Bar Operations: Rounds, Pour Costs and a Closing Routine

A bar has the opposite problem from a café. Nobody is in a hurry to leave, but everybody wants the next round at the same moment. Orders come in groups, tabs stay open for hours and the cost of a drink depends on a pour that is different every time. The risk is not a lost sale, it is a night that looks busy and earns less than it should.

This guide covers four things a small bar can fix without a big investment: taking rounds quickly, letting guests order from the table, sending drinks and food to the right place, and knowing the margin per drink and per night. It shows how each one looks in Epidom, so you can judge whether it fits.

Take rounds fast, and keep tabs honest

At peak, a round of six drinks for one table should take a few taps, not a conversation. The same applies to a tab that grows through the evening: if adding to it is slow, bartenders skip it, and a skipped drink is a drink you paid for.

• Put your ten most ordered drinks on the first screen, with modifiers such as ice, size and mixer within a tap.
• Keep a bill open per table or per name, add to it as the night goes on and settle it once, instead of keeping the tab in your head or on a napkin.
• Settle tabs at a fixed moment, such as last call, so nothing is left behind a closing queue.

Let guests order from the table

On a busy night the bar itself is the bottleneck. Guests wait to catch a bartender's eye, and the ones who give up leave without the extra round. Table ordering moves that wait off the bar and onto the guest's phone, where it costs you nothing.

• Put a QR code on each table or on the menu card, and let guests order their next round when they are ready.
• Keep a clear pickup rule: table service, or collect at the bar when your name appears. Guests accept either if it is obvious.
• Check the age and licensing rules that apply where you operate, and keep the handover of alcohol in a person's hands, whatever the tool.

In Epidom, an order from the table arrives as a ticket on the till and, if you use a bar printer or screen, at the right station. Nothing is retyped, and the table is on the ticket. The live demo shows both sides.

Drinks to the bar, food to the kitchen

A bar that serves food runs two stations from one order. If a ticket with a cocktail and a burger prints in one place, either the bartender reads food or the cook reads drinks. Splitting the ticket by item type fixes that and keeps both stations moving.

• Assign every item a station: bar, kitchen or both. A mixed order then prints in two places and nobody reads what is not theirs.
• Add a label printer if you sell bottled drinks, takeaway cups or want a ticket on each glass.
• Test the whole path with a real order before the evening, from the guest's phone to each printer.

Epidom supports several printers with different roles, such as receipt, kitchen, bar and label, so one order can print where it needs to. Check the hardware you already own first; many common receipt printers work.

Know the margin per drink and per night

Pour cost is the share of a drink's price that goes to what is in the glass. It is the first number a bar owner should know and the last one most estimate. Build it from the recipe: the spirit in millilitres, the mixer, the garnish, the ice and the glass, at the price you actually pay.

• Write each cocktail as a recipe with exact measures, and standardise the pour with a jigger so the recipe is true.
• Count the bottles at closing for your top spirits, and compare with what the sales say should be left. A gap is the signal to look closer.
• Look at margin per drink and per night, not only revenue. A packed night of low-margin drinks can earn less than a quieter one.

With recipes linked to products, Epidom records the cost of each drink at the time of sale and shows gross profit in the finance report. The accuracy still depends on your measures and on keeping the prices of your bottles up to date.

A closing routine that fits in a short time

• Close the tabs and the shift, count the cash and write down any difference.
• Count the bottles that matter and record any breakage or spillage as waste.
• Look at the night's sales by hour and note when the rush really started.
• Write the order for tomorrow if the low-stock list says something is short.

Do the same few steps every night and the numbers start to mean something. You can try the demo bar, with a month of sample sales and recipes, free and without an account, to see how the screens look before you set up your own.