The nightclub business can be a rough. With a plentitude of competing venues, and with customer tastes in constant flux, the average half-life of a bar or nightclub is all too brief. Survival can depend on your ability to stay ahead of the curve and be in tune with your customers’ ever-changing demands. In short, you need to be constantly aware of what’s in and what’s not in order to remain vital. Here is a brief compendium, in three parts, of some of the emerging and continuing trends in the industry, just a few things to look out for in 2012 and beyond:
Part 2 of 3: INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY
Online reservations. Online reservations will continue to experience modest growth. While not a rapidly growing trend, the use of the Web to find where to go to eat and drink has become so common a Web presence, and a listing in Zagat, Opentable and other where-to-go sites is crucial in attracting new customers
Going mobile. Google projects that mobile devices will overtake PCs as the most common Web-access device by 2013.The ubiquity of smartphones and tablets makes it imperative that Websites be mobile-friendly. As many of these devices either do not support or have trouble playing Flash content (which has become a staple of restaurant, nightclub and bar sites), you would be well-served to optimize your site to take advantage of the rapidly growing number of mobile users who rely on their iPhones and iPads to find where to go for a drink or a bite.
Social media. The growth of social media continues. Twitter, Facebook and Google+, alone, boast a combined 1.5 billion users. Moreover, social media sites will become a key component of Search Engine Results Page (SERP) algorithms. If you’re not already using social media as a marketing tool, it’s time, perhaps, to start. It’s often said that the best form of advertising is word of mouth. What social media does is combine the credibility of word of mouth with the reach of mass media. In fact, the social media’s reach far surpasses that of any form of traditional mass media. Given this, it may make sense to hire a social media manager to help promote your store.
Electronic cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes are becoming more and more ubiquitous. These electrical devices, which produce a flavored aerosol mist that simulates tobacco smoke, have become popular both as a way of quitting tobacco and as a way for smokers to kinda feed their habit in places where actual smoking is prohibited. Expect e-cigarettes to become a more common sight in bars and nightclubs in 2012. Also expect them to be sold more widely in drinking establishments. Not only do these devices provide an added revenue stream, they may actually have the added benefit of keeping smokers inside and drinking.
Tablets. By the end of 2011, nearly 34 million Americans owned iPads and other tablets. With new, less expensive tablets going on themarket, that number is expected to grow 63% in 2012, and by 2014 it’s predicted that 90 million Americans (or a third of the population) will own a tablet computer. Expect these devices to be adopted more broadly in the hospitality industry—not only as a (POS-integrated) replacement for the wait staff’s order pads, but as enhanced menus (with photos, ingredients, the calorie count of foods, suggested wine pairings etc.). Many wine bars and restaurants are already using tablets as a replacement to traditional wine menus. Tablets also provide an opportunity to provide cheap entertainment, in the form of interactive gameplay, to bar patrons.
DMX lighting. LED’s and new, cheaper and simpler-to-use DMX lighting software will allow owners of restaurants, lounge bars and nightclubs to modify the look and feel of their stores with greater ease, without having to overhaul the entire architecture. Whether as means of creating an entirely fresh look or as a way of changing mood lighting to match an event, a season, or a time of day, you’ll begin to see DMX lighting used more widely to create a fresh look and feel.
Herb-infused spirits. Whether they be whiskies, vodkas or gins are gaining herb-infused drinks are gaining in popularity. Expect gin, especially, to continue to make a splash as both large producers such as Bombay and a slew of new micro distilleries continue infuse this old stalwart with fresh and interesting botanicals.
Seasonal and flavored beers. While nothing new, seasonal and/or flavored beers are starting to gain traction.
Value. After several years of economic recession, consumers have acquired a taste for value wines. They are seeking bang for the buck—not cheap inferior wines, but good, well-balanced, flavorful wines at an affordable price. With many of these wines coming from Spain and South America, expect Spanish, Chilean and Argentinian wines to continue to grow in popularity.
When you design your service area, it's important to realize that every step a bartender takes in the serving of a drink is costing you money and making your customers impatient. Where does your staff need to walk to get a clean glass? How far from there to the ice bins and then to the spirit dispenser? And where are your soda guns in relation to the bottles? Is the cash register yet another trip away from the customer? Even if your bartender has to take only four or five steps between each of these posts, consider how far that means your bartender has to walk in the course of serving 500 drinks a night! This is bad enough for a solo bartender, but when two or three people are working behind the same bar and sharing facilities, it can be an unproductive nightmare.
Have you ever sat under a blue neon light for an hour? While neon decor might look great when a bar is packed to capacity and the music is pumping, when business is slow it's like a power drill closing in on the center of your forehead. Certainly your customers should be impressed by your decor, but will the very look that draws them in end up driving them away early? Consider the following:
The way your bar operates depends on many factors, one of the most important being the "machinery" of the bar. Sometimes, no matter how efficient your staff, the bar just isn't set up to allow maximum productivity. Avoid that happening to your bar.
Accounting (bookkeeping) theft is a major concern within the beverage industry. From falsifying daily inventory records to complicated auditing abuse, this area of theft is often the most difficult to detect. Sometimes, it is the managers themselves who are behind the scams. Owners need to be aware of the following possibilities:
Theft reduction policies and procedures are no good unless they are strictly enforced. Employees must be made clearly aware of the dire consequences of flouting house rules. There can be no gray areas. New members of staff should be asked to sign a confirmation that they have read the rules and fully understand the implications.
This is an alarming fact: most types of beverage operations lose a crippling percentage of profits through insider theft. The vast majority of employees in the beverage industry are honest and hardworking; it is the small minority of staff that can ruin your business through dishonesty. Insider theft can often escalate if there are weaknesses in the following general areas of the operation:
