Bars are a great source of additional revenue for your restaurant. Whether customers come solely for the bar or want to order a drink while they wait for a table, a first-class bar makes a difference. Explore these four ways to improve efficiency at your restaurant’s bar to make everything run smooth for your employees and customers.
1. Establish Zero-Step Bartending
Zero-step bartending is the idea of your bartenders having easy access to everything they need to make and serve drinks without running back and forth. When you have glasses at one end, the spirits on the other, and the shaker in the middle, your bartenders spend a lot of time running unnecessary laps. Organizing equipment, ingredients, and even your bar’s layout around a singular, easy-to-access point saves your bartender a lot of time and reduces their runaround.
2. Incorporating New Technology
How often do you go to a bar only to struggle to get the bartender’s attention? Many businesses now utilize digital restaurant table menus. Instead of walking up to a crowded bar and flagging down one of the busy bartenders, digital iPad menus allows you to customize and order your drink from your seat, adding it to a queue for the bartender to follow quickly.
3. Sustainable Bartending
Sustainability is a significant factor right now with millennial customers looking for bars. A great way to improve efficiency at your restaurant’s bar is to incorporate sustainable bartending. This process involves getting the most out of your ingredients. If only one drink on your menu contains grapefruit soda, it may be good to either remove it from your menu, alter the recipe, or add new items to take advantage of this ingredient.
Limiting the number of ingredients while still having a solid and varied selection is good for your bottom line, creates less clutter for your staff, and allows for a fast-paced and efficient workplace.
4. Listen to Feedback
As the boss, it’s easy to feel that you know what’s best and how to run everything. The truth is that nobody knows the ins and outs of life behind that bar better than your bartenders. Most workers long for a sense of efficiency because it generally creates a smoother and less hectic situation.
Give your employees an opportunity and platform to express suggestions for increasing efficiency and take the time to see if they’re viable options to improve your bottom line. In a best-case scenario, things move more smoothly for your business, and your employees appreciate having a boss that listens to their suggestions.
