Pub & Restaurant WiFi with Guest WiFi Marketing for The Almanack, Kenilworth

The Challenge

The Almanack was relaunching as a new venue under the Dhillon's Brewery group, with a fixed install date and a launch event already in the diary. It opens from 8:30am, so the network had to handle breakfast and coffee trade, lunch, dinner, a busy bar and private events. Tills and card machines needed to be rock-solid, and guest WiFi needed to do more than hand out a password: the group wanted every guest login to feed its customer marketing, as it already did at sister venue Elle's Coventry.

Our Solution

We ordered a new business broadband line with a static IP and scheduled our install for the day it went live, 19 March 2026. A Fortinet FortiGate 40F firewall secures the venue and keeps guest WiFi separate from the venue's own systems. A FortiSwitch 124E-POE distributes power and data, and four FortiAP 231F Wi-Fi 6 access points cover the bar, dining areas and the private dining room. Guest WiFi runs through our branded portal using artwork from The Almanack's own designers. Guest contacts sync automatically to the group's Fresh CRM, tagged with The Almanack's location ID, so opt-ins go straight into campaigns.

The Result

The Almanack was fully up and running on our network by the end of March 2026, and the branded guest WiFi portal was live in early April, well ahead of the launch event on 29 April. Every guest who logs in is captured against The Almanack in Fresh CRM, ready for birthday offers and event campaigns. The venue is managed and monitored 24/7/365 alongside the rest of the Dhillon's group, with one support contact for all of it.

Technical Specification