The Critical Role Of Bar Consultancy

The global hospitality industry has shifted incredibly quickly in the last decade as demand for more premium and high-quality experiences has increased.

Food and drink offerings across bars, restaurants, hotels, and pubs have been forced to significantly up their game as consumers demand better. As a consequence of this democratization of quality, bar consultancy has become increasingly important for hospitality venues.

This makes sense given drinks’ central role in consumer experience in venues. But why is getting your bar right so important?

In simple terms, the bar is a place where you can maximize your revenue opportunity or lose a lot of money.

What Are The Risks?

No hospitality operator would attempt to fit out a professional kitchen, develop a menu, or put a kitchen brigade together without knowledge and expertise.

The same approach should be taken to developing your bars.

We have seen countless venues make extremely costly mistakes on their bars through poorly thought-out concepts, design, market knowledge, and drinks development. The reality is, fitting out even a small bar to serve a high-quality drinks offering is very expensive. Here are just a few of the errors we have seen and you should avoid.

1. Feasibility

There have been many cases that we have seen of would-be hospitality entrepreneurs getting their venue concept wrong. As the common wisdom dictates, you need to know your market. Hospitality is an extremely saturated market, so getting your concept right for the market in your venue’s area is critical.

Robust feasibility studies should be undertaken by the venue owners or, better still, a hospitality or bar consultancy. An understanding of competition, local demographics, and footfall are just a few of the things to look at. Business is about solving problems for customers, and a hospitality venue should be treated with the same mindset when scoping out your venue and concept.

2. Bar Design

Setting up for success is vital, and when considering bar design, this couldn’t be more important. The ideal bar design has a few key features. It needs to be the right size to deliver the expected revenue, taking into account peak service times (peak service revenue can often be 100% more than on a typical day or shift).

The bar needs to be equipped to serve your drinks menu with ease. Poorly designed bar stations and the need for bartenders to move too much behind the bar to make drinks will cost you a lot of money, as well as being an endless source of frustration for your team.

Poorly designed bar stations can be costly to replace, as they are often bespoke fabrications in stainless steel, with prices starting in the thousands.

3. Menu Development

Developing a drinks menu that fits the audience, considers trends, hits margins, is efficient to serve, and tastes delicious is a huge skill. This is where bar consultants are important.

Understanding your venue concept, audience, products, and trends is the day-to-day for a bar consultant, and there is no shortcut. Hospitality venues must maximize their profitability, and having an excellent drinks program in place will help you on the road to success from day one.

4. Systems

Day-to-day systems are often overlooked by hospitality entrepreneurs. They are vital as inefficiency in the day-to-day running of a bar can cause a decrease in customer experience and vitally lose money for the venue.

Hospitality venues tend to operate for the majority of the year, and small inefficiencies, such as wastage, can compound to be huge losses over the course of a year.

For example, if beer is pouring badly due to not being kept well or poor bartender training, it can end up costing in excess of £15,000 in lost revenue per year (based on one full drip tray of wastage across 10 taps every day).

Compounding financial inefficiencies due to poor systems will cost a fortune over the course of a year.

5. Training

Following on from systems, not investing in your people and their training is a common issue we see. Whether it is a new opening or an existing venue that has developed its menu, good training equals increased revenue and customer satisfaction.

Training should be an ongoing process, as it is in any workplace that requires its staff to service to a high standard. Some recommendations would be to offer practical and theoretical training ahead of openings, use bar consultants to oversee quality on the launch nights and provide refresher training at least twice per year to help troubleshoot and improve bar team performance.

In conclusion, the importance of a well-thought-out and professionally executed bar set up in the hospitality industry cannot be overstated. From feasibility studies and design to menu development, systems, and ongoing training, each aspect plays a crucial role in ensuring the bar’s success and profitability.

By avoiding common mistakes and investing in expertise, hospitality venues can create an exceptional consumer experience that not only meets but exceeds expectations, ultimately driving revenue and ensuring long-term success in a competitive market.

If you are working on a new venue or developing an existing one, get in touch with our team to see if we can add value to your project.

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