Everything You Need To Know About Barbacks
A bartender is essential to any drinking operation. Of course you need someone behind the bar slinging cocktails, stirring glasses, and pouring beers. But a role that is just as important in a bar is a barback. Someone who might not necessarily stand front and center in the eye of the customers, but rather scurries around washing glasses, refilling garnishes, stockpiling napkins, and pretty much doing all the other little tasks that make sure a bartender can perform their best.
Similar to bussers in restaurants, barbacks fill in behind the scenes, performing necessary duties that keep your establishment running smoothly everyday.
For that reason, barbacks are one of the most important pieces of a bar team.
If you’re becoming a new bar owner or looking to improve your current bar staff, hiring a knowledgeable, hard-working barback is key.
The Ultimate Guide to Cocktail Glasses
Certain cocktails benefit from a wide range of glasses that enhance both their appearance and taste. Picking the right drinkware boosts a beverage’s aroma and temperature. All this means that using the right cocktail glass is incredibly important.
But what type of glass does your bartender need for some of the most common cocktails on your bar’s menu?
Read on to learn about the most common types of cocktail glasses and how their design brings out different aspects of each beverage.
Should Your Business Be Open on a Holiday Weekend?
As consumers, we love federal holidays because it means an extra day for relaxing, hanging with friends, and drinking. For brewery, bar, and restaurant owners, however, the prospect of a federal holiday poses an interesting question: Should you stay open?
More often than not, for those who work in the hospitality industry, restaurants, bars, and brewery owners often decide to swing the doors open on traditional federal holidays to maximize a potential increase in traffic and sales.
But keeping a restaurant or similar establishment open during a federal holiday means understanding a few considerations. For example, recognizing that overtime requirements can mean you might need to pay your employees more than the average weekday. Consequently, staying open might only be profitable if you can ensure that you’ll experience increased traffic that day.
Overall, what are the advantages of keeping your bar, brewery, or restaurant open on a holiday? Alternatively, should you even stay open on these days. What are the potential benefits of choosing to give your staff the day off? And if you do decide to light up that open sign, how can you prepare?
We weighed both sides of the equation and offer a few tips and tricks on how to navigate those three- or four-day weekends.
7 Fresh Restaurant Decor Ideas
Ambiance is one of the most important factors in creating a restaurant’s atmosphere. Whether you’re looking to open a fine dining restaurant or a casual cafe, it’s important you choose decor that matches your location, clientele, and menu offerings.
But choosing the right restaurant design and decor ideas can be overwhelming because there are so many options out there.
Accordingly, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite restaurant decorating ideas along with tips to help you create your ideal restaurant interior.
WiFi Marketing: What It Is and Why Your Business Should Utilize It
“Excuse me. What’s your WiFi password?” How many times have you or your staff been asked this question by customers? The integration of the internet into the modern business model has shown no signs of losing connection.
Every business from coffee shops to breweries to public transportation and beyond are all optimizing free WiFi access to accommodate people’s desires for strong reception. While you have their attention, you might as well get a business opportunity out of it, right?
Nowadays, companies need to be able to provide easy access for their customers, and that’s where WiFi marketing comes into play.
Let’s dial in to the benefits WiFi marketing can bring your business in 2022.
37 Funny Bar Signs to Increase Foot Traffic to Your Brewery or Bar
As of April 2022, the Brewers Association recorded a record number 9,118 breweries operating in the United States. In such a crowded marketplace, how can you make your establishment stand out from the crowd? Sure, you can opt for traditional print or digital marketing. And social media should certainly be an essential part of your marketing strategy. But what are those one or two tips and tricks you can use to push your taproom ahead?
If you’re looking for a new, creative way to potentially drive extra foot traffic into your space. It might be easier than you think. Creating a clever or memorable sign can give your bar or brewery a distinct advantage over other businesses in the area.
Witty or humorous signs immediately establish a connection with potential customers. Plus, it leaves a memorable impression in patrons’ minds. And it’s an instant Instagrammable moment that people can post, helping you virally market your business for free!
Below you’ll find a list of 36 witty, funny ideas for bar signs to help increase foot traffic into your bar or brewery. Consider hanging these phrases up around your taproom, writing them on a chalkboard, or setting them out as their own sign on the sidewalk.
Use these clever repartees to draw potential customers in to drink, entice new patrons to check out your place, or as a way to directly increase your sales.
You shouldn’t use all of these ideas. This is more of a find-the-right-fit approach…quality over quantity. Take some time to comb through all the ideas, finding one that fits with your brand and your personal identity.
But once you find that buzzword, go to town discovering new ways to get this message out to your community, attracting new customers, and hopefully garner some free attention on social media.
16 Fresh Ideas for Promoting Your Bar and Taproom
For centuries, bars and taverns have been a gathering place where folks from all walks of life can gather and bond over a pint any time of the day. And today, you can add taprooms to that list of gathering spaces. There are many times you can count on your bar or taproom being a little busier, like on payday or during happy hour. But what about the days when business tends to be a little slow? How can you continue to drive traffic to your establishment during those off-peak hours of the week?
To cultivate customers, you must give them a reason to stop by any day, whether it’s a Tuesday afternoon or a Friday night.
If you’re a bar owner struggling to find creative ways to drive customers in the door, keep reading.
Promoting your bar doesn’t have to be complicated. Keep it simple by following these fresh takes on increasing foot traffic to your bar.
How to Make the Best Bar Food Menu
We’ll make this simple: If you serve food, you will most likely sell more beer. Adding a food menu to your brewery or bar program has many advantages. It creates a reason for people to stay and order more beers; it increases your revenue; it brings new customers into your space; it gives folks more reason to love your brand.
Sure, we understand that building a bar menu means tackling a whole new beast, paying for a food service license, planning for food cost, and investing in the labor and equipment necessary to operate a kitchen.
But the perks are worth the potential problems.
“If you do sell food as a brewery, you will also sell more beer,” says Tim McLaughlin, founder of GoTab, a revolutionary contactless ordering and payment web service that recently launched an all-in-one restaurant point-of-sale system. “We’ve worked with breweries that have done studies, and every single one finds they sell more beer when they sell food.”
If you do not sell food, now is the time to consider adding dishes to your menu. Fittingly, we have all the details you need to design the best bar menu.
And once you have your bar menu mapped out, Untappd for Business is the ultimate tool to build a menu for your establishment that you can publish to your website, digital menus, Facebook, and the Untappd app. Leveraging QR codes and well-designed custom contactless print and digital menus helps you create a safe environment for your customers and staff.
A Beginner’s Guide to Running a Successful Brewery Instagram
Over the last half decade, Instagram has become the social platform of the beer industry. Consumers have created their own craft beer subculture where top influencers have thrived. For breweries, posting gorgeous beer shots and announcing releases have become crucial to their marketing strategy.
With over 9,000 breweries around the country, it’s imperative to find a way to make your brewery, bar, or restaurant stand out. Cultivating a current, consistently updated Instagram profile is imperative to reach your target audience.
But where do you start?
For example, how many times a week should you post? What time should you post? What should you post? What about those “hashtags?” Should I hire a social media manager? And how about Instagram influencers? We’re breaking it all down and more to tap into what makes people double-tap.
Here is a beginner’s guide with all the basics to help you build a foundation for the best Instagram account for your business.
The Top Guide to Lighting Your Restaurant or Bar
Designing your restaurant, bar, or brewery sets the tone for your entire establishment. How you outfit your space speaks to your larger brand and will attract potential customers. We have several top tips on how to design the overall look of your brewery or restaurant, but often it’s the smallest of details that matter, such as your lighting.
What may seem like a very tiny detail such as lighting can actually have a big impact on your business. The lighting sets the mood of your operation and illustrates your brand to your potential customer base.
For example, if you are a family-friendly space operating during the day, your lighting should be different than a twenty-one-plus space that sees most of its traffic come through at night. All these factors contribute to the type of lighting that you’ll use in your brewery or restaurant.
Seems like a lot?