I bartend at a local bar and my boss has approached me with a challenge to bring in more cash, what to do?

Question

I bartend at a local bar and my boss has approached me with a challenge to bring in more cash, what to do?

Answer 1

When you call it a local bar, I  would guess that you mean a smaller place that does not have bands regularly.

Some things that bring people in on a regular basis:

Sports Pools-Football, Baseball, Hockey etc.

Reality Show Pools - like Survivor

Have tournaments with prizes like coupons that can only be spent at your bar.

darts

pool

shuffleboard

euchre

backgammon

scrabble

trivial pursuit

twister ?  you never know if you don't ask !!

Have frequent customer cards - for example you might give a free beer or drink to someone after they have bought a dozen drinks (or a t-shirt or mug with the bar's name on it)

Have specials for any sports team that comes in after their game in their uniform.

At the local bar around the corner from me they have an 'open mike' session on Saturday afternoons, where people bring their own instruments (guitars, harmonicas etc) and everybody can sing along. This may or may not work out depending on the clientèle and/or neighborhood.  Put up a sign at the bar and see if anyone is into that sort of thing  OR

It never hurts to print up a survey and put them on the tables asking which (if any) of these events would interest your customers, make it fun and have a draw for people who fill out the surveys.

For any of these events you need to advertise at first to let people know that they are happening.  It's worth having someone deliver flyers or put a small add in the local paper. After a while, word of mouth should do it.

Schedule these events on your slow nights and make sure you have free music (stereo or jukebox)

Answer 2

Good day,

23 years a GM, is he asking you to up sell???

Get a game going w/ your fellow bartenders, everyone  put in $5-25  in  a pot, now everyone comes up w/ a drink, one you made up or something not ordered allot..Run a contest and who ever sells the most of their drink after a month gets the money and get your GM to sweeten the pot, (dinners, movies tickets, $$$), Its fun and talk it up with your customers . I did this with my people and it went wild...customer were printing up t-shirt w/ their bartenders

drinks and names and it became a major deal...Big fun the winning bartender ended up w/ $1000 and hours and hours of

fun...I tripled my bar sells and guests..

so it was a win win events...Heres to success

Answer 3

Suggest mixed drinks instead of beer. Or suggest imported or micro-brewed beers that cost more. Suggest brand-name drinks instead of well.

These things alone can increase the take a little, but ultimately it's not the bartender's job to bring in more clientèle, which *really* brings in more cash. The owner has to do that.