Mad for March
Harnessing the Goodness of Madness

With March Madness just around the corner, many bars and nightclubs are gearing up for what traditionally has been one of the biggest promotional opportunities of the year. With the prolific availability of sporting packages on television, high-definition everything and satellite broadcasting, technology has made sports a perpetual entity. Just how important traditional bar promotions sporting events are to yearly revenue is a question that is continuing to be answered. Here are a couple takes on that.

Takin' It To the Streets
The Role of Flyers in the Modern Marketing Mix

As beneficial as text and e-mail marketing has become, most smart marketers still make sure to create a paper trail to their bars.

Good Measure
Putting Your Trust in Pour Control

Sill scratching your head as to why pour costs keep rising? Unless your staff are highly trained, chances are their free-pouring could be less than uniform. It can pay to hedge your bets with pour control equipment, for a measured pour. The following suppliers can help improve consistency and efficiency.

Taking Flight
Wine Trends That Will Matter in 2007

This year on-premise should be all about expanding your wine selection and making every wine available in as many formats as possible. Every wine should be offered by the taste, by the glass and by the bottle.

King of Wingdom
The Anchor Bar’s Best Calling Card Is the Sauce

Sure, bars proud of their wings might quibble amongst each other regarding the best chicken to buy and the merits of flash-freezing and so on, to provide the best wing to the customer. But it just could be that the truth of mastering wingdom lies not necessarily in the chicken but in the sauce. If nothing else, creating and using a sauce unique from competitors is a point of chicken difference.

Going With the Flow
Domestic Brew Sales Should Benefit From Surge in Imports and New Marketing

Imported beer sales continued to skyrocket through 2006, while domestic sales remained relatively stagnant, according to figures from The Beer Institute

The Spirits of the Times
22 Companies To Know and Go To in 2007

Their brands and spirits products are household names in hospitality circles, and their combined portfolios and marketing efforts help drive traffic to venues far and wide, building revenue and profits. The spirits they supply are the chill liquid equivalent of the music and dance that drive an industry.

Accentuate the POS-itive
Are You Tracking Every Detail of Your Business? 

If you can't track it all, you’re probably wasting your time. Why do it at all if you don’t even know how to measure what goes in and out of your bar every second of every minute?

Patrons, if Not All Purists, Continue to Consume Flavored Vodkas and Rums

They make up a vast pallette for the cocktail artist. They’re a veritable godsend for mixing an almost unlimited number of classic and modern cocktails, multiplying by quantum leaps in their sipping appeal all the time, and no doubt able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

It is extremely difficult to remember that there was a time not that long ago (as in the early 1980s) when there were no PCs, no laptop computers, no  Internet, no e-mail, no text messaging, no instant messaging and no cell phones. Of course, that means there were no flash drives, no plasma TVs, no video walls, no CDs, no MP3 players or iPods and no HD or satellite radios either.

Obar's Lucky Charms
Dallas Bar Keeps March Green With St. Patrick's Day Beverages

This month’s recipe page is all about sharing that “lucky charm” that Irish culture seems to claim as much as wet weather and whiskey.

Walnut Room, Sullen narcoleptic by day, cache malcontent by night. When we saw Her, she was working out a call doing a kind of geisha meets Gladys Knight.” Those are the first two sentences every patron –– or future possible –– reads on the Web site for Philadelphia, Pa.’s Walnut Room. The provocative language, the artsy overtones and all-too-hip descriptions continue throughout the site, not only conjuring a smile or two at the personification, but also making you realize, you might not be cool enough, not near funky enough, to even fit in should you actually show up.

Tips For Making the Most of ‘The Show’ Experience

When first discovered Nightclub & Bar magazine, I was elated with the information and continue to be. But one thing I explain to my clients and other owner/operators in our industry is that if you have not been to “The Show” and you are serious about your business, you must go!  on, Ariz.

Stars Shine at 'The Show'
Industry Winners to Be Honored With Five Star and Market Maker Awards

Beverage brands were the focus last year when Nightclub & Bar gave its first-ever Market Maker Awards to winners in a number of beverage categories at “The Show” in Las Vegas. And the first-ever Five Star Awards recognized a handful of entrepreneurs and concepts, both on- and off-premise, that epitomized notions of excellence in the industry.

The University at the Show
What’s New in Education at the Industry’s Main Campus 

School’s back in session, and this year’s curriculum provides the best education money can buy.

The Waits Brothers and Wynn’s Innovative Tryst 

It’s so much more than a name; it’s a philosophy that dictates success through excess.

Key Drink Trends of 2007

On an overall basis, growth in consumer expenditures on beverage alcohol in 2006 slowed somewhat. On-premise sales of alcohol grew by 4.5 percent last year, which is down from levels seen the past several years.

Into the Fire
FireText Increases Guest, Operator Interaction
 

You’ve seen it for a few years now, but never so much as more recently. Eyes glued to glowing cell phone screens throughout the dark bar space, and no one looking at your expensive flat-screen video monitors. Rather than seeing your advertised specials, contests and vendor messages, they’re texting with people who probably aren’t even there in your bar.
FireText (www.firetext.tv) is one text provider leading the charge to flip this paradigm.