Hello everyone, I’m currently in the process of opening a bar. Quite literally from the the ground up. If you had the opportunity to do so. What are things often overlooked in a Bar Design and opening that you would focus on? I appreciate the feedback. Cheers
Although I have experience opening multiple venues of varying sizes as General Manager, I can’t really comment from an operator/owner perspective, however The Cocktail Bar by Chall Gray is a great book covering the foundations and common pitfalls.
When it comes to the drinks side it’s important to realise that most guests aren’t that bothered with your drinks knowledge or recipes. As long as the drinks are above a certain “This is great” threshold, you’re good. The experience and how you make guests feel are FAR more important.
We typically only remember two parts of any night out. The emotional peak and the ending. Never underestimate a fond farewell and being attentive to guests even after they’ve paid their bill.
Best of luck with the project!
1 Like
- all your mixed drinks should be original, and feature ingredients you’ve created or modified
- you should provide constant background music consisting of familiar radio hits from the 1970s and 1980s, and keep it loud to keep the old folks away
- you should use a reservations system that compels you to request your customer’s telephone number first thing when they enter
- you should permit your bartenders to offer a parting round of shots to their “friends”
- your menu and prices should be carefully designed around a minimum spend-per-customer model, and you should train your bartenders and servers to upsell to premium wines and spirits
- refer to your non-alcoholic drink options as “mocktails”, because you’re a bar, after all
- if your bar is full, you absolutely should not help redirect the overflow to your competition (they’re your competitors after all)
- you should have a sound strategy to win a bar award
- you should invest in a lavish brand-forward web site
- at night, you should keep the lighting as low as possible, so that your customers cannot see what you know is really there
- you should absolutely stick with paper tabs and receipts printed in microscopic type—much classier than those new fangled portable terminals
7 Likes
Missed this the first time around. I do have a couple more rules:
12. your most experienced bartenders should always be doing pop-ups somewhere
other than your bar
13. if somebody manages to order an actual classic cocktail your bartenders must
make sure to switch out as many ingredients as possible for other, dimly-related
ones
14. if you are a famous bartender you must never be seen behind the bar unless it is
for television
15. if it’s a choice between paying for employee health insurance and a fancy PR
agency, go with the PR
2 Likes
A few recent experiences have obliged me to rant a bit:
If you see your customers routinely breaking out their phone flashlights to read your menu, then you have (A) a typography problem, or (B) a lighting problem, or (C) both. We are literally talking about the menu off which your customers order your products.
One example of many: there is a fine Manhattan rock n’ roll bar with a wild interior atmosphere and sprawling exotic drink selection. Their menu was designed on a back-lit computer screen, and the printed item looks very cool in broad daylight, making for a desirable souvenir. However, within the pulsing twilight of the bar, it is a useless document. It is a design failure that evidently nobody in the business grasps the significance of.
Nobody wants to have to pull out their damn phone to read your menu.
They will do so if they have to, but your poor choices have just drained any enthusiasm from the interaction, and your customers will be even less excited about revisiting the menu a second or third time. Is this really what you want?
Likewise, nobody wants to look at your menu on their phone, either. Settling into a hospitality space just to have to dredge out the phone and go on the damn internet like they’re ordering fast food delivery is a disruption of whatever atmospheric you’re trying to provide, both for the customer, for their companions (let’s all get on our phones!), and often for others nearby. It also creates the very real—and utterly unnecessary—risk that your customer’s first experience in your restaurant will be a technical support problem. Put away the QR codes.
End of rant.
4 Likes
And another annoyance I have at bars who also serve food is that they always bring an equal number of food menus for the number of persons at the table, but always only ONE drinks menu. So when the server comes to take the order, not everyone is ready to order drinks because we’ve all had to share a single menu.
3 Likes
On Sunday, Sandy and I stopped by TY bar at the revived Four Seasons Hotel on 57th St. We each had a $30 drink. The drinks came with a bottomless supply of nice olives and pappadum-like crackers, and most importantly, welcoming service and a serene, relaxing hotel lobby environment.
One drink, the “New York, New York Sour”, was fine. The other, the “20th Century” was not. What both had in common was unnecessary ambition. Instead of delivering two exquisitely executed classics, they were both unnecessarily elaborated, with the former being a bit of a signature stunt drink, and the latter (clarified, carbonated) downright aggressive (a bit nasty).
Appropriateness is the factor, here. TY Bar is a hotel lobby bar. Do they want to be a hotel lobby bar that makes people happy, or do they want to be a destination for creative mixology? Do they know?
2 Likes
Too many bars want to be on the 50 Best list when they’d be better off aiming for their customers’ “I know a place” lists.
3 Likes
The hilarious thing about TY is that they have hallmarks of aiming for 50 Best (or whatever), but they’re a union hotel bar, they hired Toby Maloney to put all these ambitious drinks in, and only gave him a short-term contract to actually run the place. It’s possible that my 20th Century wasn’t good because the wheels are already falling off mere days after Toby departed.
2 Likes