One Guaranteed Way to Annoy Your Bartenders

Posted by barblog on Dec 22, 2009 in Bar Management, Bar Service | 21 comments

Happy bartenders equal happy customers and happy customers like to spend money. It makes a lot of sense to ensure that these very important staff are taken care of, but it’s easy to overlook one guaranteed thing that will annoy your customers.

I was asked a very good question by a bar owner during the week. He wanted to know what the best way was to handle the fact that customers were arriving at his bar, having a drink or two at the bar before moving to table for dinner. The drinks consumed at the bar were being added to the restaurant check with the wait staff benefiting from the full tip for food & beverages.

He wanted to know if bartenders should get a percentage of each check, or whether tips should be pooled, or if it all balanced out in the end anyway?

He said that his bartenders were fuming at the money they were losing on busy nights in the restaurant.

My initial thoughts are that it depends on the establishment and how much of a problem this is perceived to be. This bar owner maintained that customers would not be interested in cashing out at the bar and the table as it is too much work for them.

I personally don’t think it is too much to ask of customers, but if your service level is such that you don’t want to inconvenience customers in any way, then you may need to address this issue by enforcing some kind of tip share policy to ensure that all staff get their fair, earned share of the tips.

One method would be to pool all tips and split them according to the food & beverage split percentage in the establishment and divide between bar and restaurant staff.

Whatever the solution, it looks like there is no solution that pleases everyone. what would you do?

Ignoring the issue doesn’t seem to be the answer so all suggestions are welcome!

Why Staff Need Incentives To Make You Money

Posted by barblog on Nov 21, 2009 in Bar Management, Bar Service, bar theft | 3 comments

Staff rarely have the same enthusiasm or drive for their work like you do as the business owner. I was reminded of this when a staff member came to remove my empty glass in the middle of my lunch yesterday, but didn’t offer me a refill. Had she offered, I would have taken another.

With staff members on duty, serving additional drinks doesn’t cost any more. So what can you do to make them more productive? Well training is obviously the first step; showing staff that upselling and increasing sales is part of their duties is the first step, followed by supervision. However, in my experience, incentives work the best.

In Ireland and The UK, tips are actually rare for service staff, because the law provides for a higher minimum wage. Compare this to the US, where a server’s wages are almost completely dependent on tips.

Modern cash registers/POS systems can track sales per staff member so that at the end of any shift, you will see at a glance which staff members are generating revenue. Why not offer a monthly bonus to staff based on the revenue they have generated. Perhaps a small percentage of their takings? Staff members who see that heir upselling results in increased wages will certainly make more of an effort with customers. You will see then which staff are motivated and which staff are not buying into the system.

What else should you consider?

Make sure to rotate where you assign staff so that all staff get a fair share of customers and that no staff member is left working in areas where they have no chance to generate extra takings.