Whitehaven in Cumbria may seem a far cry from Antigua. The two places are unexpectedly linked however, by a wealthy merchant family called the Jeffersons who were the first to import rum into Britain in the mid-1700s.

In 2000, the connection was celebrated by the opening of The Rum Story, a three floor visitor attraction, within listed Georgian buildings, at the historic Whitehaven Harbour. Containing everything you ever wanted to know about rum - how the drink is made, its association with the slave trade and how it came to be the favoured tipple of the Royal Navy, for example - the attraction is part of an £11million regeneration project in the harbour area which has already won several national awards.

Including a shop, café and hospitality area, the attraction welcomes up to 20,000 visitors per year and is open seven days a week. To ensure this is all managed efficiently, The Rum Story has invested in an integrated solution from Carlisle-based software specialists, Monpellier, which runs its café, admissions, shop and event hospitality operations. The network runs software from Daventry-based Advanced PayPoint Solutions, which feeds into a back office Exchequer accounts system.

According to Director of Finance, Celia MacKenzie, the software is a perfect fit for the needs of the operation. However she is also keen to keep things running smoothly by investing in more advanced hardware as her budget allows. The latest such investment has been in an Epson touchscreen Intelligent Register (IR) for the café, which is already helping to make life easier for café staff, helping them work more efficiently.

"We are very happy with the new terminal," confirmed Celia. "The touch panel itself is very responsive and the screen is bigger and easy to see which is ideal for drilling down through the menu items, from starters, main courses, snacks etc. Changing the menus is simply a matter of remotely updating files."