Your pub's success revolves around the ability of your advertising strategies and promotional campaigns to make potential customers aware of your business. Use of multiple advertising platforms, including radio ads, television spots and establishing a presence on social networking sites, provides a means for your business to reach as many people as possible in your target demographic.
Promotions, including giving away free gifts with your business information on it, increase the ability of consumers to recall your business. When more people remember your pub, the greater the chances of putting customers in the seats.
The legal requirements of opening a pub of any kind depends on the laws in the municipality housing your business location and the state as a whole. Trying to open your business without proper licensing in a state that completely controls beer and liquor sales, including Pennsylvania, could leave your bar selling soda and burgers for six months to a year until you can clear all the legal hurdles.
This delay could cost your pub valuable time in establishing a presence in the community and attracting valuable clientele. A thriving pub requires a dedicated bar and wait staff. Customers may walk into your pub for a drink, but customers will stay longer and continue coming back if your staff are able to provide a pleasant and competent service experience. This includes in-depth knowledge of the product your pub serves as well as a positive demeanor and hard-working attitude.
Incompetent or lazy staff members can quickly drag your pub's customer service down and may cause customers to look to other establishments. Jonathan Lister has been a writer and content marketer since Skip to main content. Decide on Your Concept Your pub needs a concept to generate its identity with consumers in your target market area. Adequate Start-Up Capital Adequate start-up capital is essential in the early days of your pub to ensure it can purchase all the necessary equipment and furnishings as well as weather the first year at low sales while the business begins to grow.
While many customers may order popular drinks like rum and coke or an Old Fashioned, creating drinks that are unique to your establishment gives you a competitive edge over other bars. Additionally, if you create your own craft cocktails, you can price them higher than traditional beverages, helping to increase your profit margin. When creating new recipes and cocktails, you want to consider your target demographic and their tastes. For example, if you're near a college campus and have a customer base in their mid-twenties, you'll want to design strong cocktails that use liquors like rum, vodka, or tequila.
On the other hand, bars with older customers may want to use top-shelf liquors like fine whiskey or bourbon in their recipes. When managing a bar, it's also important to keep on top of current drink trends and offer customers something new, like spiced or fruity vodka infusions. You can also up your cocktail game by adding unique garnishes to your drinks, like fruit kabobs in daiquiris. Hosting a happy hour is a great way to draw customers in with low prices. Then you can let your delicious cocktails and excellent service convince the customers to stay past happy hour and pay full price for your items.
Your happy hour menu should feature discounts on items with a high profit margin, group specials, snacks, and designated driver discounts to maximize your profits. Another option to bring customers in to your business is to host events. Events can be a one time thing or they can become a regular occurrence, which is a great way to build a regular customer base that can help your bar succeed. There are many different types of events that you can put on depending on your clientele and establishment's theme.
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Here are some popular options:. Schedule your weekly events to target specific times and demographics, such as the post-work business crowd, weekend brunch goers, or sports fans before, during, or after a big game. Additionally, be sure to advertise your happy hour specials on social media, outdoor signs, and posters in your front-of-house space. The bar industry has a very high turnover rate , which results in lots of money wasted on training new employees.
Your bar can prevent this by implementing strict standards when hiring and creating a rigorous training regimen that weeds out any potential bad employees early in the process. One of the best ways that bar managers can retain good employees is with incentives, such as bonuses, favorable shifts, or pay raises.
But, not all incentives have to be monetary. Some employees are instead motivated by the potential for promotions or learning new skills. For example, if you have a dishwasher who is dedicated to working hard but who also wants to learn bartending skills, reward them by offering some training and allowing them to bartend during slow periods of business at first.
Another essential aspect of keeping your employees happy is ensuring that you're promoting a comfortable atmosphere where your staff feels welcome to share their ideas and concerns. If employees don't feel like their concerns are being heard by the general manager or the owner, they'll leave. Additionally, if you engage in dialogue with your staff, you can learn more about them and how you can keep them happy and working hard.
A great way to boost profits in your bar is to train your staff to upsell customers. Upselling involves your bartenders or wait staff suggesting that customers try a specific high-value item or add it onto their order. Upselling is beneficial for both your business and your staff, because bigger checks mean bigger tips. The key to upselling is to frame it as a personal suggestion. For example, instead of offering your customers an expensive alternative to their order, have your bartender tell them that the alternative is their favorite drink or it's a new special that's really good.
Framing the sell as a suggestion will make your customers more likely to try the more expensive option. Also, be sure to keep your food menu in clear sight of patrons. Patrons might approach your bar doors with just drinks in mind, but after a round or two, that appetizer menu strategically placed in front of them might start to look tempting.
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You can also boost sales by offering food and drink pairings based on common flavors or contrasts. Educate your staff on the best food and drink pairings. What beers go well with your appetizers? What wines pair best with your desserts? Offering knowledgeable suggestions will be viewed as helpful rather than a sales pitch. Lastly, train staff to detect undecided customers.
How to Run a Successful Bar
If someone has glanced at their menu for an extended period of time, a simple "Can I suggest one of our specials? An essential for any successful bar, an electronic Point Of Sale POS system organizes orders and keeps track of transactions. These order and receipt systems ensure smooth communication between the waitress, bartender, and kitchen to help keep track of customer tabs on even the busiest of nights.
It also allows bar managers and owners to see the breakdown of sales by employee.
Alcohol service is a risky business. When managing a bar, you should train staff to handle alcohol-related safety issues, not just for the safety of customers who have consumed too much alcohol, but to protect your bar from fines, imprisonment, loss of liquor license, increased insurance costs, and even losing your business.
If your establishment serves alcohol to a minor or visibly intoxicated patron, not only will you face criminal fines, but you can be sued in civil court for damages that person causes after leaving your bar. Many new and smaller establishments skip liquor liability coverage to cut down on premiums or are simply unaware of coverage, so know the specifications of your insurance.
Look to trusted, established alcohol training resources to effectively teach your staff. The National Restaurant Association offers ServSafe Alcohol training to prepare bartenders, servers, hosts, bussers, valets, bouncers, and all front-of-house staff in the event of safety and liability issues. State Liquor Control Boards also offer initiatives that teach bar staff how to recognize signs of intoxication and detect fake IDs.
The bar industry is very competitive, and it can be difficult to run a bar successfully due to the razor-thin profit margins. But, by taking a more active role in your business, ensuring that your bar is stocked with everything it needs, and training your employees for success, you can help your bar become profitable and succeed. Bartending is a complex job that requires employees to juggle multiple tickets at once, upsell customers, facilitate sales, remember complicated drink recipes, and much more.
But, having a staff of competent bartenders is essential for ensuring the success of your bar. We'll walk you through all the steps of how to hire a bartender from writing a job description to interview tips, to ensure you find the right candidate for your bar or restaurant. Types of Bartenders There are many different types of bartenders, each with varying levels of education and experience, and not every bartender is the right fit for each bar or establishment.
Adequate Start-Up Capital
For example, you wouldn't need a highly skilled sommelier or cicerone to serve drinks at your wedding rece. For any bar owner, the difference between success and failure often depends on the skill of their bartenders. Having well-trained, professional bartenders on your staff is essential for any kind of establishment from your local dive bar to an upscale lounge.
Read on to learn the pros and cons of bartending school versus bartending experience. You will most likely still be starting.