Tips and Tricks for Restaurant Owners

Our high qualified consulting team will assist you in opening or renovating your own coffee shop, wine bar, restaurant. We develop turnkey projects with customized consulting services. Whether you are opening a new bar from the beginning or you wish to reinvent your place, our consultants will help you make your idea comes a success business, figuring out what you can improve and where you’re doing wrong. According to a market research, food and drinks are a major factor in the decision of going to a restaurant or bar, but the first factor is the atmosphere that convinces customers to come in. Our staff will help you to create the right bar for the type of clients you are going to have. We believe that a bar is passion, creative and professional through cooperation with chefs and managers. You will talk about your skills and passion, and we will turn your dream into reality focusing on business profitability of your idea. Our consultants provide great expertise in solving issues in hospitality industry worldwide.

Bar & Restaurant Consulting Services With Customized Solutions

  • We start to give you the evaluation of your bar “as it is” and suggest basic things to do to improve the business at no costs
  • We provide the Market Analisys of the area and kind of clients you will have
  • We focus on the atmosphere of your bar that convinces customers to come in
  • We help you find the right market niching and redesign the menu with new specialties
  • We prepare a proper wine list and original cocktails pairing with the food on the menu
  • We develop the business plan for startups or new investments to renovate old bars from Market Analisys to Feasibility Study balancing investment costs and earnings and Project Developments
  • We design and provide the proper Marketing Strategy to maxime profits
  • We teach and train you on how to use a model for accounting and inventory systems, to easily get control of costs and earnings for each product of your menu
  • We help you select the right local suppliers for your bar, and discuss the terms of delivery and payment
  • We can offer interior designers, furniture, bar accessories & tools, sound & lighting equipments, construction team
  • We will help you select the right music for your bar style
  • We offer a professional training services for your staff to running a successful venue offering great service to your customers

Our Consulting Team will assist you in opening new bar or renovate old bars, and develop turnkey projects.

Bar & Restaurant Marketing Ideas

Bar and Restaurant Marketing is necessary for any bar, but mind, the bar marketing campaign will depend on your bar aspect and identity. Only after creating a strong bar identity, you can define the marketing strategy that will fit for your clientele market. List things that can make your bar unique and special in order to create a strong identity for your bar in the area. How you run your bar successfully depends on giving the right answer to following question: Why would customers want to prefer your bar instead of another bar? To have a well branded bar, look for exclusive things to set up, and think of:

  • People who live or work in the area. To increase the chances for success, identify your potential customers, age, tastes and preferences. Maybe you also need a demographics report
  • Spell out the image you want to project to targeted customers
  • Business hour
  • Your passion, it is important to decide if focusing on a cocktail bar or a tea bar
  • Your skills, if you are a wine connoisseur, you will point to become the reference point for wine lovers in the area
  • Suppliers, check if there are good suppliers of products you are going to sell in your bar. Oysters and Champagne bar coud be a good idea, but first check if you can have a supplier that brings you fresh oysters every morning
  • Bar design and atmosphere

Once you have your identity, start promotion. You need to spread the word among residents and to inform them about the quality of your food and friendly staff. Define a budget for promotion activity, start up budget and ongoing promotion. To have a vast clientele, clients must be informed about your unique products and services. Define which media, local TV, internet, newspaper, magazines, free press, brochures, etc., better suite your needs according to your promotional budget. Prepare a simple message to be used in all media, emphasizing if your bar is located on the beach or in a historical building, if you have a first class chef in your kitchen, if you have a supplier that brings you daily fresh mozzarella from Italy, if your bartender is very good in mixology and use unusual ingredients in cocktails. Customers must remember one word of the message, and associate with your bar. The social media solution such as Twitter and Facebook, could be a good marketing choice for your bar, but ask yourself if you have enough time for it. If not, it is better to instruct a company specialized in new media advertising in order to post cocktail recipes, to create bar contests and to promote special events dedicated to wine tasting or nightly food.

Bar & Restaurant Promotion Ideas

Successful bar promotion depends on attracting new and repeat clients. People who are going out for the night look for drink specials, music and special events. The most effective bar promotion idea is to reach hundreds of customers and inform them that in your bar they will find exactly what they are looking for. Use Facebook and Twitter to publish weekly bar information so followers can be up to date on what’s happening night by night in your bar and easily share information with their friends. Think of what people like to do every day of the week, their habits and what they eat and drink. Here is few ideas for your night events:

  • From Monday to Wednesday : At the beginning of the week focus on creating delicious food and set soft music to allow people to meet with friends or coworkers and to talk about a new business idea. You can advertise a fixed price menus or even launch a special event together with one of your supplier. He will offer his food or drink for free to all clients and you allow him use your bar space for the night. The event will be advertised on both your and your supplier social media and best photos of the night published online. Similar special events can be realized also with fashion stores in the area, they will show the new collections while guests eat some snacks for free, and you get money with drinks. Another idea to attract customers is to advertise a light dinner free for 2 with each bottle of wine.
  • From Thursday to Saturday : Pop up the volume for the weekend nights and focus on creating excitement to your clients, drinks will be more important than food, so advertise special cocktails or exclusive wine because your bar must always offer things that people cannot find in other bars. To attract more customers promote each unique night, like healthy cocktails night, craft beers night, 90s night, DJ set, live music.
  • Sunday : People are tired of saturday night events but still want to enjoy a dinner with some friends. Provide easy to cook but unusual food maybe local or exotic specialities, alchol free drinks, amateur music. Sunday is the ideal night to bring people closer, providing an unforgettable and warm experience to your customers.

Bar Drink Menu

The real skill of a bar manager is designing a wine, beer and cocktail list that looks good and maximises profitability through right pricing.

  • Drinks & Cocktail List : There are a lot of drinks and cocktails that are universally popular and all bartenders should know their recipes, but every bar must have a list of specialty cocktails that will change periodically according to seasons and fresh ingredients available, but always using the best spirits, fresh juices, and techniques.
  • Spirit Selection : There are a lot of wine, beer and spirit options on the market, and the choice of selecting best brands without breaking going to bankruptcy is hard. Don’t just follow the latest promotion of popular brands, but gain a reputation for originality and fresh ideas. Set a spirit list balancing the quality of a product in relation to its cost and the end use of it. Buy rum of excellent quality to serve separately, and buy medium quality to serve mixed in a cocktail.
  • Ice, Fresh Juice and Syrup : Buy a good ice maker and take it always clean. Juices will be always fresh and served with a slice of same fruit. Syrups will be customized according to seasonal ingredients.

Restaurant Design and Equipment

A fast bartender is a profitable bartender. A fast barista will serve more people and you will get more money. Check time your bartenders take to make a drink and your baristas take to serve an espresso.coffee. The time to make a drink depends on your staff and how well the bar area is designed. The ergonomic design of your bar is the main factor to maximize profit and allows you to offer a good service with fewer staff. A well designed open space will allow you to see the entire area of the bar and keep an eye on all clients. Design the back bar area so that all drink making stations are in the same area, and group all your beer taps together. If your bar work space is well organized, bartenders won’t be bumping into each other when running from one end of the bar to another to pour two different brews. Check periodically time your bartenders take to make a drink or serve a glass of wine. Buy good equipment from juicers to ice makers, strainers to glassware, and don’t save money on their maintanance. Your bar equipment must work correctly all the time. Be sure that you maintain and update your beer draft system, dishwashing set-up, and all other basic equipments.

Bar Cocktail Station

A well designed cocktail bar station will allow for better utilization of bar space, reduce the motion of bartenders, and maximizing the speed and quality of cocktail output. The cocktail station must be also designed to be quick cleaning.

  • All must be labeled
  • Everything must have a place
  • The high usage items must be at the bartender fingertips
  • Liquor bottles must be near the drink making stations
  • The soda guns must be placed on side of the ice well
  • A 3 sink system of dump, rinse and ice is welcome
  • Storage area for cocktail utensils with integrated drainage and plumbing
  • Insulated ice well with at least 2 compartments
  • Drainage area, a perforated tray for drainage and plumbing
  • Two cleaning water jets with a push down activation system for shaker and glass
  • Storage area for bottle bin with easy access
  • Liquid and solid waste chute with separation unit for both liquid and solids for easy disposal of shaker and glass contents.The liquid drains through the perforated surface and is expelled through the drainage and plumbing. At the end of service, the disposal drawer can be simply lifted out of the unit and the solid waste disposed of accordingly
  • Long retractable tap / shower head system that will be used as a conventional tap and as a shower head to wash down the unit at the end of service
  • Hot water jet system to clean the waste separation unit

Restaurant Staff Selection and Training

All people who work in a bar need to enjoy taking care of people, to be outgoing and friendly, and to be able to work quickly and under pressure. They have to get passionate about the products sold in the bar and have to see the bar job as an honorable profession. They never leave a table full of clients waiting for their drinks, never serve people the wrong drinks, always stay alert for new clients coming in and show them a table. An other ability is to keep the bar area neat and clean, bottles and glasses in the right areas.

Beverage Management Services

Set up with an inventory control system of accountability that will account all products used in your bar daily and weekly. Provide with inventory system to account for every bottle of beer in your bar, and a system also for draft beer to reduce your waste (average for draft beer keg waste is 20%) as the follows:

  • Label each rack of the bar with brand of beer / wine / liquor and do the same in the store room
  • Establish a bottle arrangement system for liquors and wines 1 for 1, including the empty bottle form for behind bar
  • Create a system and forms for dead stock inventory
  • Analysis of drink pricing for all beverages
  • Establish a cost control form
  • Create a manual for bartenders with some special recipes

Get Your Bar Off the Ground with Professional Bar & Restaurant Consulting Services

We know the diversity of clients we work with, French bakery, Italian coffee shop, night bar, artisanal hot-dog stand, bio and vegan fresh juice bar, and we don’t change bar owner mission and vision, but we serve the particular needs of the client. Before implementing or improving in existing bars, any systems (accounting systems, organization, staff training, health code protocols), we spent half day to understand bar owner needs and dreams.