Making Friends
Online Communities Are a No-Brainer for Grassroots Marketing

Unless your demographic is over the age of around 35, you’ve probably realized that your competitors have MySpace or Facebook pages, or both, for their bars. If you’ve been hesitant to dip your toe into these online communities, don’t be. The pages are very user-friendly and easy to create and maintain, as long as you make sure to log in every couple of days or so.

Spring Training
More Screens for Baseball Means More Customers

The players famously are called “The Boys of Summer,” but, of course, the season begins in spring, when a cold beer isn’t the only chill going around. With more and more corner bars hanging nice, big flatscreen plasmas, promoting your venue as the baseball destination is even more important.  

Playing DJ
Skillz Gives Amateurs a Taste Of the Turntables

Following 2007’s popularity of video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Playpen Studios is set to release the latest in virtual music video games, Skillz, in late 2008. Skillz, the interactive DJing game, will differ from the other virtual music games by giving players a chance to scratch and mix their own beats instead of playing cover tracks.

The Great Discussion
Let’s Hear Your Voice in the Blogosphere

As faithful readers can attest, I always hold open the Blogosphere gates to all and sundry, inviting hospitality industry regulars — folks who typically disperse opinions left and right (not always in the politically correct sense) at the drop of a hat — to get into the swing of things. We intend to engage in spirited dialogue about industry matters that, well, matter.

Change at Chang's
Creative Updates on Classic Cocktails Add to P. F. Chang’s Selections

While the numbers of what’s selling are always at their fingertips, the beverage planners at P.F. Chang’s are basing new updates in their program on a more subjective observation of trends and patterns. But, of course, that’s more or less in line with the chain’s approach to date, which began with plucking the best cocktail ideas from individual partners.

A Case Study in Remaking a Brand
G2 Breathes New Life Into African Concept

NFL running back Amos Zereoué retired from the gridiron a year ago to open Zereoué Restaurant & Bar (www.zereoue.com). His venue, located in midtown Manhattan, serves West African dishes with French accents adapted from family recipes. Zereoué, who dove head-first into the competitive restaurant world, reports that his baptism of fire came quickly. His conviction is that “running a restaurant is much harder than playing pro football.”

Marketing Your Marketing
How to Get the Most Out of Your MySpace Page

You have a MySpace site. Well, it’s just never enough, is it? With so many voices at once, you even have to market your marketing tool now to be successful. It can make one feel as though they were living in an M. C. Escher drawing at times, but MySpace.com does not market your venue and your promotions without action.

The Entertainment
Tips for Choosing the Right Entertainment for Your Venue

Having an ideal location, great food and beverage offerings and the friendliest waitstaff in town can take a bar or club owner a long way toward lasting success in the nightclub and bar trade. Unfortunately, however, service, super cocktails and convenience of locale are not enough to guarantee that a venue will remain popular with patrons in today’s highly competitive nightclub and bar trade. Nowadays, customers want and expect more. In addition to the basic amenities, they want to be entertained in unique ways that go beyond DJs, karaoke or even live bands.

10 Tips For Small Bar Owners
Key Tactics and Systems for Lowering Beverage Costs

It’s not an understatement when I say that the liquor sitting on your shelves and in your coolers is the equivalent of blocks of gold bullion. The problem is that all too often our management teams and employees simply look at it like water — plentiful and cheap.

Seven Margaritas to Offer a Gamut of Taste and Profit Potential

Dust off your patio chairs or get a jumpstart on your interior spring-cleaning. Spring is gaining on us fast. Margaritas are a great way to entice your patrons to bring in a large group of friends for an afternoon of indulgence.

Postcards from Atlanta
Grabbing a Cold One in One Market’s Bars

Often called the Capital of the South, Atlanta today is on equal footing with any of the major markets nationwide. As such, its on-premise beer dynamic is a fair sampling of what’s on tap and in bottles in bars in other urban environs. We talked with a few operators there in different bar concepts about what brews they’re serving and what the current demand looks like in Atlanta.

Eyes on the Prize
Monitoring Assets With Surveillance Systems 

Sure, many low-key venue owners avoid having security cameras. It makes the guests, who don’t like the feeling they are being watched, uncomfortable, they say. VIP customers especially are looking for more privacy. Still other owners fear documentation of their own negligence. But for operators looking to cover their assets, surveillance equipment, if done discretely and inconspicuously, can be a major plus. 

A Martini Masterpiece That is a Libation of Love

Oh, the fun a person can have with vodka. Especially if that person is an award-winning chef with an artist’s spirit. “I want to jump in the fire,” explains Sae An, executive chef at Cork Restaurant & Bar in Westmont, N.J. “I want to expand people’s palates.” An, who was born in Korea and moved to Philadelphia with his family when he was seven, certainly has done that with his latest cocktail creation. It’s called Cork’s Chocolate Covered Cherry Martini and it’s all about putting people in the mood for love.

Paul Tuennerman of Piccadilly LLC Shares a Little Hard-Earned Wisdom

When food sales start to slip (or maybe they were slow to begin with), the temptation to rush to add new menu items or change the entire concept can be intense. However, Paul Tuennerman, vice president of business development for Piccadilly Restaurants LLC advises stepping back for a moment before rushing change through the door.

The Culinary Approach
Fresh Flavors and Proper Portions are Essential to the Modern Blended Cocktail

It is not an accurate statement to say that blended cocktails have waned in popularity on-premise. The truth is that it’s all about the concept. “Every bar has to make an analysis of what their theme is,” says Tony Abou-Ganim, the spirits educator and cocktail creator known as The Modern Mixologist. “If a blended drink works for your concept, you should embrace it. Even Ernest Hemingway liked his Daiquiris blended. “Don’t be put off by the blender.”

Start Up And Stay Up
Pitfalls to Avoid When Opening Your Own Nightclub or Bar, Part 2

Last month, we looked at some of the key considerations when setting out to open that first bar. These are some mistakes I have seen and/or repaired as a nightclub and bar consultant. Of course, we could not possibly fit every problem you could face into this segment, but here we raise some major issues/problems that I have seen kill a project.

True Independence
A DJ’s Perspective Drives Independent Bar for More Than 20 Years

Nightclubs come and go. It’s a tough and notorious business that gathers a monumental amount of gold-plated blather about how to succeed. Talk to some operators in this industry and you might find yourself covered in the gooey residue of marketing speak and promotions hype. It’s like those scenes in “Ghostbusters.” You end up all slimy and wish there were something clean and real left in the world.

42,000 Square Feet of Confidence and Power In Fargo

A critical mass is defined as the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. It makes perfect sense then, that Jon Taffer uses the term quite often when explaining why his newest project has exploded onto the scene in Fargo, N.D.

A More Efficient Menu
Advice for Refining Your Cocktail List

A cocktail menu can be a poorly planned, ineffective document, or it can really reach your consumer and spur sales. A few key considerations can help.

Out-Think Your Competition
New NCB TeleWebinars Offer Learning Opportunity

In 1991, Fajita Willey’s in Salt Lake City, Utah, was losing thousands of dollars every month. The restaurant and bar had great food and good service and a good location. But even though the sales volume was good, the restaurant couldn’t seem to make a profit. The owners were considering closing it. Sixty days later, with ideas from an expert restaurant consultant, this restaurant was actually producing profits. What a difference the right information can make in your business and in your bottom line. 

Enhancing Wasted Ceiling Real Estate

The question was answered authoritatively and forever in the middle of the 16th century, by none other than Michelangelo, when he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and produced one of the greatest works of art in history. The question was: Do you mess with a ceiling, or just leave it alone?