BAR DESIGN TIPS THAT IMPROVE PERFORMANCE
Whether you're building a new bar or renovating an existing one, the design decisions you approve today will affect profitability, speed of service, labor costs, ergonomics, and guest experience for years to come. Not to mention costly design, fabrication, and installation mistakes. Here are practical lessons learned from designing hundreds of bars around the world that will give you better odds at a better outcome.
12 Ways to Improve your Bar Design before you sign off on the final CAD plans, equipment POs, or submittals.
Make sure all bartender stations/cockpits are identical
Separate the point from the service well
Put the service well closest to the kitchen, BOH, or bar pantry/kitchen
Remove any double speedrails, replace with siderails
No bar needs a hand sink at every single bartender station. Typically it’s one every 10-15 feet depending on local code or ‘reasonable distance.’ For most bars, 1 to 2 hand sinks is plenty.
Do not mirror equipment from one station to the next. Make the order of equipment exactly the same (repeated) from one station to another.
Will the bartender’s knees, thighs, or feet bang into or get stuck in any gaps, floor sinks, or protruding equipment edges? Fix that now.
Sodaguns on the left, always. This isn’t a preference, it’s expected at every bar that uses them.
Imagine making a vodka soda, a simple margarita, and an old fashioned with a popular Bourbon or Rye. Will the bartender have to take steps to complete any of these? Then your design is flawed, and you will leak revenue for years.
How many steps will the bartenders have to take to pour draft beer? More than 3-4 steps, you have a serious revenue leakage and guest experience issue. The goal should be 2 steps or fewer.
Are any stations up against a wall? If so, you’ve made one entire side of the bartender’s body and their ability to quickly pivot or take one step unavailable. Bartender stations should be centered around other equipment so there is value in movement in any direction.
Are you forcing bartenders to share any form of POS? A service cycle isn’t just about production, it’s about selling, ringing, producing, serving, and tendering. If one of these steps is bottlenecked by sharing, the whole service cycle slows down.
NEW CONSTRUCTION
10 Common Mistakes when Renovating a Bar
Spending all your capex on finishings, not improving the bar engine. Lamps don’t create revenue, equipment does. The more efficient and purpose-built it is, the more revenue you will capture.
Redesigning the bar engine around the old/existing MEPs. You don’t design a bar around floor sinks, you design (or move) floor sinks around a better design. Always.
Forgetting to coordination the required MEP changes when you plan for new equipment, die walls, or counter changes. Always engage a qualified PE (professional engineer) to make sure the GC understands exactly how the MEPs have to change to service (and pass inspection) the new design.
Holding onto fixtures or equipment that isn’t working just because you bought it. This is classic sunken cost fallacy. Let it go because the longer you keep it, the more it’s costing you.
Trying to fit square pegs in round holes. Too many operators (and some designers) try to save the existing millwork, die walls, etc and cram new equipment behind a dated, under-performing bar footprint. Design inside out, build the engine that will improve throughput and service (and therefore revenue and profitability) then wrap it with a die wall, counter, and back bar.
Failing to ask the people who know exactly what to leave, what to remove, what to improve, and what to add to the bar. I’m talking about your bartenders—the only people who live and breathe that bar day and night. They have almost all the answers. Involve your bartenders in the redesign of their own workspace.
Believing that people who design or consult for free (but are selling you stuff) are ‘as good’ as professionals who charge for their services. These people do not exist. You get what you pay for.
Chasing trends. Putting in equipment or features you saw on TikTok from the other side of the world will not make your bar perform better. Cultural, economic, and basic drinking styles in different countries are vastly different. Don’t believe me? Americans prefer 4-6x the amount of ice in their drinks as nearly every other country on earth. That’s one of two dozen differences. Don’t chase fads or trends without a solid, business reason why. Follow proven fundamentals, not the fads.
Rubber stamping plans. Most operators do this because they can’t read every detail of a plan. Most plans are approved with serious flaws built in that hurt profitability. Ask any bartender, anywhere.
Poor time management for the full design/build process. Most operators vastly underestimate the time it takes to go from kickoff meetings to installation. They also usually greatly misjudge how long they will have to close a bar (or the venue) to complete the work. For a single, 12-20 seat bar in the United States, that timeline is typically 16-24 weeks. Double that if you’re going to custom fabricate everything. Very minor refreshes (easy freestanding catalog equipment swap outs) can be managed in 1-2 days. If you are sawing floors, relocating MEPs, or changing structural components, expect to close for 4-8 weeks at minimum. Major renovation? You should be working off a proper critical document platform with an experienced design/construction PM (project manager) who has significant hospitality design experience and knows how long everything takes. Not guessing or hoping at timelines without dependencies. This is 22 years of bar design experience talking. It’s always longer than you think, it always costs more, and there are always mistakes. Plan for it.
Bonus: Not renovating all the support areas and equipment—dry storage, liquor storage, ice machines, ventilation, underbar storage, carbonators, RO systems, prep space, etc. A better engine is great, but if you don’t upgrade the rest of the beverage facilities along with it, the engine will never get a chance to deliver its maximum potential.
RENOVATIONS
9 Critical Things to Know about Custom Fabrication Bar Design before you begin
It will take about 3-4x the time to design, fabricate, and install as off the shelf catalog equipment.
In North America, it will cost about 2-3x for custom fabrication. A lot of that is the custom, one-off engineering costs. This doesn’t mean don’t consider it, it just means be aware of the impact.
In my 22 years of bar design experience, I can currently count on one hand all the bar designers in the world who actually can deliver high-quality, functional custom-designed equipment.
There is a saying amongst bartenders about most custom fabrication behind a bar: “pretty but sh-tty.” Just because someone can draw, spec, and fabricate something with strong aesthetics in no way means they are qualified to deliver a design that actual performs for the business. Do not spend hundreds of thousands on an engine that looks great, but limps along. Hire a specialist.
Ask any potential fabricators what series steel they are using throughout. Their answer should be 304 or 316. 316 is for outdoor, oceanfront, high humidity, and pool environments. Anything other than these two series are fillers that will corrode and fall apart quickly.
The most important documents during custom fabrication are the shop drawings. Whatever you approve, that’s what is getting built. What you ‘meant’ doesn’t matter, it’s what they draw that you approve. Do not rush shops. Do not rubber stamp them.
I’ve designed several hundred bars in North America and in those decades, I have worked with fewer than 10 steel fabricators that can deliver truly high-quality custom bar engines. I’m sure there are more, but I will warn you there are far more unqualified shops than great ones.
Custom is exciting at first, laborious very quickly, and becomes very painstaking eventually. Unless you engage a bar design specialist who handles it all for you. Not a kitchen consultant, a bar design consultant. You don’t call a plumber to fix your pool, and you don’t have a pool cleaner fix your toilet. Just because someone can design a kitchen, in no way qualifies them to design a bar.
Make sure the fabricator can deliver continuous welds, uses at least 14-16 gauge steel or lower for more components, and understands things like proper foam injection insulation, thermal breaks, and can supply all the OEM mechanicals to complete the equipment.
CUSTOM BAR DESIGN
Would you like to see the drawings, dimensions, details, and how-to’s for all of this and more so you can prevent dozens of costly mistakes, all for under $75? Order a copy of Bar Design Essentials today. 250 pages of no-nonsense, field-experience on bar design, ergonomics, performance, construction, installation, and more.
Want to Go it Alone?
Wondering if your design is flawed or leaving money on the table? A paid bar design performance review typically reveals revenue leakage between 6 and 7 figures annually, pinpoints bottlenecks and invisible pinch points, and highlights construction and compliance mistakes before it’s too late. You can fix it all in a matter of days. Before you sign off and submit.
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