On the Importance of Flagging Your Pourers and Facing Your Bottles The Same Way
The point here is that speed pourers loosen up over time with wear and tear. They leak. They fall out sometimes. You grab the bottle without looking and wrap your index finger around the top a little and press down slightly so it won’t leak or fall out. Most times they don’t. 99.99% of the time they don’t. If the pourer is facing wrong when you grab it it wastes time.
If you’re pouring 400 drinks an hour (9 seconds to make each drink) and losing a second on each straightening out your grip distracted by randomly oriented pourers and bottles that’s 400 seconds wasted. 400 seconds is 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
So that 9 second to make drink could have been made in 8 seconds and the 400 seconds saved is enough to make 50 more drinks an hour at 8 seconds a drink instead of 9.
50 drinks at $7 apiece is another $350 in the register and another $52 in tips an hour.
Argue with the numbers all you want but efficiency doesn’t come from random or sloppy work, it comes from discipline and focus. Precision makes more money.
Aim Them Right, Aim Them Left, Aim Them Straight Back
There’s a smart minority opinion which reasons that flagging all bottle pourers straight back is best.
Dave Markowitz, Director of Marketing at Professional Bartenders and Servers, Inc. (Site: www.probarserv.com – LinkedIn Profile:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-markowitz-2122a810 ), says:
“I used to flag my bottles to the left like every bartender to grab with my right hand and poor. That’s how I learned to do it a long time ago. Now I flag my bottles all facing backward. This way I can use both hands to pour drinks at the same time. If the bottles are flagged to the right or the left you cannot grab a bottle in your right hand and your left hand and pour at the same time. But if they’re facing to the front or to the back you can do this making it much quicker and (more) efficient.”
If you’re in a Bar where you’ve got influence try it out this way for a few weeks and see if it speeds service up and helps during peak hours. I’m planning to implement this in my bar immediately.
Site Author, David J. Curtis: David Curtis, a seasoned professional with decades of bartending and bar management experience began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife club scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in iconic Midtown clubs and tended bar briefly in the Wall Street area, generating over $1,350,000.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia and now Tampa in Exclusive Platinum Service Awards Clubs, 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.
