Organize your bar to minimize the distance you have to travel between glasses, ice, liquor, napkins etc.
Each fraction of a second counts in a completely packed bar.
If you have 60 customers then each customer has only ONE MINUTE of that hour, or 60 seconds to be served and rung up – provided you have no other duties but making drinks and ringing up customers. Usually you’ll be doing other things too as part of your job behind the bar.
If you have 120 customers then each customer can only have 30 seconds of your time per hour maximum.
Cutting 1 or 2 seconds off each thing you do by having your bar set up efficiently means more customers served, more money in the register, more tips in your glass – and working more efficiently means working less hard. Your shift goes easier and you feel great about having done a good job. Here are a few of the things I did to speed things up:
- Â place more napkins around on the top of the bar – every four feet or so.
- If you’re low on fives or tens, make fives and tens by paper-clipping ones together and putting them in the fives and tens slots of your drawer.
- If your bank is too small and you are made to wait long periods for someone to come around and give you $100 singles, bring in a hundred or two of your own each night just to make sure you don’t have to wait.
- Arrange your speed rack in the exact same order each day so you know precisely where each bottle is without having to look: Vodka, Scotch, Gin, Whiskey, Rum, Brandy, Tequila, Sweet Vermouth, Dry Vermouth and Grenadine was my way of doing it. Light, dark, light, dark, light, dark, etc. Even in the dark I knew the clears were separated from the darks and never got mixed up.
- Bring in your own mixing set if your bar doesn’t have complete ones. You’ll need a wooden muddler, a short shake (that’s the metal shaker part of the mixing set – they sell short 15 oz ones about half height that go directly over the glass. They save you a ton of time and are fast to wash. Get a Julep strainer and a coil strainer – the coil is for shaken cream and fruit juice drinks, the Julep strainer is for stirred cocktails like Martinis, Manhattans and Rob Roys. By doing this faithfully every single day I was able to deposit double the cash that the other bartender deposited, and as much as the five waiters added together.
More Notes on Buying Bar Equipment
While you’re purchasing your pro-bar tools have them throw in some speed pourers you can practice with but also use when you’re tending bar at private parties, wedding receptions etc that you also rent yourself out to do. These speed pourers are really cheap for everyday purposes, but they have a lot of different types. Avoid the Shotgun Pourers; the liquor pours out way too quickly to be properly controlled using the counting method of pouring, and they’re not even good for pouring into a shot glass.
Site Author, David Jonathan Curtis: David Jonathan Curtis, a seasoned professional in his fifth decade of bartending and bar management, began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in both iconic Midtown clubs and Wall Street bars, generating over $1,350,000.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia and now Tampa, Florida. David’s roles as a Bartending Instructor at the American Bartending School in Tampa, while maintaining a second job bartending, and his years experience of managing bars, and working as a Brand Ambassador along with his extensive professional library of over 1,000 bartending books, highlight his dedication to continually refining his craft. He holds a diploma in Bar Management and is BarSmarts certified by Pernod Ricard.
