Managing a bar seems like a fun and easy job when you’re sitting back with your friends on a weekend, watching the bartenders move around behind the bar. Then you learn a little more and you realize that it isn’t just about making drinks or talking with customers; it actually involves work and hard work at that. If you decide that you really want to manage a bar, get ready by taking a few classes in restaurant management. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Instructions
1. Take classes on restaurant management and bartending from a local school, or better yet, get an Associates Degree in restaurant management. These classes teach you everything you need to know about running a bar and subbing in for the bartender who suddenly came down with a case of the chicken pox.
2. Hire the right employees and know when it’s time to fire someone. You might love the blonde who brings in the male customers, but if she can’t pour a drink and spends more time flirting than working, you’ll need to let her go. You have to find the right employees that will do their work correctly and fire people when they can’t.
3. Clean up frequently or assign an employee to clean up. You may think that you can get by just cleaning the bathrooms once a night, but most bars need to be cleaned several times throughout the night. If patrons trip over vomit at the front door or see a disgusting bathroom, it might be enough to make them go to the next bar down the street.
4. Keep the bar fully stocked at all times by doing inventory and learning what you’re running low on and ordering more. Every night you should do an inventory of the bar and make a list of what you need before the next night. Customers won't stick around a bar that doesn't have toilet paper or runs out of their favorite alcohol.
5. Watch for patrons that have had too much to drink and cut them off and help them find a ride home or call a taxi for them. A good manager knows when it’s time to call in the bouncer and flag down a taxi. All it takes is one drunken fight or drunk driving arrest to give the bar a bad name.
Tags: restaurant management, classes restaurant, classes restaurant management, right employees, that just, when time