Bars are one of the most common retail business establishments, and generally serve alcoholic beverages, snack foods, and oftentimes have well-designed interiors for people to hang out in and socialize. As such, bars can be quite profitable, especially if you have a good location and venue. But it’s always a good idea to find ways to make your bar more profitable in order for it to thrive and grow. So let’s take a look at ways you can further improve your bar’s operations and sales:
Keep It Stocked
There’s nothing more that can damage your sales than poor inventory. Make sure that everything on the bar menu is available, from drinks to food. Even if you’re not expecting a heavy crowd on weekdays or certain days of the month, you should always have beer, liquor, and other alcoholic beverage stocked as you’ll never know if a group might come in and invite other people to come over. So always keep track of your inventory, and set a minimum inventory level which you should maintain every day. Additionally, you should also have other essentials such as bar napkins, straws, glassware, garnishes, and cocktail mixing equipment.
Have a Signature Cocktail or Dish
A lot of people would just order the usual stuff beer, cocktail shots, and other regular mixes, and a side of fries or wedges. However, if you have something delicious or novel that other bars (or even restaurants) don’t have, that could be a way for you to attract more customers. Additionally, you can price unique signature dishes and cocktails higher than your usual beverages to increase profitability. So try experimenting with your own signature dish or drink, have people test it and make improvements until you’re ready to feature it on the menu. Make sure to market your signature dish or drink in your bar’s windows, pavement signage, website, and social media page. You can even make a promo such as letting your customers get a discount or freebie if they take a picture with your signature food or drink and share it on social media.
Capitalize on Happy Hours
So, happy hours aren’t entirely new, in fact, they’re one of the most popular ways of drawing in new customers and keeping your regular ones. If you’re not familiar with happy hours, it’s a period of time wherein you sell your drinks at lower prices, but you’d be able to charge full price past the happy hours. As such, to increase your profitability, find ways to make your customers stay way past the happy hour either by hosting events such as trivia night, open mic night, sports parties, or even TV series marathons or premier parties.
Hire Good Bartenders
A friendly and skilled bartender can make a huge difference to your bar. No one would want to have a bartender who’s grumpy, gets into arguments, or doesn’t know how to mix drinks or serve properly. However, you should always expect a high turnover rate within the bar industry (it’s quite normal, in fact, as bartenders often jump from one bar to the next). Even so, you should always be strict with your hiring process and pick the best possible ones for your bar. You should also make a rule requiring bartenders to provide a 30-day notice prior to resigning in order for you to find a replacement, as well as have the resigning bartender train the new one.
Invest in a Bar Software
There are many software available for restaurants, bars, and cafes, and it’s important that you choose the best one suited for your business. A good and comprehensive bar point-of-sale or POS system should be able to help you keep track of inventory (specifically the alcohol served, and what needs to be restocked), customers’ tabs, enable mobile ordering, bill splitting, and creating reports. Investing in one can eliminate errors in orders, streamline your bar’s business operations, and make inventory management a lot easier.
Conclusion
Bars will always be one of those retail businesses that people will flock to, as long as they’re properly stocked, marketed, and have good staff. More and more bars pop up, so it’s important to keep your bar competitive and stay ahead of the game, with these tips, that won’t be much of a problem.