TOP WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR BAR SALES
by Robert Plotkin


Ask a room full of food and beverage operators why they’re in business, and the likely response will be “to make money”. All except for the one businesswoman in the back, the one with the air of confidence, who knows that the best answer is “to exceed guest expectations”. 

The formula for long-term success in this business is far from tricky - keep the clientele intrigued and they and their discretionary income will continue to return. Dissatisfied guests will leave and tear out your listing from the yellow pages, and advise everyone they come in contact with for weeks to do the same. 

In this highly competitive marketplace, you’re either on the way up, or on the way down. Taking a breather and maintaining status quo solidly fixes you at a point in space, allowing your competitors to surge past. Soon you’ll be known as yesterday’s concept, out of step and out of touch. Your employees will know it, and your clientele will know it too.

The same is true for your revenue stream. It’s either healthy and growing, or it’s not. The good news is that increasing beverage sales is an uncomplicated, straightforward process. The first key is to look at things like a consumer, which in fact you are. Regardless of whether we’re talking about alcohol or not, we all drink. So the question renders down to what would your clientele, many of whom you know on a firsthand basis, be interested in sampling and find savoury enough to order again?

The second operative condition is originality. Give people great drinks that quench their thirst and spark their imagination. If yours is the only place on the planet where they can get those particular libations, where else will they go? It’s a time-proven practice.

If you think creating original cocktails is going to be challenging, it’s not. Granted, there’s a bit of trial and error inherent in the process, but even that is neither painful nor costly. The procedure entails taking a drink concept, such as a margarita, and tweaking its taste profile until it becomes something singularly delicious. 

The final essential aspect of the strategy is to ensure that your operation is fully prepared for success. Are your people ready for the challenge? Have you outfitted your bar with the necessary equipment and inventory to deliver on the promise? Creating demand without being able to fulfill it is a pointless and frustrating exercise.
To streamline the process somewhat, here’s my short list of ways to stay on the right side of the income curve.
Back Bar Orientation - One can hardly expect to haphazardly throw products on the back bar and wind up with a cohesive marketing strategy. Get organized. Remove dead stock and make sure you have the premium products in each spirit category necessary to accomplish your objectives.

Order Takers - Banish the order takers from your staff, those thoughtless individuals who merely deliver whatever people think to order. You need enthusiastic salespeople manning your bar, people who are intent on matching each guest with the right cocktail. Suggestive selling is a learned technique, a tried and true method of ensuring that guests are well served. As a bonus, a motivated sales staff will seriously bump up your revenue stream.
Staff Gone Flaccid? - If bartenders could be replaced by tuxedoed robots or drink-making holograms, someone would have done it by now. The fact is, no machine, gadget, or computer can provide the dynamics necessary to transform a body-filled room into party central the way a great bartender can.

Flipping bottles, tossing glasses and flinging mixing sets is definitely hot. For others, it’s singing opera or dirty dancing on the bar. Others prefer “magic-tending” - performing feats of prestidigitation behind the bar with ordinary, everyday objects. Competency with panache and flair is hot. A bartender with a genuine smile, quick wit, and winning personality is a hotter commodity than a drink-dispensing knife juggler who makes patrons feel as welcome as a boot camp drill instructor. It should be stated that hot bartending is more mindset than circus act.
Want some heat? Light a fire under your bartenders and turn them loose.

Infusions - Infusions are a dynamic way to boost revenue. The secret to their success is that they’re a fun and profitable way to create something exciting, something the competition can’t duplicate. When you create a winning infusion, there’s only one place to get it. You can turn virtually any spirit into something extraordinary by infusing it with everything from kiwis to sun-dried tomatoes. The process involves marinating fresh fruit, among other things, in large containers filled with spirits. Several days to a week later, the fruit will infuse the chosen spirit with flavour, colour, aroma, and loads of appealing character.

Champagne Drinks - Nothing adds pizzazz to a celebration like champagne, so make every night memorable by promoting champagne-based cocktails. They’re light, effervescent, and thoroughly delicious. Eye appeal alone qualifies champagne cocktails as bona fide works of art. It’s their luscious flavour, though, that makes them masterpieces.

Alcohol-Free Libations - Creating alcohol-free libations involves as much skill as mixing with spirits. There are scores of interesting and high quality products that can be used in their creation. More importantly, alcohol-free cocktails are every bit as delicious and worthy of public acclaim as any that feature alcohol. If you need some financial incentive before jumping on board, consider the magnitude of this untapped market. The demographics of alcohol-free drinkers include literally everyone. Consider also that alcohol-free beverages and drinks are loaded with profit. Add in that these libations can be served without incurring civil liability, and you’ll begin to see their true potential.

Beer Drinks - Blending different types of beers together has long been standard practice in pubs throughout Europe and Australia, but has only recently become popular in the United States. Beer drinks are delicious, intriguing, and an innovative means of increasing sales. Mixing beers requires balancing the attributes of one brew with the characteristics of another. The key is using two beers with appreciably different properties - body, taste, texture, sweetness, and bitterness. Don’t stop at the Black & Tan, there are scores of intriguing recipes to tempt your clientele.

Passé Product? - No one said you have to offer the same bill of fare at your bar as the competition. If it’s true that the better the spirit, the better the cocktail, why not prepare all of your signature drinks with super-premium spirits. Upselling is an excellent means of stirring up some excitement and increasing sales without promoting inebriation.

Consider the merits of preparing highballs with bottled mixers; they make crisper, cleaner-tasting drinks. The same is true if you use mineral water in drinks calling for plain soda, and spring water in those finished with water. For some added pizzazz, what about adding Kahlúa to your Irish Coffees, splashing Midori into Screwdrivers and using Carolyn’s in White Russians instead of cream? Does your competition offer their guests a Kahlúa/chocolate/peanut butter/banana milk shake? If not, somebody should.

Drink Flourishes - According to Bon Appétit, swizzle sticks have become “one of the coolest collectibles around” and are currently enjoying a renaissance in bars and nightclubs. Swizzles are more than mere implements for stirring, they’re contemporary memorabilia, momentoes for the taking embossed with your logo and graphics. Swizzles have function and provide a lot of impact for the buck.

“Hang-ons” are also in vogue. They’re descendants of the paper umbrellas of old; blue plastic whales to hook on the rim of a glass, pink flamingo fruit spears, lounging mermaids, or dangling chimpanzees. Their appeal is universal. The kid in all of us likes hang-ons, (“You mean I get the drink and get to keep this neat plastic orangutan?”), while the operator in us appreciates the value-added aspect. You’ll never spend less raising a smile out of your clientele. These plastic treasures are available primarily through specialty mail order houses.

Drink garnishing is an opportunity, not an obligation. The smallest nuances can make a big difference. Give your Martini drinkers something to talk about by garnishing their drink with vodka-steeped, anchovy-wrapped green olives, or pepper-infused, almond-stuffed green olives. Put some pizzazz in your Caesars with a shrimp and scallion garnish. Embellish your Daiquiris with kiwis and serve a Slim Jim with every Bud. You can prepare strawberry fans and lime camellias, horsenecks, honeydew wedges, and papaya moons. Again, the possibilities are limitless.
Anyone can make drinks, but few make drinks special. Pizzazz behind the bar entails doing something unexpected, something out of the ordinary. The sales axiom, “Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle!” is equally true here. If it doesn’t sizzle, who needs it?

Robert Plotkin is a judge at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the author of his 16th book, Secrets Revealed of America’s Greatest Cocktails - The Hottest Spirits, Freshest Places and Coolest Drinks. 
He can be reached at BarMedia, 1-800-421-7179, or e-mail him at robert@barmedia.com.