Bar Equipment for a Busy Bar: Frozen Drink Machines

Frozen beverage machines are an ideal piece of bar equipment for bars that serve daiquiris and margaritas. Many frozen beverage machines allow the user to easily set the machine to make icy, frozen beverages or chilled beverages. This is a great feature for bars that specialize in margaritas, as you can easily dispense and serve your customers’ favorite drinks frozen or on the rocks.

Most frozen beverage machines are available in single, double or triple hopper form. With multiple hoppers you can easily offer multiple types of daiquiris and margaritas to your customers. Frozen beverage machines are also available in manual and automatic refill designs. Any piece of bar equipment with automated features can be a time saving device in busy bars.

Many frozen beverage machines feature touchpad displays, making them a very simple piece of bar equipment to operate. These displays also guide users on cleaning and preventative maintenance, making the frozen beverage machines extremely user friendly.

Last week the restaurant guru blog touched on the bar supplies that are essential to keeping your customers’ glasses full this summer. A well-stocked bar can make your restaurant look attractive in the eyes of customers. Glass racks stocked with sparkling bar glassware, a row of top-shelf liquor and a bottle cooler brimming with beer will all make your alcohol selection more appealing, just don’t forget about the hidden bar accessories. Bar supplies that lend themselves to well-prepared drinks will make your patrons linger for more rounds.

One perfect example of a drink enhanced by the best bar supplies is the margarita. Nothing says “it’s summertime” quite like a nice, cold margarita. Flavors and variations abound—strawberry, lime, frozen, or on the rocks. The paramount margarita concoction is totally up to you--and your customer--but having all the right bar supplies makes it easier to fill the margarita glass with the best! These include: a bar blender or cocktail shaker, citrus squeezer, jigger, rimming salt, glass rimming tray, and margarita glasses!

Summertime cocktails are almost in season—this means mojito madness! Considering that drinks don’t require as many ingredients or as much prep time as food, you can see that the bar has the potential to be very profitable part of your restaurant, especially when it’s warm outside and customers are seeking refreshment.  Don’t risk disappointing your patrons because you weren’t fully stocked with the bar equipment to make this popular concoction.

Mojito

1.25 oz white rum
12 mint leaves
1 tbsp sugar
juice of ½ a lime
2 oz club soda

Place mint leaves, sugar and juice of lime in bottom of rocks glass. Muddle with bar muddler. Add ice, jigger of rum, and soda water and stir well. Garnish with mint leaves or lime!

As temperatures climb and hours of daylight begin to stretch later and later, the heat is on for outdoor dining season. Our last outdoor dining blog emphasized the importance of furnishing your outdoor space. Another key to the success of your patio space is a stock of seasonal restaurant supplies and tabletop items.

When doing business outside, keep in mind that sidewalks and patios will be much harder on your glassware than indoor dining areas. Consider investing in durable melamine dinnerware to help prevent breakage. Serv-U carries the Durus line which showcases sunny yellow, coral and ocean blue pieces to give your outdoor dining space a warm vibe.

If you are expanding your serving area, make sure you have a dishroom is equipped to handle clean-up. More customers ordering drinks on your deck means more demand for your dishwasher. Disposables are a great solution to this dilemma! Serv-U offers disposable shot glasses and drinkware to meet your needs. 

To get the most bang for your buck in outdoor dining areas, create a twist on your indoor environment that can appeal to a broader base of customers. The beer drinkers that frequent your restaurant to watch sports in the winter may come back in the summer to enjoy a bucket of beer on the patio. Those customers that order from your extensive wine list while dining inside may be attracted to special pitchers of house sangria in the sunshine.

Seasonal restaurant supplies and special summertime offers are a great way to entice customers to your outdoor dining space. Use your patio to add liveliness and action to an otherwise sedate storefront and reap the rewards of an expanded customer base!

Durability is one of the biggest issues in the food service industry. Whether catering, bartending or serving, the goal is an attractive presentation for your customer that can’t be broken in transport or storage. The solution to your durability dilemma? Stock up on plastic restaurant supplies.

The foodservice industry has made huge advances in plastic serveware—specifically Melamine, SAN and Polycarbonate. All three materials have unique pros and cons, but the most distinct is cost. Both SAN and Polycarbonate have a petrochemical base, Melamine does not. All three varieties are completely dishwasher safe, but won’t stand up to liquid chlorine bleach or abrasive scouring pads. Regular commercial dishwashing detergent or sanitizer easily cleans your plastic restaurant supplies.

The trend towards plastic drinkware is popular in pool, lake and beach settings, but equally appealing for your average bar or nightclub. Plastic is less of a liability than glass. Plastic pitchers, for instance, are just as attractive as their glass counterpart, but more durable. When your customers are pouring from plastic pitchers, you increase your profits by cutting your overhead equipment costs.

When it comes to storage of your plastic restaurant supplies, plastic tumblers can be stacked without worrying about chips or cracks. A rack of plastic plates won’t weigh you down the way that china, ceramic or glass will.

Plastic restaurant supplies aren’t limited to dinner and drinkware. Crocks and larger serving pieces are also available in Polycarbonate and Melamine. Plastic is a natural insulator for cold foods and also has excellent thermal properties. Though no plastic material can withstand an oven, most varieties are safe for the microwave.

When you need something completely unbreakable, cost effective and attractive, plastic restaurant supplies are the perfect option.

Serv-U is placing all Corect measured liquor pours any size & color on sale for 2.49 each! As we've talked about in previous blog installments, a measured liquor pour is a simple but effective means of increasing bar profit and customer satisfaction by ensure the same quality drink everytime.

So from now until Dec 31st, 2009, or while supplies last the Corect measured liquor pours are all on sale for 2.49 with collar or without in any available pour measurement or color. Call 800.797.3788 to inquire about overnight or second day shipping availability or purchase online via the following list:

Corect 1oz pour with collar - CPIB-2010
Corect 1oz pour without collar - CPIB-1010
Corect 1-1/2oz with collar - CPIB-2112
Corect 1-1/2oz without collar - CPIB-1112
Corect 1-1/4oz with collar - CPIB-2114
Corect 1-1/4oz without collar - CPIB-1114
Corect 1-1/8oz with collar - CPIB-2118
Corect 1-1/8oz without collar - CPIB-1118
Corect 7/8oz with collar - CPIB-2078
Corect 7/8oz without collar - CPIB-1078

Also Serv-U has 1 Colorama 100 Person New Years Eve Party Favor kit. Assortment includes: 50 - Full-size plastic Top Hats and Derbies, 50 - Printed Tiara's w/Fringe, 100 - 9" Printed Horns and 400 - fire proof Serpentine Throws.

If you have addition questions, feel free to contact us via phone at 800-797-3788 or click the picture of the customer service representative at the top left corner of each page of the site to launch a live chat.

Luring a large crowd to your bar or restaurant on New Year’s Eve means launching the next sales year with a boom in profits. Special menus, live music and a festive setting are all important but you can’t have a proper New Year’s Eve celebration without champagne and the restaurant equipment to serve it. Stocking up on the proper bar supplies guarantees a great, champagne-drenched celebration.

Here at Serv-U, we offer an extensive array of glassware to make your holiday celebration first-class. Our flutes range from 4 ½ oz. to 6 1/4 oz. in size. They also come in a variety of styles, from the affordable standard flute to high-end sheer rimmed champagne glass. Take time to explore our selection of glassware and find the shape best-suited to your celebration.

Perhaps you want to entice your patrons by offering a complimentary toast when the ball drops? Disposable champagne glasses are ideal for midnight treats.

If your customers care to indulge in a bottle with their dinner, Serv-U can provide the tableside service equipment to keep the champagne chilled. Stainless steel buckets keep your bubbly ice-cold, without condensation on the outside. When you can afford the space, placing a stand for the bucket alongside the table creates an air of elegance in the environment. Remember that ideally your champagne should be served at a chilly, 45 degree temperature!

Check out Serv-U’s extensive selection of bar equipment to find the supplies you need to give your customers a festive experience and yourself a high profit margin on the last day of this year’s calendar!

Whether it’s a Christmas stout, celebration ale or holiday lager, now is the season customers seek out frothy glasses of seasonal beer. When your customers want to drink and be merry, it’s important to note that serving up beer in the proper glassware just makes it taste better.  Serv-U carries a variety of barware, each suited to cover certain varieties of beer. Browse this guide, before ordering you bar supplies to ensure that the beer you serve gets an optimum presentation.

Goblets are ideal for big sips and best suited to Belgian IPAs and strong dark ales. These glasses maintain head beautifully and those with bottom etching provide a constant stream of bubbles and make an excellent addition to your bar supply.

Flute glasses are not limited to champagne. The long and narrow body is perfect for showcasing a lively carbonation or a beautiful color. The shape also gives the drinker a strong, aromatic front. Flute glasses are the bar supplies best suited to fruit beers. 

Mugs are known for their “clink-ability.” Because the glassware is heavy and the handle is reliable, this large-volume design is a fun shape. Mugs are perfect for American and English ales and stouts.

Mixing glasses, often referred to as “pint glasses” are popular for their easy gripping and stacking. The thick base and sloping sides also make the glasses durable. Mixing glasses are useful when serving porters and lagers from the bar.

Pilsner glasses are easily identified as the bar glassware used for light beers, but are best suited to their namesake, the pilsner. These glasses showcase color, quality and carbonation. The pilsner is a fluted trumpet shape, easily confused with nonic glasses or bulge pilsners, which have a slight hourglass shape. Nonic glasses are ideal for wheat beers, as they improve aeration.

One of the simplest ways to cultivate a taste for the wine collection at your restaurant is to host a tasting. Hosting a tasting offers an entertaining way to teach your customers the subtleties of your wine selection and with the proper bar supplies it’s easy to impress and educate.

Before you even begin checking into your local liquor laws for specific rules for such events--usually, a regular liquor license should cover you, but some localities have additional regulations—you should consider your bar equipment needs. Don’t embarrass yourself in front of the sommelier by having inadequate storage for your wine. Consider investing in a wine merchandiser. Energy efficient models can be utilized to keep up to 50 bottles in 30 degree temperatures. Though, we don’t encourage serving your guests 50 wines in one tasting, varieties 6 should be adequate!

On the evening of the tasting, when it comes time to create an attractive display your customers' palates, you can utilize an attractive wine rack on your countertop. By incorporating a wine rack into your display, you familiarize your guests with the years and varieties they are sampling so that they are better equipped to order their favorites on future visits. The bottles that will be opened should probably rest in a wine chiller. Serv-U’s bar equipment stock ranges in style from marble to frosted acrylic to slanted chillers.

When the uncorking begins, you may want to branch out from the standard waiter’s corkscrew to a more professional wine opener, saving some muscle. No matter how you are opening your bottles, capping them between pours will be important to preserving the taste. Consider bottle stoppers or a wine saver, which pours wine and preserves it by allowing you to pump out the excess air from the bottle.

Round out your bar supply purchases with a table top wine bucket for spitting. The less your customers swallow, the longer they can maintain acuity and enjoy the spread you have invested so much time in selecting. Spittoons that are larger allow the taster to empty glasses at the end of each flight.

Finally, nothing will ruin your wine tasting faster than lack of wine goblets! Make sure you have enough barware for the event. Each guest will have one wine glass, per wine served. So, if you are serving 50 guests six wines, you will need 300 wine glasses for the evening. You may need to buy an extra case or two of glasses, but they can be utilized during your next restaurant wine tasting.

Once your restaurant bar is properly stocked, you can settle in to watch your guests partake in the 5 S’: see, swirl, sniff, sip and savor!