Culture, Management

Tips For Bar Managers: How To Get Hours Back In Your Day

July 29, 2015

Posted in Restaurant Management, Industry & Culture

Tips For Bar Managers

The life of a bartender: getting home in the middle of the night after working a long Saturday night shift. Rolling out of bed early the next morning to start counting bottles. Crunching numbers, sorting papers, and placing orders across multiple distributors. And all the while, constantly pleading: ‘if only there was more time in the day!.

What if there was?

Bevspot’s tools allow users to gain back valuable time typically spent on counting bottles and inputting numbers into Excel.

The value of time is a big topic of discussion around here, especially with the industry experts on our team. Chris Bobola, former bar manager at Lincoln Tavern in Southie, is a true BevSpot expert, having experience both as a user while working at Lincoln, and now as an asset to the BevSpot Business Development team.

I sat down with Chris to discuss what it actually felt like to have more hours in the day while utilizing BevSpot at Lincoln, and what useful tasks can be done with all that extra time…

Menu

Chris: Having the extra time as well as the historical insights into our inventory allowed a strong grasp on how to better cater to Lincoln’s customer base. Using this information, our team was able to craft a more creative cocktail menu, catered directly to our clientele.

On the flip side, we were easily able to see the products with the lowest usage numbers and create weekly drink specials to help move that product faster.

Marketing

Chris: Having time to focus on marketing is extremely important, to any business. Even the most popular restaurants hit lulls and it’s important to have the time to work with the team on marketing promotions that drive more customers during slower times. Deals and theme nights are a great way to do this, and not spending so many hours on inventory gave us the flexibility to organize and execute on these ideas.

Operations

Chris: A restaurant is only as good as its staff! Putting the time in to prospect, interview, and hire the best is essential, but beyond that, training and really motivating the team makes for happy customers. We were able to schedule much more meaningful educational trainings for staff, enabling servers and bartenders to become more knowledgeable about the food and cocktails served.

Staff scheduling is another one of those restaurant managerial tasks that is not fun. So having the time to really put into a well-planned schedule makes for more efficient operations—less call-outs and coverage requests. It also helps ensure that prep work, openings, and shift turnovers run smoothly.

Face Time

Chris: In our digital world, it’s easy to overlook the importance of good old fashion schmoozing! Having the time (and energy) allows for more efficient meetings with sales reps to really learn about, and taste products for your establishment.

And, most importantly, time to interact and socialize with the guests! The food and booze may be up to par, but there is so much more that goes into rounding out the overall customer experience.

Find out more Tips For Bar Managers here:

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