Any bar owner worth his salt knows the advantages of serving fried appetizers to drinking customers. Appetizers –– and often quick-to-fix entrées –– are a surefire way to increase profits and an easy way to attract new customers to your establishment year-round.
    Selecting a new fryer to enhance your bar’s appetizer capabilities can be an easy way to generate business and increase revenue. From the oil to the boil, today's equipment gets the job done more efficiently and effortlessly than ever, too. Batter up.

Appetizer Spectrum
    Perhaps the best place to start when considering what kind of fryer to purchase is what kind of appetizer you would like to serve. If you’re thinking along the lines of individual orders of french fries, you will, of course, not need the same oil capacity you would if you were looking more toward masses of buffalo wings.
    Paul Lockel, manager of Bailey’s Pub & Grill in Nashville, Tenn., recommends a large-capacity fryer. “About 20 percent of our revenues come from our fried appetizers,” he says. What’s the most popular? “Definitely the wings.”
    Catering to a large, downtown crowd, Bailey’s is typical of a bar where a high-capacity fryer would make sense. If you are in that market, you might consider a 50-pound capacity fryer. Of course, if you operate on more of a neighborhood scale, you might want to scale down.

Other Ideas
    Sometimes it’s not enough just to have fried appetizers on the menu. Remember, the aim is to keep people drinking and having a good time.
    With football season just around the corner, now is the time to start thinking about incorporating fried appetizers into sports promotions. Some bars have had success giving away buffalo wings on Monday nights while airing Monday Night Football. With the right promotion, the money spent on wings can be easily surpassed by the alcohol profits. What if you don’t cater to a sports-oriented crowd? That’s OK –– there are many other great ways to incorporate appetizers into your promotions. Look toward appetizers packages that aren’t as common as fries and wings. Maybe you can think of a great way to use fried mushrooms or fried mozzarella sticks. Maybe you’ve got a green theme and want to incorporate fried pickles. Whatever you come up with, if you use your head, and you won’t be sorry.

A Few Numbers to Digest
    Deep fat fryers come in all shapes and sizes, so it’s important to consider your space restrictions and actual capacity needs before investing in a fryer.
    A quick flip through Rapids wholesale equipment catalog reveals a varied assortment of fryers. From electric to gas, countertop to stand-alone, the options are varied to fit your space. The typical Vulcan fryer measures 14 inches by 14 inches, goes from 200-400 degrees and produces 65 pounds of fries per hour (or 100 pounds respectively) with a cost of $779 for the smaller model, $1,149 for the larger.
    For a larger fryer, expect to be in the $3,000 neighborhood, and for any size, the price will change a bit for an electric model. A 30-pound Star electric twin pot fryer countertop model will cook up to 54 pounds of fries per hour for $1,159. Fryers make good sense, but the convenience and space-effectiveness of the electrics also are of merit. NCB