You could be managing a bar or even a nightclub, but the challenges are the same. To be successful, you must go beyond keeping your customers happy and their glasses full. You need to ensure your bar is well stocked, and you continue to serve your patrons’ tasty drinks. Also, create events that excite potential customers and protect you from any liabilities. (Image Credits: Clem Onojeghuo/ Unsplash)
How to Make Your Bar a Success
The bar business is appealing to entrepreneurs due to its entertainment appeal of serving drinks, featuring live music, showing games, and hanging out with close friends. To be successful, you must develop a strong business center that keeps your entertainment aspect in control. You need support from your local community to remain in business. Treat your employees well, and you can give back to the community to build your brand.
Keep Your Minibar Well-Stocked
It’s not just about filling your bar refrigerator or cooler with wine, liquor, or beer; it goes beyond. Note down your most profitable sales, or the drinks customers order a lot and have them well stocked. Those drinks you use more often should never go out of stock as it affects the morale of your customers and your business. Adjust your orders to spend less money on less popular alcohol while filling your bar with popular alcohol and items.
Stocking the bar is not just alcohol or beer. Your stock should include bar napkins, mixing glasses, glassware, stirrers and straws, cocktail mixes, garnishes, liquor pourers, and cocktail strainers and shakers.
Hire Excellent Bartenders
A good bartender can give you high-profit margins. Retain good bartenders with incentives like favorable shifts, bonuses, and pay raises. Entice them with the potential to be promoted or trained on new skills. For example, you can have a dedicated dishwasher who wants to be a bartender someday, reward their efforts by offering them training and letting them bartend during those slow business hours or nights.
Train your bartenders and waiters to upsell to boost your profits. Upselling is when your waiters suggest to customers to try the specific high-value drink, item or add it on their orders. This is a beneficial technique for your staff and the business as it gives them bigger checks and bigger tips. Another thing to think about is the staff uniform. Quality bartender uniforms are not only a reflection of the establishment, but they also play an important role in creating the perfect customer experience. A well-fitting, stylish uniform conveys a sense of professionalism and helps bartenders to project an image of confidence and competence.
Measure Your Alcohol to Avoid Over Pouring
As much as having an extra-strong drink seems like a non-issue, consistently over pouring the drinks costs your hundreds of thousands in terms of dollars in the long run. There are smart ways to measure your pouring without wasting. For insurance, you can use measured pourers to help you approximate your portions and prevent spillage. This eliminates the risk of wastage.
Also, you can teach your bartenders how to use crafting cocktails and jiggers to prevent over-pouring. This ensures your patrons get consistent drinks every time. Pick the right glassware to lower your liquor costs. Heavy base glasses with thicker bottoms work nicely. The glassware doesn’t require as much liquid to be full like that standard glassware and saves you time as a result.
Create Your Signature Cocktails
As much as your customers can order popular drinks like coke and rum, creating drinks that are unique in your establishment gives you the competitive edge over your major competitors. You can create your unique craft cocktails and price them slightly higher than the traditional beverages to increase your profit margin.
Your recipe and cocktails should target your demographic and accommodate their tastes. For example, around colleges, the customers are in mid-twenties, which means your perfect cocktail drinks should involve tequila, vodka, or rum. Consequently, bars with older customers should use more top-shelf liquors like bourbon or whiskey in the recipes.
Be informed on the current drink trends and strive to give your customers something new. For example, you can go for fruity or spiced vodka infusions. Add unique garnishes to the drinks like fruit kabobs.
Host Happy Hour Events
Draw your customers by hosting a happy hour, then offering them low prices. Let the patrons enjoy your excellent service and delicious cocktails to convince them to stay even past the happy hour where they can pay the full price for those drinks and items. Offer discounts on the happy hour menu for those items with a high-profit margin. Also, you can give designated driver and group specials discounts.
Allow your customers to use your bar to host events. Once a one-time thing can turn into a regular occurrence and build you the much-needed customer base that helps your bar succeed. Put exciting neon signs to increase the appeal of your mini-bar. Take a look at neonsignsdepot.com to check out the various options at Host events like karaoke, trivia, arcade or a game night, speed dating, sports parties, and open mic nights. Schedule these events with specific demographics and times like the post-work crowd, or sports fans after, during, and before a game.
Invest in a Point of Sale System
Electronic point of sale systems organizes your orders well and helps you keep track of all transactions. The receipt and order systems ensure you have smooth communication with your bartender, waitress, and the kitchen to ensure you are on top of customer tabs even in those busy nights. Besides, bar owners or managers can see the sales breakdown for each employee.
Running a minibar requires being smart and making the best decisions. To succeed, use the above tips and incorporate them into your bar business for a smoother and profitable business.