What Makes A Great Bar? The Essentials

What Makes A Great Bar? The Essentials

If you have been in several bars, you then know the difference the smallest things make. Here are the seven essential elements of a great bar.

The Barstools

A great bar will have comfortable seats for everyone, not the cumbersome, clunky, and wobbly stools you’ll find in most bars today. Many of these bar stools do not provide any back support whatsoever. Nonetheless, a good bar will have a stool with comfortable back support, a storage area, and even somewhere to hook your coat. That said, it is important that you invest in comfortable seats for your bar.

The Bar Itself

There is a fine line between a bar with only a big block of wood at elbow level and a carefully build and designed one. Gone are the days when you’d only need the woodblock as the table, the bar needs to be spacious enough to hold all your drinks, and not too big to overwhelm whatever you’ll be having. You should be able to reach everything easily and conveniently too. A great live music atmosphere can be found which makes a great venue for 40th birthday parties.

The Drinks List

We have all been in this situation; you walk up in a bar, ask the bar attender for the menu, only for him/her to point at a chalkboard several hundred feet away. Considering bars are dimly lit, reading from the board would be almost impossible for many. Having the drink’s list close by would however do many people, and you, a huge favour. Let anyone that walks in the bar know what is available.

The Menu

Most bars don’t provide a menu to their customers. You either have to ask what they have available or find the menu glued somewhere under a glass countertop. As convenient as this might seem, why not simply have the menu listed down on paper. We get it; updating the menu every day would be a pain for the bartender. If this is the case, why not invest in a small laser printer to do the job for you. All you’d need would be to print the menu whenever one asks for one. In addition to this, a laser printer only costs around £50 at Best Buy.

Glassware

Your glassware can also make a difference in the bar as well. While most people might not like them, these do come in handy and play an essential role in aesthetics and aromatics.

The Quality of Ice

Although many people don’t worry about the quality of ice, some of us do. As pretentious as it may seem, ice has a direct effect on the quality and taste of your drink. No one would want a pile of water cubes in their Negroni, nor any other cocktail. The Gin Joint Charleston, in South Carolina, uses specially created ice cubes and spheres for different drinks. The ice is sculptured using sledgehammers and chainsaws to produce a clear and slow-melting ice cube or sphere for your drink. This way, you can enjoy every sip of your cocktail without worrying about too much water melting into the drink.

The Bathroom

Bar bathrooms can be stinky and dirty at times. This is due to the number of people streaming into the bathroom within the hour. While you can’t resist the urge to go to the toilet after having a few drinks, you’d want to keep your drinking hand clean and away from the bathroom surfaces. Some bathrooms can even make you want to quit drinking altogether. The elegant Den Dyver in Bruge, Belgium, however, knows this all too well and has high-tech self-cleaning toilets to keep their customers happy. Your bathroom ought to be clean all the time if you wish your customers to come back.