A Birthday Surprise
Cirrito Inducted Into Bartender’s Hall of Fame

What better birthday present than to be given one of the top honors in your career?

Taxi!
How responsible are your Patrons?

Few things are as dangerous as an impaired driver, and few things so stand to change the lives of drivers and victims irrevocably. The on-premise industry encourages responsibility, but ultimately patrons can make bad choices. We were curious about exactly what choices most of them make. What we found out was discouraging on one hand, but encouraging in that bar owners actually have the power to make a difference.

Nailing The Bull's - Eye
Dart Leagues and Tournaments Are a Good Bet for the Right Place

Hosting a league and/or tournament really depends on your bar atmosphere and overall capacity. This month, Nightclub & Bar turned to a few experts in the industry who host dart leagues and tournaments in various locations throughout the year, to see what they recommended for those owners and operators looking to break into the category.

The Host with The Most
The art of DJ'ing without DJ'ing

David Mancuso could be called one of the first American club DJs, except he doesn’t even call himself a DJ. He doesn’t produce music, do beatmixing or even change the tempo, things typically associated with DJs.

Green and Gold
Olympic Possibilities and Green Profit Pastures

Cheers to all you bloggers in nightclub and bar territory. Consider this my monthly printed log a hardcopy blog conversing about topics, trends and issues that might make for good discussion on your respective blogs out there.

Versatile Virtue
Courvoisier Exclusif Strives to Be Home Base For Cocktails

Growth in the superpremium Cognac category may have just experienced another significant growth spurt. Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc. and Courvoisier Cognac recently completed the first phase of the U.S. launch of Courvoisier Exclusif Cognac.

The Starting Lineup
New Program at Damon’s Grill Already Impacting Sales

Damon's Grill has launched its first company-wide beverage menu since 2005 at 72 locations across the country. The chain’s concept is a contemporary, high-energy, food-focused, polished casual dining restaurant.

Making Bottle Service Special
Strategies and Points of Difference

Bottle service has swept through the country, moving inward from each coast to find regular devotion in smaller cities and tertiary markets. Nightclub & Bar reached out to a few veterans in this niche of the industry to get the latest handle on the 750-millileter and up orders.

Crafty Moves
Dynamic Beer Category Continues Growth

It's trendy to drink beer again. Thanks to some primo light domestics, some star imports and some innovative craft brews, the consumption of beer has become more profitable than ever on-premise, where the beer-serving protocols of Europe are catching on in the United States, and beer and food pairings are being taken as seriously as wine and food matches long have been in finer culinary settings.

Three Minutes to Impress
Food Menus and Merchandising Are More Time-Driven Than Ever

It is said by industry experts that nightclub and bar operators have an average of three minutes to influence and impress customers with their food and drink menus. Daily, restaurants join the battle, nightclubs and bars try to win over customers, using their only weapon: merchandising.

River of Revenue
The Dance Floor as Profit Stream

Elite, veteran owners of high-concept dance venues immediately consider dance floor layout and its relationship to all other aspects of the house. But new owners, understandably, might not even realize the importance of this consideration. Poorly planned dance floor size or placement can result in traffic and crowd problems, suffocating what should be a comfortable space.

Connectivity Via Keypad
Text Messaging Continues Bringing More Profit Opportunities for Bars

It will only come as news to those over 30 years of age that text messaging has become a dominant means of communication. People still talk on the telephone, and longer, detail oriented communiqués require emails. But what about the many daily occasions when you want to quickly give or receive a message and yet don’t have the time or inclination to get tangled up in an actual conversation?

 Guilty Pleasures
Portland’s Gilt Cooks Up Excitement at the Bar

In the Pacific Northwest, if you aren’t squeezing fresh fruit, if you’re not making your own mixers, you’re out. I don’t know that you’d see Rose’s Lime even if you were in a dive.” That’s Jamie Dunn, who owns Gilt, speaking. Gilt is a high-end, late-night supper club and lounge in Portland, Ore. Dunn asserts that what the rest of the country considers fancy or premium is simply derigueur in his neck of the woods.

The New School of Hard Rock
Homework Pays Off for a Storied And Dynamic Brand

“It’s hard,” The Who once sang.They were right. In the hospitality industry, it is, in fact, quite hard to cultivate a singular on-premise brand, hard to reinvent it over time, hard to find success in live music and hard to merge all that with a hotels and casino side — and make it all rock like Pete Townsend. But Hard Rock International has managed to develop a unique empire, including multiple prototype packages for properties around the nation and the world.

Reducing Insurance Rates
Ways to Lower On-Premise Premiums

If you drive a car you already know that if you don’t smoke, you have anti-lock brakes or you use the Lojack vehicle recovery system, you may be eligible for a discount on your vehicle insurance rates. Discounts are available for nearly all insurance you might want to purchase, from life insurance to home owners’ policies. The consumer just has to know what to do to obtain the lower insurance rates. Well, if you own a bar, a restaurant, a pub, a nightclub or any other venue that sells alcohol, you know all too well that insurance rates for your particular type of business are not going down, in fact, in many parts of the country, they are increasing higher and higher. To compound the rising rates is the fact that most liquor licensees don’t know what they can do to lower their insurance costs.