All About Sarah Buckholtz

Eat, drink, and be scary!

Halloween celebrations will be back in full force this year.

According to data released by the National Retail Federation, consumers are looking to spend nearly $12 billion this Halloween.

All Ouija board signs point to Halloween shaping up to be a major money-making holiday this year.

With folks willing to spend money on Halloween, you can bet that they want to celebrate in style on Oct. 31, 2022. With that in mind, consider hosting a fun, creative Halloween party at your bar or brewery. Not only will the holiday be a great chance to host a community event, but it’s also an excellent opportunity for your business to boost traffic and revenue.

Here are four ideas to throw your best Halloween party this year!

Updated: 2/26/2024

The well drink menu is a standard feature of any bar or liquor-licensed restaurant with bartenders mixing these cocktails for customers night after night.

Although you won’t often find well cocktails on the menu, the simple ingredients in these drinks are unsung heroes because they’re always in high demand.

For that reason, it’s important to get a good grasp of the basics when it comes to well cocktails, learn the ingredients, and understand what makes them a profit maker for the house.

(Above photo by Nuff . on Unsplash)

Those batches of beer, like your brewers, are continuously in motion.

As the holidays approach and your staff continues to work hard to bottle and distribute those final batches of seasonal beers, it’s a good opportunity to thank them for making it all possible.

As the brewing season of 2023 approaches, help keep your brewers comfortable (and caffeinated) with some practical, brewer-friendly gifts.

These days, serving food has become a core component of any drinking establishment. Adding a food menu to your bar or brewery creates a reason for people to stay and order more beers, increases your revenue, and brings more customers into your space.

And while the popularity of to-go meals increased during the pandemic, today, people are once again going out to eat in person at bars and breweries.

And when potential customers decide where to eat, the caliber of the meal takes precedence.

In fact, of the 2,600 diners questioned for a TouchBistro 2022 Diner Trends Report, sixty-eight percent agree that when deciding where to eat, food quality is the most important factor.

With food at the top of diners’ minds, bars and breweries, especially those just considering whether to serve food at all, should focus on developing a menu full of money-making foods to draw in those hungry customers.

The appreciation that people have for a delicious dinner is one thing that will never change.

In fact, Forbes reports that by the end of 2022, “the food service industry is expected to hit $898 billion in sales, a $99 billion increase over 2021 and a $220 billion increase over that unprecedented 2020.”

If you’re a restaurant owner looking to reassess your menu offerings in order to give customers their next extraordinary culinary experience, a prix fixe menu is one of the simplest and most successful strategies.

Let’s guide you through the ins and out of the prix fixe menu, how to build one, and what makes it profitable.

There is nothing better than a full bar. As a bar owner, witnessing patrons sipping cocktails and engaging in conversation is a sign of repeat business and a profitable day.

According to a National Restaurant Association study, the typical bartender can make thirty-six drinks in an hour. To get the most out of your liquor bottles and maximize your margins on a busy night, it’s critical that your bartenders are well-versed in standard liquor pours.

We’re here to make sure your staff understands the standard liquor pouring techniques so they can consistently make the best-tasting cocktails for your customers.

Forbes called it.

While researching food industry trends for 2022, they forecasted that the pandemic would drive a revolution in digital and delivery services by changing how people purchased and received food like curbside pickup, online ordering, and delivery.

Now, it’s a sentiment shared across the industry. Boston Consulting Group reported in the article “The $100 Billion Digital Lifeline for Restaurants” that “Delivery’s market share jumped from 7% in 2019 to about 20% in 2020. Across the industry, digital ordering now represents 28% of all orders compared with 10% before the pandemic, with most brands showing increases.”

As customers continue to order their food online, it’s time for breweries, bars, and restaurants to consider food delivery services (if you haven’t already). Should you develop your own delivery system for your restaurant or lean into a third-party alternative?

We’re breaking down the advantages, disadvantages, and potential revenue streams that a food delivery app can provide to help you consider all your options.

As restaurant owners, we want to make sure that our customers have an enjoyable experience—this starts the moment they walk in the door to make a reservation. It’s our goal to get them seated and enjoying their meal as soon as possible.

Long Range Systems, one of the industry’s top providers of technology that improves the guest experience, was so curious about the amount of time hungry patrons spend waiting in line that they conducted a survey with 267 restaurant owners and managers.

The results indicated that nearly ninety-three percent of restaurants have at least some wait-time periods.

On average, the study found that people waited almost a half hour for a table, with restaurants recording waitlists of an average of 6.6 hours per week.

With those numbers in mind, and as businesses continue to lean into the digital age, a smart investment for restaurants could be leveraging a waitlist or wait-in-line app. These platforms can help you manage bookings, text patrons when their table becomes available, and, overall, make the experience of waiting for a table more convenient for your customers.

Here are our best recommendations for wait-in-line apps for restaurants that help you smoothly run your business while also creating an enjoyable experience for your customers.

“We eat with our eyes first.” – Apicius, first century Roman gourmand

As reported by The Guardian, experimental psychologist Charles Spence asserts that, “when the plating is artistic, people tend to enjoy the food more than if the same ingredients were just dumped on the plate.”

In reality, plating science is far more intricate than that.

Start by considering the ingredients, preparation technique, and flavors you can create when preparing the ideal dish.

Although the majority of us are aware that food on a plate should look appetizing, not everyone is aware of how much plating influences how food tastes.

By taking pride and practice in your restaurant’s plating techniques, the more likely it is that patrons will share their experience on social media, effectively driving more traffic to your business—while also demonstrating your restaurant’s culinary skills and style.

Put the “art” in culinary arts by taking plating and presentation seriously!

Here is a staggering fact: Over 726,936 bartenders currently work in the United States, according to demographic information from Zippia.

And that number is only going to get higher. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the employment of bartenders is projected to grow eighteen percent from 2021 to 2031, with about 105,300 openings for bartenders projected each year, on average, over the next decade.

Many of those positions are anticipated based on the need to replace workers who change careers or retire.

If your business is looking to hire a bartender who has the proper bartending licenses and skills, keep reading as we break down salaries and tipping expectations for bartenders.