Becoming a Bartender

We all have one point seen ourselves behind the bar slinging drinks like Tom did in his famous movie role. But before we do, there are few things we must consider:

1. Are we ready to give up our weekends?
2. Is working late hours something we are comfortable with?
3. Are we what we call a “people person”?
4. Can we take orders and remain calm under pressure?
5. Do we deal with patrons that could become rude and rowdy?

Bartending can be a very lucrative and reward career. For others, it can be a simple sideline job while in school. Whatever it may be, bartending does require certain skills that can be taught in bartending schools and experienced in the line of fire.

A professional bartender understands both the needs of the clients and what is required to become effective during service. A bartender’s quick check list:

1. Is my liquor inventory up to par?
2. Is my beer inventory properly stocked?
3. Are my fruits and condiments prepared?
4. Do I have enough ice?
5. Does my till have enough change? 

A bartender knows what can be called the “golden hours” at which point all they do is take orders and serve drinks. To maximize the full potential, preparation is key.

Liquor Cost                                      

Many hospitality operators want to know what their liquor cost is. Many times, we simply divide the cost of goods sold by the revenues to come up with a liquor cost percentage. Often, this number is inaccurate or to late in the cycle to take corrective actions.

Here are the steps and key elements needed for a proper liquor cost percentage.

1. What is the opening liquor inventory value of full and partial bottles throughout the period?
2. What is the closing liquor inventory value of full and partial bottles throughout the period?
3. What are the registered liquor sales for the specific period
4. We then divide the cost of goods sold by the sales to come up to a percentage.

The variables you must consider:

1. Are the costs of my liquor products updated?
2. Is the actual physical inventory of my liquor bottles accurate?
3. Are my sales strictly liquor; no wine or beer

If you answered yes to all three, then this will be your actual liquor cost. 

How does this liquor cost compare to where you actually should be?

Please read our blog on Alcohol Inventory Cost vs Pricing

 

 

    

 

Miami, August 11, 2010 

SCANNABAR OPENS IN LATIN AMERICA AND ASIA  

To our current and potential customers, business associates and friends!

I am proud to inform you that at The Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show to be held September 12 - 14 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida we will be announcing the commencement of our operations in Latin America and Asia. 

We have been actively working on selected markets of these regions since last year and very well advanced....we expect to start operations very shortly.

With this important step we anticipate to consolidate Scannabar as the best global partner of the Hospitality Industry and continue supporting your Profit Protection and Enhancement Programs

The expansion in these regions will be spearheaded by Jairo Sánchez in LatAm jairo@scannabar.com and Salvador de la Barrera in Asia. salvador@scannabar.com

To view our activities and programs, please visit our overview and blogs on our website www.scannabar.com or contact us at sales@scannabar.com

We look forwards to your continued trust and support.

Sincerely,

Roberto Scanga

President, Scannabar 

1-800-939-8960

roberto@scannabar.com

www.scannabar.com

The dictionary meaning of a dispenser is as follows: “a device that automatically dispenses a single item or a measured quantity” In the hospitality industry, we are sometimes faced with a decision; do we want our liquor to be poured by way of a dispensing unit? Do we want our bartenders to be “automatic” and potentially take away any flair our personable bar staff has to offer our patrons?

Liquor dispensers are designed to specifically pour a pre configured amount in a glass, no more, no less. There can be certain advantages:

1. Consistency of drinks
2. Controls over quantity poured
3. Less bartender training required

Liquor dispensers typically are available in two forms: guns & spigots.

Guns normally entail tubing to be run from the bar to an area where the liquor is poured into small vats. From there, as a product is selected at the bar, the liquor from the liquor room runs along the line into the patrons drinks. Many times, operators will limit the guns to rail product like vodka, gin, rum…or what we call high moving products.

Spigots or what can be best described as “time release valves” are systems in which a ring is placed around a nozzle on the bottle. When a portion of liquor is requested, the bottle is put through the activator ring, the lever is pressed and an electrical courant opens the valve to dispense a portion of liquid.

Although we may perceive these systems as the ultimate controls, there are a few things to consider: 

1. If you have several pouring stations, they can become cost prohibitive
2. They can be impersonal: clients still like to see a bartender pour a drink straight into a glass without all the “mechanics” involved
3. Sweet liquors have a tendency to crystallize and cause back ups in the lines and spigots thus requiring regular maintenance.
4. Lack of inventory: as much as these systems can dispense exact amounts, they still require a separate system to conduct regular liquor inventories

In the end, as an operator, the decision lies in both the financial areas but also the image and feel you want your establishment to portray, both certainly will have an impact on your business and this is certainly a decision that takes time and research before adapting.  

Yesterday’s strategies just won’t cut it. Today you need access to all the latest foodservice industry trends, strategies and product innovations … and you don’t want to search through multiple sources to find them.

The Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show provides just that – your once-a-year, one-stop opportunity to learn about all of the cutting-edge strategies, products and services you’ll need to guide your business into the future.

Don’t rely on yesterday’s business strategies to navigate through today’s challenging times. Attend … September 12-14 at the Orange County Convention Center … and gain a fresh perspective on your business. Come visit us in booth 2144 and learn how Scannabar can save you thousands of dollars by simply managing your liquor inventory accurately and affectively.

Do you have a wine cellar with an extensive inventory and selection of wines? Let Scannabar help you better manage and maximize your wine cellar profitability. Still counting your bottled beer with pen and paper? With Scannabar, you can scan your bottled beer, sodas, energy drinks while keep an updated perpetual inventory.

If you and your team are planning to attend the show, please Click on the button below for free passes for the show, a value of $60.00. Sign up, our free pass offer ends August 15th, 2010-07-20

We look forward to seeing you at the show!

Yesterday’s strategies just won’t cut it. Today you need access to all the latest foodservice industry trends, strategies and product innovations … and you don’t want to search through multiple sources to find them. The Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show provides just that – your once-a-year, one-stop opportunity to learn about all of the cutting-edge strategies, products and services you’ll need to guide your business into the future.

Don’t rely on yesterday’s business strategies to navigate through today’s challenging times. Attend … September 12-14 at the Orange County Convention Center … and gain a fresh perspective on your business.

Come visit us in booth 2144 and learn how Scannabar can save you thousands of dollars by simply managing your liquor inventory accurately and affectively.

Do you have a wine cellar with an extensive inventory and selection of wines? Let Scannabar help you better manage and maximize your wine cellar profitability.

Still counting your bottled beer with pen and paper? With Scannabar, you can scan your bottled beer, sodas, energy drinks while keep an updated perpetual inventory.

If you and your team are planning to attend the show, please email us your names, with email address of the attendees and we will get you free passes for the show, a value of $60.00. Sign up sign, our free pass offer ends August 15^th, 2010-07-20

Again we will be in booth 2144.

We look forward to seeing you at the show!

 

Taking Control of your bar inventory management

If you have recently made the purchase of a bar inventory management system, you must now understand how the features and benefits your system offers are best suited to your business.

The first thing you must decide on is the frequency at which you will be taking liquor inventory, beer inventory and wine inventory. One thing that cannot be dismissed is the fact the smaller the intervals between inventory periods, the more effective your bar inventory management system can be.

If you own a restaurant, bistro or country club and your liquor, beer and wine sales represent less than 50% of your sales, inventory periods can weekly, bi weekly and potentially monthly.

But if your liquor, beer and wine sales representative a majority of your sales, taking weekly if not daily inventory of your most prized assets should be an automatic. Consider the following; you would be ready to pay a cook and a dishwasher for a full eight hour shift to cook a single hamburger and French fries on a slow business day.

Doesn’t it make sense to pay an employee eight hours to count how much liquor was used from your bar so you can compare this figure to sales and determine if there are any losses? Once you have the information in front of you that is when the real bar inventory management begins.

You can analyze what sells more, are we pouring top shelf and ringing up call brands? Do I have a vodka crowd? Do we have a whisky crowd? Information is gold and proper bar inventory management will give you the edge you need.

Single Malt Whisky is a whisky made from only one type of malted grain and distilled at one particular distillery. Single malts are traditionally made from barley cultivated near the distillery concerned, although there are some single malt rye whiskies. Most single malt whiskies are distilled using a pot still. Single malts are typically associated with Scotland, though they are produced elsewhere, notably in Ireland and Japan. All single malt goes through a similar batch production process, as outlined below. At bottling time various batches are mixed together or vatted to achieve consistent flavors from one bottling run to the next. Some variation does occur.

Water is first added to the barley to promote germination and then mixed with ground barley grist to create a mash. Water is also used later in the production process to dilute most whisky before maturation, and added once again before bottling.

Most distilleries use different water sources in the various steps, and this becomes a crucial part of the character of the end product.

Barley, yeast and water are the only ingredients required in the production of single malt whisky.

The barley used to make the whisky is "malted" by soaking the grain in water for 2-3 days and then allowing it to germinate to convert starch (which is insoluble in water and not available for fermentation by yeast) to fermentable sugars.

The malt is milled into coarse flour (grist), and added to hot water to extract the sugars.

Yeast is used to ferment malted barley in washbacks. Yeast is added to the wort in a large vessel (often tens of thousands of liters) called a wash back. Wash backs are commonly made of Oregon pine or stainless steel. The yeast feeds on the sugars and as a by-product produces both carbon dioxide and alcohol. This process is called fermentation and can take up to three days to complete. When complete, the liquid has an alcohol content of 5 to 7% by volume, and is now known as wash. Up until this point the process has been quite similar to the production of beer.

Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_malt_whisky)

If we perform inventory in our establishment, the question of proper inventory scheduling is one that has certainly arisen. Inventory scheduling in the most part should be consistent with specific events that occur in your business. For instance, if your accountants prepare monthly profit and loss statements, inventory scheduling should reflect a need for monthly data collection and analysis.

If you feel that to place the proper and adequate supplies order to bring liquor, beer and wine inventories up to par require, inventory scheduling should be reflected before the order process commences. Your business will dictate how often inventory should be taken.

If you are a high volume nightclub and a majority of your sales are liquor, beer and wine inventory related versus a restaurant that mainly serves food, proper and more frequent inventory scheduling may be in order. What is also important to achieve proper inventory scheduling is to be able to foresee any specials events or holidays that may delay or increase the need for inventory taking. Another key is to stay the course; if your business does a full liquor, beer and wine inventory on a weekly basis, you should not skip a period.

Inventory scheduling involves planning of personnel thus it is important we can see and understand how many people we need and how many hours that are budgeted to make sure a proper inventory is done quickly, accurately and with consistency.

 Hotel inventory software

The hospitality industry is a vast one with many segments; country clubs, nightclubs, restaurants, bar...and of course hotels. We normally associate hotels with rooms and room service. But the hotel industry offers much more. Banquets play a major force in a hotel success, be it conventions, wedding, private parties...and in these functions, there is a common thread: the sale of liquor, beer, wine and food.

With the exception of pre paid parties, there still is what we call "cash" bars. Basically what happens here is a customer asks for consumption and pays the bartender, normally cash.

• Question is how many beers were sold?
• How many ounces of liquor were poured?
• Did we sell wine by the glass or by the bottle?

Luckily, technology of today has introduced hotel inventory software that will allow not only for proper receiving, fulfillment of requisitions, but also the ability to count what the bars begin and end with.

The hotel inventory software of today is designed to manage an unlimited number of fix, portable and banquet bars and not only update your perpetual liquor, beer and wine inventory, but also give you the important data you will need to properly invoice your customer, analyze the profitability of a function and increase the accountability of the bar staff by eliminating the opportunity for shrinkage and waste.

A complete hotel inventory software package should be designed to help hoteliers be in line with the liquor, beer and wine pour cost targets set forth at budget and address any areas that prevent us from reaching these cost control goals.

Beer systems need to be broken down in two sections, bottled beer and draft.

There are some beer systems that will take away the pen and pencil and help you count how much bottled beer is received and update your beer inventory value.

Help you manage how much bottled beer is moved from storage to the bars and finally help you count how much beer the bar started and ended with. Bottled beer systems that offer all of these features will speed up what can be a long and tedious process and in turn increase both accountability and profitability.

Draft beer systems on the other hand can be more mechanical and designed to measure the exact quantity of draft beer being poured at the taps. Draft beer systems come in several varieties: weighing kegs, flow meters, stoppers in the tap head.

What is very important to understand here is that some beer systems will only count the flow of beer through the lines while other will actually portion control the quantity of beer poured in the mug or glass.  Beer systems also vary in costs and maintenance.

There are some draft beer control systems that are relatively maintenance free and quite affordable and offer many of the features needed to better manage our "golden" liquid assets.

Whichever of the beer systems that are available on the market, it is important you begin by pin pointing the needs and the compatibility of the systems your are considering to both the business environment and the existing technology that may already be in place.