Top Tips to Survive Busy and Slow Bar Days

When the customers come rolling in on the weekends or nights after work, are you and your staff prepared to handle the daily rush? Sure, it can be relatively easy to make money when there is a line at your bar but do you know how to manage the slow times and ultimately decrease/eliminate them all together?

These following bar manager tips will help you prepare for the busiest and slowest of days because being in business is about seizing the opportunities that are presented.

Teamwork– it is essential to create and foster a team atmosphere in your bar. Each one of your staff members will depend on each other throughout the day and night to do their job effectively. Teamwork will make the busiest of days/nights very manageable because each member understands that their job is important to the overall goal of the bar.

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast”– when it comes to bartenders, it is easy to start getting lackadaisical with their drink making trying to keep up with the demand when the line starts to build. However, it is important for management to stress the old saying, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast” because it directly applies bartending. Soon your bartenders will be able to keep up with any crowd and keeping consistent pours, and managing waste can have a huge impact on costs.

Stay well-stocked– one of the worst scenarios that can happen on a busy night is to run out of any item, not to mention a popular one. On your slow days or by routine, it is crucial to make sure that your inventory is well-prepared for the next round of busy days.

Create a signature menu– when it comes to driving in customers through your doors, one business decision that can help generate traffic on slow days is to create a menu of signature drinks that will leave customers raving about. Word of mouth and internet reviews are, perhaps, the best ways to generate new customers. It can be one drink or a small menu but taking the time to create some unique drinks that patrons won’t find elsewhere can have a big impact.

Happy Hour, Trivia, Featured Drinks and More– give your customers motivation and incentives for coming into your bar and spending time. Host Trivia Night or offer killer Happy Hour deals with featured/specialty drinks. People get excited about these things and will schedule them on a weekly basis if you give them a great reason to!

POS System– busy or slow, having an efficient bar POS software system is a necessity for running a successful bar. When your bar is crowded, you want to be sure that your POS system can efficiently and accurately keep track of your inventory, process transactions and everything else.

Glimpse is an outsourced data analysis company that provides detailed, image-accompanied audit reports to bar managers and owners that identify areas of high-risk that can range from standard operating procedures to employee monitoring. Glimpse provides bar technology that has been proven to make a significant impact on capturing all potential revenue and eliminating unnecessary costs. To learn more about the way that Glimpse can help your bar, visit https://glimpsecorp.com/video-auditing/.