Finding someone special today is more difficult than it has ever been. Even if you are happily married, you can probably sympathize with the plight of all of those singles out there. Meeting people is tough, and you never know what you can expect. Online dating might have some benefits, but you don’t get to meet the person face to face for a while, and most people crave human contact when they are looking for a potential soul mate. Since you are a bar owner or manager, you are in a perfect position to help these people. Best of all, you will be able to drum up more business for your bar. More business is always good!
How can you do this? Set aside one day a week / month at the bar to be singles night. On this night, only single people who are looking to connect with others will be in the bar. Since everyone knows that its singles night, no one will have to worry about approaching someone only to have to slink away later, once realizing that they are already with someone. Make it a comfortable and friendly atmosphere where people can get to know one another. To draw in more people, you might want to offer discounted drinks for the first couple hours of the night.
If you want to make your singles night really effective, you are going to have to do some advertising. It isn’t too difficult, but you are going to need to start your advertising at least a month before you have your first singles night. The following are some great ways to start getting the word out.
First, make sure that you put an announcement on your website. If you don’t already have a website or blog where you talk about your bar and the events and specials you offer, then you are behind the times and you really need to set one up. In addition to advertising on your own site, look for websites and even blogs that talk about events in your location. Advertise in these places as well to spread the word further. Also, make sure that all of your employees know about the singles night and let them mention it to some of the regular customers. Word of mouth is a low tech and effective way of getting the word out.
Once the word is out there you will also need to prepare relevant music for the singles night and re-arrange your bar chairs and tables to make room to getting around easier and to make sure most of the areas in the bar are visible.
If you are the owner of a sports bar, you have plenty of chances throughout the year to really capitalize on the major sporting events that are happening. While you might always have the games on at your bar, it really isn’t enough to drum up the excitement you need to pack your bar. There are plenty of other sports bars in town, and you need to make sure that you are constantly doing something special that is going to draw in larger crowds.
As a sports bar owner you have an advantage over many other types of bar owners. People are already coming to your bar because they love sports. How you handle the big events is going to determine how well you do in the long run though. Consider the largest events in the world of sports: the Super Bowl, the World Series, the World Cup, the NBA finals, collegiate sports . . . the list goes on and on.
Whenever there is an event such as those discussed above coming up, you need to make sure that you advertise your bar and what you offer. Have game day specials, appetizers for half price, discounts for people who come in wearing jerseys, etc. There are dozens of different things that you can do to get people excited about your bar. Something that you might want to try if the hometown favorite loses is to offer “drown your sorrows” discounted drinks. Make sure that you don’t just focus on the “Big Game” though. There are plenty of playoff games that can get people just as excited.
What are some of the other things that you have to do to make sure that you have repeat customers coming back to your bar time and again? You need to make sure that you have an adequate number of TVs, and that they are spaced throughout the bar so everyone will be able to see, and so that you can have more than one game going at a time. You also need to make sure that you have adequate bar seating that is comfortable and that doesn’t make your place feel too crowded. If your seating is old and shabby, consider buying new as soon as you can. Ever little bit you do is going to help your sports bar become memorable in the minds of your customers.
Spring is here (almost). And many people are glad to get out of the house and enjoy a nice evening outside that might, more often than not, end at a restaurant or bar.
As the owner, you love your bar, and you know that others would love it too if they just knew about it. Advertising and marketing is one of the most difficult things for businesses to understand.
The reason it is so difficult is that people really don’t know what does and doesn’t work with advertising. Some things you do are going to stick, and some won’t. The trick is to market as much as you can until you find what works for your bar. However, you can’t constantly spend thousands of dollars on advertising and not get results. You would go broke quickly.
The following are three simple ways that you can advertise without spending a fortune. Implement all of them and see what works the best for you.
First, look at your website. You do have one, right? If you don’t have a website, you need to put in the effort to set one up right away. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to do this. See if you have someone working for you that can set up a site and have them do it for you. It will be much more cost effective than hiring out. You might even want to choose a blog instead. You can set one up on your own in just minutes. You can have separate pages that have images of your bar furniture and interior design, of happy customers, drink specials and much more. Turn it into a community for you customers, a place where they can gather even when they aren’t at the bar. It is a good idea to keep your site updated and post on your blog at least once a week about what is happening at the bar. (more…)
In The Modern Sports Bar: (Part 1), we looked at the importance of décor and people’s perceptions when they first walk into your bar. Now, we will examine some of the other things you are going to need to have the best sports bar in the city.
What’s On the Tube?
You need to have televisions and plenty of them. Choose high quality TVs from a reputable maker, such as Sony. They might be more expensive than some of the lower end televisions out there, but the picture quality is going to be better. You also need to spring for high definition. Since most people have HD in their homes and they already have large flat screens, you need to be able to compete.
You don’t want to focus on only one sport, and that’s why you need to have more than one television. You want to have as many as you can comfortably fit into the bar, and you need to make sure that you have satellite that works on all of the televisions so you can have them set to different stations and catch the most sports possible. This will help you appeal to a larger crowd. More sports equal more people.
Seating is Important Too
Something that many people don’t consider when they are creating their sports bar or renovating the one that they already own is the bar’s seating. Too often, they search online or through catalogs and choose the cheapest alternative for their tables, chairs, and bar stools.
This is a mistake. (more…)
So… this post was going to be about how to easily and cheaply get your restaurant ready for Valentine’s Day. It’s coming up soon and you don’t want to be left behind. After all, when it comes to restaurants and romance we all know this is one event you absolutely can’t miss. But, that can wait a few days for our next post because I just learned something funny and fun about bar stools.
Really.
Did you know that in the state of Wisconsin there is a winter sport called “Bar Stool Race”? Apparently it happens every February in the town of Drummond.
The race consists of two contestants sitting on a bar stool that is attached to skis being pushed down a hill by a team member. The first one to finish (or the one that managed to remain on the bar stool all the way down) is the winner of that round. Eventually one team (and their bar stool), get to go home with a trophy.
I don’t really know what the rules are but I know that having a bar stool is a must. I also think that a swivel bar stool is probably not a good idea in this case.
From what I could see this looks like a really fun, although somewhat unconventional, activity. So if you have a spare bar stool or two and are planning to visit Wisconsin this winter why not give it a try?
Here is a link to some pictures of last year’s bar stools race.
By the way, can you guess what the next post will be about?
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