Importance of Bar Designs Being Prioritised by Upcoming Restaurateurs
While a good dining experience is crucial for customers at a restaurant, an extremely important factor for restaurateurs to increase sales now also includes an exceptional bar design. Various studies have determined that efficient bar layouts not only increase profits and efficiency at a bar but also boost the morale of the bartender providing quality outputs.
Previously, bars were designed by the kitchen planners, leading to ergonomic problems- bartenders faced difficulty in having a conversation with customers while simultaneously keeping the bar area clean, leading to a difficulty in understanding what the customer wanted, leading to a repetition in orders for cocktails, increasing the time taken to whip up the drinks diminishing the overall experience of the customer. With the exponential growth in the food and beverage industry, restaurateurs realised the importance of a good bar design, putting more emphasis in the beverage sector as well in new and upcoming bars leading to more innovation in bar design thereby evolving the equipment matrix
There are various factors to be considered while deciding the layout for a bar… Whether the restaurant wants bartenders to use multiple workstations, how many bartenders will be working concurrently, what the cocktail programme of the bar is, how much space the restaurant has and so on which directly correlate to making decisions about the layout of the bar the restaurateur shall choose to incorporate! With more focus being drawn to the beverage sector of the business, there have been many additions and advancements in the overall bar design and the equipment offered.
Challenging the market of conventional bars in India, a good bar design redefines the way bartenders work, the speed at which drinks are made leading to an increase in efficiency and output offering unmatchable quality and sales services bringing about efficiency and quality out of creative cocktail curators and great innovation and quality to the beverage sector.
A bar is much more than just a piece of equipment for restaurateurs. It serves many purposes- it reduces the steps to make a drink, making execution of drinks quick. With all necessary needs of a bar being in the same place, the bartender spends less time looking for ingredients keeping everything at a one-step space- leading to a faster turnover increasing sales figures. A well-designed bar inspires bartenders to showcase their craft efficiently, permitting them to work effortlessly and promptly as everything they need is provided at an arm’s distance.
With an increasing demand for innovative cocktails in restaurants, the number of ingredients stored behind the bar keeps growing, making it important to keep space as a priority while designing a bar to incorporate both storage and room to move for the bartender. A well-built custom bar can maximize the beverage output, double the efficiency and speed of the bartender leading the mixologist to take more complex drink orders giving customers an enhanced cocktail experience. There are several features that make a good bar, for instance providing a good quality drip tray enables the bartender to keep their worktops clean and assist in creating great visuals whilst the cocktails are being made. This encourages the bartenders to prepare his or her drinks on these drip trays, so a guest can view and appreciate his skills and at the same time create a visual product offering to other guests in the bar.
Speed rails are a key element in the bar as well. Designing speed rails should be done in an innovative and efficient manner. Adding curved corners helps in avoiding an accident in a high traffic bar and the padded rails are useful for less sound while placing a bottle back.
One may notice, in many bars across different cities, the bartender is quite far from the counter top to where the customer is. This happens because of deep equipment and counters between them. Therefore, it is very important to make sure that the equipment is kept to the bare minimum depth and offer standing curves in the equipment, where the bartender can really get close to the guests, whether to interact casually or to get the orders right. Building rails in a curved design allow the bartender to get closer to the customer while interacting.
The main goal of a restaurateur should be to create more efficient bar layouts that not only benefit the restaurant owner but patrons as well. In the end, a well-designed and built bar will pay for itself!
About the Author
Anirudh Singhal
Anirudh Singhal is the Founder of Speedx Bars
