We all know the scene. It’s a busy Friday or Saturday night, and a customer bellies up to the bar at a restaurant or hotel but sees no open seats or spots from which to get the bartender’s attention. Then, alas, they spy the little area at the bar with a stainless-steel top with holes in it where the bartender places a bunch of ready-to-go drinks and tickets. Surely, they think, it’s OK to stand and order there.
Being in the hospitality industry, we all know that’s the service end of the bar, and it’s a huge no-no to crowd that space, as it’s meant as a place for servers to grab drinks for their tables.
“We’ve all seen people constantly standing there in the service industry,” says Kristin Sedej, principal, S2O Consultants, who’s designed many back service bars for stadium and entertainment venues. While front-of-the-house service bars are relatively easy to install and actually commonplace, they can fall short of supporting a higher-volume operation.
For high-volume operations like big hotels, resorts, casinos, arenas, and even large restaurant groups, service bars simply make sense. “Service bars are great for speed of service, number one,” says Beth Kuczera, president of Equipment Dynamics. “They also enhance the guest experience; the quality of the beverages improves because bartenders don’t have to worry about guests in front of them; they can just follow drink recipes and their sole focus is on making the drinks the best they can be.”
What’s more, back-of-the-house service bars offer straightforward design. They don’t have to be pretty, and they can be stocked full of extra refrigeration, prep space, liquor storage, dishwashing, dish racks, and more. “I never met a bartender who doesn’t like a back-of-the-house service bar,” says Tobin Ellis, principal at Studio Barmagic, a Las Vegas-based bar design consultancy. “These dedicated areas are cheaper to build per square foot, and they exponentially throttle revenue, profitability, speed of service, and hospitality.”
Back-of-the-house service bars also take the strain off front-bar service bartenders. “Bartenders can make [front-of-the-house] service bars work, but ultimately it forces the bartender to have split priorities constantly,” Ellis says. “The reality is you can bang out a thousand drinks from a back service bar without having to interact with humans.”
Although there are many benefits to back-of-the-house service bars, they still have to make sense for the operation — and the challenge can also be convincing the operator to build one. “You have to have enough volume and want a seamless operation for drinks versus just one that relies on the front bar,” Sedej says.
That said, click through to Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazine’s website to learn about key considerations for designing back-of-the-house service bars.
Plan to Attend or Participate in Bar & Restaurant Expo, March 27-29, 2023
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