The Bar Blogger

Whilst walking through the countryisde of Kildare in Ireland recently I stumbled upon one of the most unique bars I had ever seen.

What you’re seeing here is a 40 foot long container complete with Murphy’s Irish Stout sign, two picnic tables on the roof, a ladder on the side to climb up and out of view are a number of beer kegs lying around! There’s even an overturned patio heater up there for when it gets cold!!!

Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

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2009 is all but gone. It’s been a tough year for some, a hell for others and the end of the road for many a drinking establishment. But let’s face it, the year is almost over. We could lament and mourn the passing of the year, but instead I propose we celebrate.

Celebrate the end of the year, the start of a new year and the hope and potential this new year brings. Hopefully a lot has been learned from the past 12 months to ready you for the year ahead. Whether you have learned anything or not, I can guarantee you one thing. NOTHING will be achieved in 2010 without a plan, so here is your ready made bar action plan for 2010. Consider it your New Year’s Resolution for your bar.

1. I will begin the year by getting rid of all staff members that infect the business, prevent me from reaching my goals and don’t gel with the organization. I will not regret this decision as it will help the business in the long term.
2. I will have my vendors tender their best prices on their products again even if I did it a month ago. New year, new mentality, new profits!
3. I will undertake a physical food & beverage inventory every week without fail. If I don’t have the time or expertise, I will outsource this and will take action on all issues arising from my inventory results as I know about them.
4. I will tweak my business to suit demand, rather than expecting the population to change to suit what I’m selling.
5. I will regularly request feedback to make sure I am providing what my customers want.
6. I will meet other business owners outside of the bar industry frequently to brainstorm business ideas and collaborative possibilities.
7. I will learn to say no to hair brained ideas with no potential, but to never say no the customer.
8. I will work at removing gray areas in my business and instead introduce black and white standards and procedures that my staff will understand, will help my customers and allow me reach my business goals.
9. I will revisit No.1 half way through the year.
10. I will continuously analyze, optimize and monitor the results of my resolutions and tweak as necessary.

If anybody wants to publicly announce their own additions or versions of this for their own business, then add your comments below and we’ll all help you stay on track!

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I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room as I type today’s post. My wife is having gall bladder surgery so Dr. Bar Blogger is on call to be there when she wakes up.

Looking around at the systems, procedures and controls in place here in the hospital, it made me wonder what prevents smaller businesses adopt them.

Let me give you an example. When my wife was registered at the desk, she was “tagged” with a bar coded bracelet. From that moment on, we could track her whereabouts on any of the large flat panel monitors mounted around the waiting area.

We knew when she was in pre-op, when she having surgery and when we could expect to see her afterwards. It really was amazing to see a large hospital follow the same procedure over and over again for each patient.

Nurses had hand held scanners to read her bar code everytime they needed to do something and attendants wheeled computers around the wards taking insurance and contact info from patients.

It occured to me that the reasons most bars, restaurants and kitchens don’t reach their margins or they “lose” stock is that a simple rule has not been established for each process and if it has, it’s not followed and rarely punished when not adhered to.

How can a hospital process thousands of patients a day, yet bars and restaurants often struggle with tracking bottles of bear and strips of steak?

It’s down to systems, consistency of systems, measurement and response.

Forgetting any one of these in your business is the reason you’re not reaching your goals and struggle to find out why.

Step 1. Establish a system/procedure
Step 2. Train staff in that procedure
Step 3. Implement a system of monitoring whether the trained system is being followed by staff.
Step 4. Punish/replace those not capable of following your rules.
Step 5. Continued monitoring and tweaking if the system as needed.
Step 6. Repeat for each area of your business.

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