fair and transparent distribution between front-of-house and back-of-house employees. BHG now has over 2,000 active Earned Tip Access users, 11% using HausMoney and 89% using HausDirect. Managers no longer have to manually track tip claims, perform weekly reconciliations, or rely on spreadsheets, which frees up thousands of hours of work and avoids several thousand dollars per month in payroll corrections and manager time, $200 per location, totaling $6,800 across all stores. Employees gain full visibility into their earnings, fostering trust, engagement, and collaboration across teams, while managers can focus on coaching, guest experience, and scaling operations efficiently across multiple states.
TipHaus has transformed how we manage tips. Managers no longer waste hours tracking down unclaimed tips or fixing errors, and employees love the transparency of seeing exactly what they’ve earned. Across 34 restaurants, we save over 5,000 hours every year on manual tip calculations, giving us the confidence to keep scaling.
Josh Morris
Regional Market Partner
By implementing TipHaus, Bluegrass Hospitality Group has transformed tip management across all 34 locations, saving over 5,300 hours of manual reconciliation work and $6,800 per month in avoided errors and payroll corrections. Managers are now free to focus on delivering exceptional guest experiences and growing the business, proving that smarter tip management can drive efficiency, engagement, and operational success across multi-unit restaurant operations.
