25 Things to Do to Make Your Bar a Failure

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Sure, you had a lot of great ideas when you started your bar–but it can be tough to balance your need for a profitable bar with your need to be original and true to your startup ideas. Perhaps over the years your “great ideas” have become “silly ideas,” and you’ve started falling into a lot of the traps that slowly kill bars. Take a good look at this list, and then take a good, hard look at your bar at both peak operating hours, and during your lulls. Are you doing any of the 25 things that are sure to make your bar a failure? Read more

Happier (More Profitable) Happy Hours

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Happy hour specials are a time-honored strategy for drawing patrons in on weekday evenings, when bars might not otherwise see too much of a crowd. However, you obviously don’t just offer bargain beer, wine, and well drink specials for the mere sake of giving your profits away; you want to make sure that the draw of these specials actually pays off. So ask yourself the question: is your happy hour “happy” enough, or could it be better? Is it boosting the bottom line, as it should?

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Restaurant and Wine News

Your Wine Is Gross, Here’s the Fix

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I love wine, but I usually don’t order it at bars. In fact, I frequently don’t even order it at restaurants. It’s not because I can’t find wine, actually it’s the opposite: wine is everywhere these days. The sad truth is, when I used to order wines at bars, most of the wines I ordered were disgusting–and if your wine sales are low, your wine might be disgusting, too.

If you open wines for single-glass pours on a haphazard basis, store the opened bottles behind the bar for an indeterminate amount of time, or stick all of your wine in the fridge, your wine is likely to be terrible. If you want to sell more wine (or at least sell the wine you’ve already purchased), you need to do better. This article offers four wine storage fixes to increase your wine sales.

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8 Easy Ways to Make your Bar Customers Happy Every Day

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Can you make your bar customers happier? (This is a trick question. The answer is “Yes.”) Since increasing your customer satisfaction is most important thing you can do to grow your business, we’re offering you eight tips to use in your bar, starting tonight.

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5 Types of Bar Regulars—Which Does Your Bar Have?

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If you recently opened or are planning to open a bar, you’ll need to be able to attract your future bar regulars. Who are these mysterious people? What do they like? How do you get them to come back? This article answers all your questions, and gives you tips that pack in the crowds.

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4 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day at Your Bar

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Earth Day is right around the corner, will your bar be packed for the holiday? With the increased emphasis that America is placing on planet stewardship, you can bet that your regular drinking crowd will be just as interested in saving the Earth as they are in trying the new springtime draft beers and cocktails. Here are four ideas to make sure your bar is the coolest place to be while helping to ward off Global Warming.

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Get More Bar Customers When You Add Vegan Cocktails

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The hot trend right now is veganism, and though savvy restaurants are beginning to cater to vegans (it’s one of our 2014 food predictions), bars haven’t yet realized that they’re missing a significant customer base. This article puts your bar in the know about non-vegan and vegan cocktail ingredients, and also recommends ways to get those vegans to notice your bar. Let’s get to it.

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3 Springtime Drinks That Bring Crowds

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Springtime is here, and that means that your guests’ drinking tastes have changed to reflect the warmer weather. In the springtime, your customers are clamoring for lighter, fruitier drinks that they can sip while lounging on your newly opened patio. These warm-weather drinks are the kind that inspire your customers to sit for hours in small, informal gatherings and laugh at the college students who walk by in flip-flops, shorts, mini-skirts… and goose bumps. To help you select your new featured drinks for your digital wine menu, I’ve compiled a list of what springtime drinks your customers are wanting right now. Read more

10 Ways to Pack Those Bar Stools Right Now

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Oh no! You’ve hit the slow season for bars! You’ve celebrated New Years, Valentine’s Day, Restaurant Week, Mardi Gras, and St. Patrick’s Day… but now you have to wait until Cinco de Mayo before another big drinking holiday happens. Here are 10 ways to get some butts in those bar stools of yours, even when it’s not a traditional drinking holiday. Read more

Mezcal and Tequila Tips for Bars and Restaurants

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To a tequila novice, the strong, agave-derived liquor (sometimes maligned by the nickname “to kill ya”) may stir up connotations of summer evenings made cooler by salt-rimmed margaritas served on ice (or even images of their frozen, slushy counterpart, churned into a glass with a slice of lime). Certainly, yes, this is one good use for the distinct, flavorful liquor – at least for the less aged variety that carries a sting of flavor many can only tolerate with salt and lime. For that matter, tequila’s smokey relative, mezcal, is starting to make the rounds in cocktails these days, too, with varying degrees of success. However, the truth is that a truly good tequila or mezcal is a soothing liquor that warms the body and is perfect – when unadorned by mixers or garnishes – for sipping slowly on a cold winter’s night, in much the same way one might nurse a fine Scotch.

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