If you run a bar forget about the luxury of other people who after work day go home and don’t think about it anymore. But good thing is that good organization of your business increases the possibility to go home with a big smile on your face because you made a profit, your guests are satisfied and the work flowing smoothly .
In this blog I will share with you important information that will help you how to run a bar successfully.
Basic Elements of Successful Bar Management
Although running a bar is quite complex job, it is possible to extract the most important segments of this hospitality business.
These are primarily : working in accordance with legal requirements , development of business plan, organization of employees and managers, compliance with appropriate criteria for hygiene and health, selection of suppliers of goods for your bar, taking care of the guests,monitoring business performance through daily, monthly and annual reports and marketing for your bar.
How to Run A Bar With Full Compliance With The Law
Regulations for hospitality business where people handling with food and drinks is strictly regulated by the regulations of public agencies. Bars where people consuming alcohol must be in full compliance with the law. What you need to have if run a bar is Liquor license, Food establishment license, ( if you want to have this option in your bar ) and some other licenses and taxes like a general business license, zoning permits, occupancy permits or sales tax permits.
Liquor license for Bars
You can not serve alcohol in any premises without a license from the state, and in some areas of USA need permission from your county or city. As part of the licensing process, some states may require that you need to register in the office of Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.
Research the laws and licensing procedures in your state to ensure that you know what you need, and ask for the license application as earlier as you can because Issuance of licenses can often take three or four months.
Liquor licence costs
Costs of Liquor licence varies depending on the type of bar that you have, bar location and number of issued licenses in your area. Mostly issued Liquor licence for bars are type 47 and 48.
Liquor licence type 47 is generally used for bars and restaurants. License fee varies from a few thousand to several hundred thousand dollars. Price depends on the number of issued licenses in the region and the location of your bar. In the past this license worth over $ 300,000 depending on the country where the catering facility was located!
Liquor license type 48 is used in bars, which require that the customer has been at least 21 years old to enter into these bars. As well as the license type 47 price ranges from several thousand to several hundred thousands U.S. dollars depending on the location of the bar and the number of issued licenses in the region.
Food establishment license
Since that you will perhaps serve some type of food in your bar, snacks, sandwiches or cakes you must have permission from the local public health authorities.
Usually you have to submit revised plan of your hospitality facility to public health department, and only after review and issued approval, you can start to build your bar and prepare for opening health and safety inspection .
After construction, before the opening of the bar inspections will visit you for health issues .
Upon review, if you meet all the requirements, the Food establishment license will be issued and you can start serving your guests.
Keep in mind that you do not have to wait for Liquor licence to open a bar – simply you can not serve alcohol , and other beverages and food can be serve to your guest.
Other permits and taxes
In addition to Liquor licence and Food establishment license your city or county may require a general business license, zoning permits, occupancy permits or sales tax permits.
As a bar owner, you are also required to submit employer withholding and federal income taxes.
For more information about necessary permits to open a bar contact local officials, your state government for taxes and international service revenues ( IRS ).
Create a Business Plan For Your Bar
If you ever had any kind of business then surely you know that without a good business plan there is no good work and neither the realization of profits. Even the best bars and restaurants fail when the money is invested without detailed plan and expenses overcome real financial opportunities.
Successful business plan for your bar must be primarily simple, specific, realistic and complete .
Simple. A simple business plan is one that has content that is practical and easy to understand.
Specific . Goals must be specific and measurable and include clear actions and activities in certain time frames with clearly defined responsible persons for these tasks .
Realistic . The objectives and budgets must be realistic, this is the one of the most important characteristics of a successful business plan. Nothing can ruin job as placing unrealistic goals in a business plan.
Complete. The business plan must include all the required elements including unforeseen situations such as adverse weather conditions !
Creation of business plan for the bar is not an easy job to do. But with the help of already-made models and samples you can easely i make your own business plan.
Here you can find free examples and templates of business plans for different types of catering business.
The effort will definitely pay off.
Make The Best Shift Schedule For Your Bar
For successful operation in your bar is very important to make a good shift schedule for your staff. Divide your staff i into teams and do it properly. This is very important aspect to enhance your workers to do job as a team. How to make best working teams?
AT first you need to connect very qualified workers with those less experienced or less talented workers to enhance the operation of the bar.
Useful tips for staff organization
Share your bartenders and waiters in two groups , the strengths and weaknesses of workers .
Make assessments by experience, skills or talent .
- Make two teams.
- Extract the two of your best workers and make two teams around them.
- Analyze your workers and make a list of workers starting from the strongest to the weakest .
- When you form teams, give assignments to each worker individually .
- In the same way you can schedule your staff on bartenders and waiters.
Manage your staff shift schedule
- Develop written rules for time off.
- Emphasize the fact that workers are not eligible for the absence when you have already made ​​a schedule shift .
- When you see that workers are abusing the option of taking time off at a certain time, remove them from the schedule for a longer period of time, it will hit his financial resources.
- In order to make shift schedule easier for the next time document all unauthorized absences.
Make A Contract With Drink Suppliers
Where to buy goods, and on what conditions is one of the most important financial decisions you need to make in your bar business.
This means that your bar suppliers need to meets your requirements such as payment terms, delivery times, quality of the goods and many other factors which will decided would you do business with particular supplier again. And of course at the good price which will make both sides happy.
You should understand your supplier’s position also, none should not be forced into corner.
Make a list of the factors that are most important to you.
When you are setting objectives you should certainly think about the following things:
1. payment terms
2. price
3. quality
4. delivery schedule
5. transport of packaging
Be prepared for compromise before you start to negotiate. Decide what compromise you can or can not accepted and afford it. Remember that your bar business is not measured according to income, but the difference between revenues and expenditures which give you the possibility that your business can grow.
Hygiene and Safety in Your Bar
The fundamental responsibility of bar management is protection from drink or food borne illness of your staff and guests. Managers should make sure that everyone is familiar with sanitary procedures through adequate training in order to achieve the goal – working in accordance with the highest standards of cleanliness and hygiene conditions for the well-being of our guests and employees.
Create clear rules regarding the implementation of sanitary measures in the building and carry out control on the implementation of the same by your employees .
Each year in the United States occurs over 300,000 injuries in bars and restaurants. The most commonly injured are young employees who, due to their negligence or ignorance about the use of accessories come in a very dangerous situation.
Interior design , layout, equipment selection, and training of staff are crucial in order to fulfill this task. Regarding this any failure could be the reason of physical, chemical and microbiological contamination, whether it’s about failures in the selection of suitable materials for liquid sanitation, but also ignorance of hygiene rules from personnel when delivering drinks. Good hygiene practices and safety at work primarily involves regular hand washing and handling equipment by proper way.
In the year 2014 in the USA will start with the implementation of changes in the law to protect the health of employees in the catering industry. These changes are related to the basic rights of employees regarding health care and the payment taxes for staff health care. Changes in the law are more related to big restaurants and bars that have more than 50 full-time employees .
Taking care of guests
Your customer is the most important messenger of your bar and do not let that any of your guest leave your bar unsatisfied.
Make them happy and they will make you happy. Let it be the motto of your business.
Guest’s complaints may be unfounded, but we recommend that you first check what happened. My recommendation is to put yourself in guest shoes in order to appeal to better understand and from their perspective, because your perception and the perception of your customer for the same thing is not identical.
In any case, communication with guests is highly important. Encourage your staff to communicate with guests and to make suggestions and criticism freely to improve your business.
- Make sure to keep your regular guests through a variety of loyalty programs Create VIP Club for your loyal guests.
- Do not skimp. Send a free round of drinks to happy customers near your table who obviously delights in your bar.
Come see us again ! – The message is clear, and will certainly accepted for mutual satisfaction.
Bar Sales Monitoring
If you really want to know what happening with your profitability and financial condition you need to look regularly into your key or critical numbers .
A key or critical numbers give you a sense of how profitable is your business before your accountant says you that. In this way, you are on the right path to the greatness, and you are able to identify a potential problems and solve them on time .
Important reports that we use for exploring the important key numbers include daily , monthly and annual reports.
Daily reports are giving daily important information that helps you to work more efficiently every day. These reports help managers to manage inventory and labor costs in order to meet their goals.
The numbers you need to consider every day are : Daily sales report , Items sales report and The hourly stuff labor report.
Bar managers who do not have control over prime costs often has bad management system. This is the one of the main indicators of how well is one business organized.
The primary costs are the sum of money spent for goods , wages , taxes and fees. It is the best indicator for measuring profit potential of your business.
Use appropriate POS system that will provide at any time information about the performance of your business.
Bar managers who want to increase their profits want to know their expenses at the end of each week. Simply Manage numbers follow the movement of your business.
Generally , you can say that your business is successful if your prime costs do not take up more than 65 % of total profits.
Creative Marketing Ideas For Your Bar
No matter what kind of bar you run, whether it’s night bar or is more visited during the day, it’s a place where people come to relax and socialize with other people. To attract the attention of your potential customers and retain old customers you need to from time to time to offer something new, fresh and interesting and bring them closer to your world and your business.
Become a sponsor or offer your place and facility to become a part of organized events such as musical or various art festivals. Be a host for different types of creative performances.
Your bar can be easily turn into a gallery of pictures or photos of young artists for one or two days. They will surely invite their friends, and if you manage to be a good host they will surely return to your bar again.
Get in touch with various organizations, especially those with musical or theatrical character .
Organize a one-man stand-up show in your bar. We all need more laugh today. Organize a book promotion and attract lovers of the written word.
Do not forget to use sports events. Put the large canvas, and promote special offers during the sports season.
Promotions of different types of drinks and cocktails are an essential way of advertising for your bar. Call hostesses, DJ – s and make theme evenings and make different packages for guaranteed fun.
” Aperitif Time” is another fancy way to attract guests . Offer free food, beautifully designed tasty snacks and increase the price of drinks. During these events people drink much more . Good fun with goodprofits – fantastic, right?
Cover all events with a well- organized promotion. Use some of the most effective marketing strategies. Good methods for promotion of bar events are: posters, flyers, radio and TV ads as well as through the internet – social media, like Facebook , G+ and Twitter.
If you have more examples that we could include in essential elements for running a bar please write it in a comments.
Good luck
