Patent ID: 8880427

Claim:
A method for tracking beverage pours, the method comprising: by one or more computer hardware components comprising one or more processors: accessing an identification associated with a customer of a first beverage provider; determining customer information about the customer based on the accessed identification; determining, based on the customer information, that the customer satisfies a legal criteria to obtain beverages at the first beverage provider; generating a unique customer identifier corresponding to the customer based on the accessed identification; associating the customer with a first central account at a multi-site beverage-data system based, at least in part, on the unique customer identifier, the multi-site beverage-data system accessible by a plurality of beverage providers including the first beverage provider; associating the customer with a customer account at a site-specific beverage tracking system based at least in part on the unique customer identifier; associating the customer with a beverage-pour tracking device based on the unique customer identifier and a unique tracking device identifier associated with the beverage-pour tracking device, the beverage-pour tracking device storing information for identifying the customer account associated with the customer at the site-specific beverage tracking system; determining whether the beverage-pour tracking device is within a threshold distance from a first activator associated with a first beverage dispenser of a plurality of beverage dispensers, wherein each beverage dispenser of the plurality of beverage dispensers is associated with a separate activator; in response to determining that the beverage-pour tracking device is within the threshold distance from the first activator; identifying the customer based on the information stored on the beverage-pour tracking device; and determining whether a measure of an amount of a first beverage available at the first beverage provider satisfies a minimum available beverage threshold, wherein the minimum available beverage threshold comprises a dynamic threshold based on a total number of customers currently at the first beverage provider and the rate of consumption of the first beverage provider; and in response to determining that the measure of the amount of the first beverage available satisfies the minimum available beverage threshold: activating the first beverage dispenser thereby enabling the customer to obtain access to the first beverage; determining pour information indicating a quantity of the first beverage poured from the first beverage dispenser; updating a first set of metadata associated with the first beverage at an inventory repository; updating the customer account at the site-specific beverage-tracking system based, at least in part, on the pour information; and updating the first central account at the multi-site beverage-data system based, at least in part, on the pour information.